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May 13, 2013

Rabbi Nathan Lopes Cardozo: Why the giving of the document that would permanently change the world could only be done in desolation

David G. Savage: Church-state, literally? Supreme Court weighing public school graduation in a church

Emily Alpert: Recession dragged down birth rates for less-educated women
Morgan Housel: The deep downside of home ownership

Peter Teffer: Will Dutch police soon be stalking cybercriminals on your computer?

Heidi McIndoo, M.S., R.D.: Meatless 'meat' can have its own set of problems

The Kosher Gourmet by Diane Rossen Worthington: Celebrate! This must-try appetizer is delicate yet has depth of flavor: Corn-Leek Cakes with Caviar, Smoked Salmon and Creme Fraiche

May 10, 2013

Rabbi Berel Wein: Be all that you should be

Caroline B. Glick: The dirty little secret about Israel's Arabs

Mona Charen: Hawking's Moral Calculus: The man and the movement he embraces
Morgan Housel: The biggest retirement myth ever told

Sandi Doughton: Eyes may provide new insight into brain problems

Jewz in the Newz by Nate Bloom : The Great Gatsby's Jewish Ties; Jews in the "Time 100 list" List; People's Most Beautiful Women

The Kosher Gourmet by Linda Gassenheimer: A sweet-hot meal: Pear salsa spices up salmon

May 8, 2013

Peter Ford: Why China is welcoming both Israel's Netanyahu and Palestinians' Abbas

Warren Richey: Obama administration quietly backs out of appeal over new contraceptive mandate

Fred Weir: At Kerry-Putin meeting, US-Russia relations thaw --- a tad
Amanda Paulson: Study reveals sad truths about community colleges

Harvard Health Letters: Evidence weak that zinc, echinacea are beneficial

The Kosher Gourmet by Leela Cyd Ross : Almost too pretty to eat, this colorful salad with Sicilian inspiration will tickle the taste buds and delight your visual sensibility

May 6, 2013

Edmund Sanders and Patrick J. McDonnell: Think Israel's objective in Syria is to weaken Assad or embolden the rebels? Think again

Brian Bennett: Israeli airstrikes may show weakness in Syrian defense

Michael Ollove: Millions of ex-felons, parolees and those on probation are about to be entitled to tax-payer paid health coverage
Karen Kaplan: Most men can skip PSA test for prostate cancer, urologists say

Kimberly Lankford: How to track down a lost life insurance policy

Dream of Mars exploration achievable, experts say

The Kosher Gourmet by Susan M. Selasky: EGGPLANT WRAPS are an easy, sumptuous and scrumptious meal

May 3, 2013

Rabbi Nathan Lopes Cardozo: Human Courage and the Unavoidable, Disturbing Text

Steven Emerson: Attorney General Fights CAIR in Court, Lauds it in Public

Mediterranean diet helps beat dementia: study
Harvard Health Letters: When to be screened for a hearing problem

Jewz in the Newz by Nate Bloom : Iron Man's Jewish Connections; Marc Maron's New TV Show; Martin Landau Grows Up with Israel; Shalom, Allan Arbus

The Kosher Gourmet by Diane Rossen Worthington: A sweet surprise for Mother's Day dessert

May 1, 2013

Jonathan Rosenblum: An Improbable Journey to Orthodoxy

Jonathan Tobin: Blame Obama, Not Israel for Syria Push

Kids, kittens the Same? With employee perks at struggling Internet pioneer Yahoo! it's hard to tell
Halena M. Gazelka, M.D.: Mayo Clinic Medical Edge: What you need to know about implanted pain relief devices

Sandy Kleffman: Artificial kidney offers hope to patients tethered to a dialysis machine

Jessica Shugart: When it comes to math, MRIs may be better than IQs

The Kosher Gourmet by Mario Batali: The celebrated chef on how high-maintenance ASPARAGUS RISOTTO need not be

April 29, 2013

Roy Gutman: Poland's new Jewish museum celebrates life, doesn't revisit Holocaust

Mark Clayton: Terrorism in America: Is US missing a chance to learn from failed plots?

