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Jonathan Rosenblum: Ignore the Grandchildren
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Lebanon on the brink --- and why it matters
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Jonathan Tobin: Ahmadinejad Isn't Too Impressed
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Caroline B. Glick:
Olmert's parting blows
Oct. 2, 2008
The Jewish Ethicist
by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Q: Often customers looking for our competitor accidentally enter our store. Can we just serve them without comment?
Jonathan Tobin: Jewish pundit quiz on next year's news
Sept. 29, 2008
Rabbi Eli Gewirtz: Lehman Brothers and the Day of Judgment
Rabbi Leiby Burnham: Apples, Honey and You
Sept. 26, 2008
Rabbi Yonason Goldson: The shofar and the Echo of Sinai
Caroline B. Glick: A road paved on reality
Sept. 24, 2008
Greg Crosby: Home for the Holy Days
Ethel G. Hofman: Rosh Hashanah Favorites: Old-fashioned taste, reduced calories
Sept. 23, 2008
Caroline Glick: Liberalism or lives!?
Michael Ledeen: Dear President Ahmadinejad
Sept. 22, 2008
The Jewish Ethicist
by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Q: I gave a check to a local merchant, but it hasn't been cashed in months. Probably they lost it. Do I have to tell them?
Diana West: We are losing Europe to Islam
Sept. 19, 2008
Rabbi Berel Wein: On harvesting success
Caroline B. Glick: It is time to act
Sept. 18, 2008
Rabbi Hillel Goldberg: Is camping the panacea to save Jewry from self-destruction?
Craig Gordon: Was SNL hilarity too much for Hillary?
Sept. 17, 2008
Jonathan Tobin: The Whole World Is Watching
The Kosher Gourmet
By Linda Gassenheimer: East meets Southwest in this quick meal: MEXICAN-ASIAN TOSTADOS
Sept. 16, 2008
Frank J. Gaffney, Jr. : Into the fire
Everything's Relative : Your Official Jewish Guide to the 2008 USA Presidential Election
Sept. 15, 2008
The Jewish Ethicist
by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Enabling risky behavior
Diana West:
A day that will live in ... accommodating Islam
Sept. 11, 2008
Rabbi Yonason Goldson: The skeleton in my closet
Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein: Persecution and systematic destruction of Christians in the Middle East must be stopped
Sept. 10, 2008
Jonathan Tobin: There's Something About Sarah
The Kosher Gourmet by Kathy Manweiler: Who needs Chili's when you have these? Recipes for Mexican that taste great and are dietetic!
Our commitment to freedom
Sept. 9, 2008
Daniel Pipes: Must counterinsurgency wars fail?
Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.:
Sept. 8, 2008
The Jewish Ethicist
by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: How far must one go to help somebody out of a contract?
Barry Rubin: Waiting For Something
Sept. 8, 2008
The Jewish Ethicist
by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir : How far must one go to help somebody out of a contract?
Barry Rubin: Waiting For Something
March 22, 2007
J-Rhythms with Avraham Rosenblum: JWR's cutting-edge music program showcasing performers -- singers, song writers, musicians, and bands -- who learn and live the Torah lifestyle (OUR NEWEST IGODCAST !)
Oct. 29, 2003
Mortimer B. Zuckerman: Graffiti On History's Walls (MUST-READ!)
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Jewish World Review
May 6, 2005
/ 27 Nissan, 5765
The Law of Loopholes in Action
By
David Gelernter
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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
Noticing patterns helps you predict, sometimes, how a story will turn out. For example, there's the law of loopholes: Every loophole will eventually be exploited; every exploited loophole will eventually be closed. This is human nature. Consider post-9/11 Washington — a sad sight, with long lines of tourists patiently awaiting yet another inspection for the privilege of entering yet another government building they probably helped buy with their own money. All security loopholes are closed, theoretically. But we have been traveling this road for a long time.
In 1849, Isaac Mayer Wise visited Washington and was taken around by an acquaintance who decided they might as well stop in on the president — who was (after all) one of the sights of the city; there weren't too many others. (Later, Wise became a founder of Liberal Judaism. That's another story.) Wise and friend walked into the White House. There was no one around but a butler, who "pointed backwards to the staircase" when they asked for the president. They went upstairs, knocked on a door and were told to come in. President Zachary Taylor was sitting alone by the fire, doing nothing in particular. "Step up closer, gentlemen," he said. "It is cold today." So they did, and the three had a pleasant chat.
Fifteen years later the painter Francis B. Carpenter, passing the White House on a summer morning, saw President Lincoln out front "looking anxiously down the street," trying to find a newsboy. There was a war on, and the president wanted to know what was happening. Naturally he was eager for a morning paper. If you can find a newsboy, said Lincoln to Carpenter, "I wish you would start one up this way." He proposed to wait patiently till the newsboy arrived.
Washington was a city of wide-open loopholes. If you had business with the president, you knocked on his door. A year later Lincoln was murdered and the loopholes started to close — slowly, like flowers at dusk. But ever since, this society has locked itself down tighter and tighter.
Terrorists in the late 1960s discovered a different kind of loophole: It was easy to hijack airplanes. Just charge into the cockpit waving a gun. Hijacking seemed like a fairly pointless crime at first. But every loophole gets exploited. In 1968, hijackings to Cuba became a serious fad. Air travel security began to tighten in response — but not enough. On Sept. 11, 2001, it became clear that many loopholes had remained wide open. The nation hurried to shut them, but no doubt many others are still available. If you can think of any, keep them to yourself.
Terrorists discovering air travel security loopholes resemble lawyers discovering that you can win millions by suing the right companies in the right courts. Agreed, lawyers are not criminals. But traditionally nothing prevents parasitic lawsuits in this country except comity, common sense and the wisdom of judges and juries — which isn't much. And every loophole gets exploited, as we've established. This March, for example, a California judge decided in favor of aggrieved shoppers who had purchased high-end cosmetics at fancy department stores. Evidently, they had been overcharged and were entitled to reparation payments, to be doled out in the form of small dollops of cold cream, etc. The lawyers got $24 million in cash.
Recently, federal tort reform measures became law; many other related federal and state measures are under consideration. It's easy to blame trial lawyers for ruthless greed. But then again, the first law of loopholes is something like the first law of thermodynamics. There is no way around it. Adults discover open loopholes the way children break things, by relentless experimentation that looks aimless but turns out (over time) to be remarkably expensive. It's sad but inevitable.
Which brings me back to Washington. No rule prevents a Senate minority from filibustering a president's judicial nominees. Up-or-down votes are traditionally expected on nominees who have been voted out of committee, but mere tradition can't prevent a loophole's being exploited. Some Republicans are speechless with rage, but they might as well save it. Republicans are now preparing to abolish judicial filibusters — one more open space in American society to be fenced off. Accordingly, some Democrats are now furious — and they too might just as well not bother. Did they expect their loophole to stay open forever? When has that ever happened?
Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.
Yale professor David Gelernter is a senior fellow at the Shalem Center, Jerusalem. To comment, please click here.
04/29/05: The We're Smart, You're Dumb Principle
04/22/05: To Dems, it's 1974 forever
04/18/05: Turning American soldiers into an out-of-sight, out-of-mind servant class who are expected to do their duty and keep their mouths shut
© 2005, Los Angeles Times. Distributed by Los Angeles Times Syndicate
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