Kim Murphy: Boston Bomber's 'Svengali' Revealed
Morgan Housel: He's rich, smart and old: Listen to him

Thomas Salinas, D.D.S.: Mayo Clinic Medical Edge: The safety of amalgam fillings

Harvard Health Letters: Tomatoes and stroke protection

Pete Spotts: Tiny satellites + cellphones = cheaper 'eyes in the sky' for NASA

The Kosher Gourmet by Diane Rossen Worthington: Swing into spring with lemon cream pie

April 26, 2013

Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski: The world is a mirror

Caroline B. Glick: Time to confront Obama

Clifford D. May: Defense in the Age of Jihadist Terrorism
Kimberly Lankford: New strategies ease pain of paying for long-term care insurance

Howard LeWine, M.D.: Ask the Harvard Experts: Too much ibuprofen?

Sharon Palmer, R.D.: How to feel your best -- with plenty of energy, a healthy weight and optimal mental and physical function -- without driving yourself batty

Jewz in the Newz by Nate Bloom: Jewish Major Leaguers, 2013; New Movies and Comedy Show; Shalom, 'Lumpy' (Leave it to Beaver)

The Kosher Gourmet by Emily Ho : A bright and cheerful salad to herald the warmer months ahead

April 24, 2013

Steven Emerson: Boston Bomber Exposes Islamist Secret

Morgan Housel Admit it: No one has any idea what's going on
Harvard Health Letters: Can you get headaches from headache medication?

Kerri-Ann Jennings, M.S., R.D.: How to easily get more Omega-3s in your diet

Melissa Healy: Pot in a pill: All the pain relief without the smoke

The Kosher Gourmet by Susan Russo: Chipotle Chili Butternut Squash Soup is bold, zesty, hot

April 22, 2013

Ken Dilanian: Counterterrorism's future is unclear

US man departing country arrested on terror charges
Barbara Williams: An unorthodox but growing treatment in a 9-year-old's battle against cancer

P.J. Skerrett, M.D.: How to recognize a good whole grain product

Jewz in the Newz by Nate Bloom: Teen actor Jonah Bobo in New Flick: Hunky James Wolk on Mad Men; Erich Segal's Daughter Writes Prize-Winning Jewish Novel

The Kosher Gourmet by Diane Rossen Worthington: 'Noodles,' Asian style is a carb sub, sure. But they are also amazingly delicious and colorful

April 19, 2013

Rabbi Yonason Goldson: When violence seems the only answer

Caroline B. Glick: Why Obama's visit to Israel had no impact on public opinion or government policy

Morgan Housel: Gold collapse: The start of something big?
Harvard Health Letters: Can you die of a broken heart?

Pete Spotts: Livable super-Earths? Two candidates among Kepler's latest finds

Nora Schultz: Oxytocin helps beat booze cravings

The Kosher Gourmet by Carole Kotkin: Middle Eastern cuisine meets Italian delicious with this lentil and eggplant pastitsio

April 17, 2013

Shira Rubin: Too much of a good thing? 'Palestinians' realize downside of foreign aid boom

Geoffrey Mohan: Can computers decode dreams? Researchers take a first step

Morgan Housel: BAD NEWS: EVERYONE IS RIGHT!
Brierley Wright, M.S., R.D.: 6 heart-healthy eating tips help cut saturated fat but not taste

Michael Craig Miller, M.D.: Ask the Harvard Experts: Told your child has sensory processing disorder? Seek a second opinion

The Kosher Gourmet by Diane Rossen Worthington: Corn and Curry Add Zing to Chilled Soup

April 15, 2013

Rabbi Yonason Goldson: The Death of Education?

Kristen Chick: Egyptian Christians respond with harsh words to attack -- rocks, Molotov cocktails, and gunfire -- against main cathedral

Marcy Darnovsky and Karuna Jaggar: High Court to decide if you should own your DNA
Howard LaFranchi: US bracing for more Russian blowback after taking action against 18 more human rights violators

Kristin Ohlson : The loneliest fight

The Kosher Gourmet by Dana Velden: A tasty, rich dish that hints at spring's arrival while still anchored in a favorite winter staple


Jewish World Review July 9, 2009 / 17 Tamuz 5769

Saving liberty

By Bob Tyrrell


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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | A few weeks back, at the dawn of the Obama administration, I was at dinner with a very bright woman of middle years who calls herself an independent. She found the new president very engaging, but she was alarmed by the music in the air: a government takeover of Detroit, a $700 billion government bailout of the banks, a $787 billion stimulus bill, a cap and trade bill that would add perhaps $800-$2,000 to every family's tax bill, and a massive health care reform now estimated to cost $1 trillion over the next decade. For the past 30 years, most of them good economic years, the federal bite into our gross domestic product has been just less than 20 percent. Calculating the cost of Obama's spending, it could be 28.1 percent this fiscal year, a peacetime record!


My dinner companion was alarmed. She was not simply alarmed by the bills our president and his Democratic colleagues were ringing up on the Hill. My friend, the independent, was alarmed by something much more important: the cost to our freedoms. As I believe she put it, "The question here is our liberty." Increasingly, thoughtful Americans understand the Obama era in these terms. With the government suddenly looming so large in the life of every American, it is time for us to consider what is a singularly American possession: individual liberty. The Founding Fathers created a government that was uniquely solicitous about individual liberty. With the federal government so deeply involved in our health care, our banking, our manufacturing and the many targets of its $787 billion stimulus program, it is time to think about your liberty vis-a-vis the government bureaucrats who are about to minister to you.


Ronald Reagan's modern conservative movement began thinking about the loss of individual liberty to government encroachment a half-century ago, thanks in part to the wake-up call from Friedrich Hayek, delivered in his indispensable book "The Road to Serfdom." Hayek believed government is a threat to freedom, enterprise and the rule of law. Later, another vigilant advocate of personal liberty, Frank Meyer, came along and became a major figure for American conservatives, propounding the exhilarating argument that freedom is essential to mankind. Freedom, he wrote, is the "essence of (man's) being," for without it, a citizen cannot be moral, by which he meant cannot choose good over evil. Meyer believed freedom is at our essence because God put it there. God gave us freedom to choose — good over evil, art over schlock, a knee replacement over a Botox treatment.


Personal liberty makes each American citizen a creature of dignity. Obama overlooks this. Though in presenting Congress a $3.9 trillion budget Feb. 24 he insisted that he's not for big government, he is. Consider the vastness of the budget, its far-reaching domestic policies, and much of his background as a community organizer. Clearly, he is a big-government guy. No other American president has been so committed to big government.


Historically, most of our experiences with big government have been unhappy. Big government is expensive, inefficient and, once corrupted, very difficult to clean up. Moreover, once a government bureaucracy has made its judgment on you, whom do you appeal to? With Obamacare, government will decide when and whether you can get that knee replacement. From the clear utterances of the president's health care advisers, namely, Ezekiel Emanuel and David Blumenthal, that knee replacement will depend on such factors as your age and your overall health. If you are too old or decrepit, government will have a more economical place to spend its money. In other words, your health will not be decided by what you want to pay for it, but by government policy. That test you wanted for colon cancer might be denied. You might just be too old. Such decisions are made by the nationalized British system all the time.


Almost any service the government provides can be more efficiently and effectively provided by private enterprise. The most striking example is the inefficiency of the money-losing U.S. Postal Service, which has been swept aside by the Internet and by such private carriers as UPS and FedEx. Government is not even very effective in its efforts at regulation. Consider the recent failures of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and at the Securities and Exchange Commission.


There is another unappreciated failing of government. It politicizes everything that it touches, including the simplest human relations. Agreements that ought to be arrived at voluntarily or through the rule of law are arrived at by lobbyists or thanks to the political power of your group — ethnic, economic or otherwise.


One of the little-noted projects of the government health care reforms being considered on Capitol Hill today is the channeling of health care money away from the elderly and toward community services and drug and alcohol rehabilitation. Equal rights before the law is all well and good, but it is political favor and political power that matter when big government is making your decisions for you.


That is why so many Americans have opted for freedom from government. We recognize that the free society is the most humane … and the most productive.

Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.

JWR contributor Bob Tyrrell is editor in chief of The American Spectator. Comment by clicking here.

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