It's Presidents' Day -- a substitute for Washington and Lincoln's birthdays, which once gave us even more public holidays in an already-short February. It's a bit generic, but I like to use the day to think about my own favorite president -- James Madison.
What I like about Madison is that he basically wrote the blueprint for the Constitution in his study after reading everything he could about government, then applying his mind and writing down his ideas. He was not a scholar; he was simply a public-minded intellectual.
I guess, at the risk of vanity, I see a bit of myself in that story, or at least the kind of writer I would like to be. And I have tried to write about certain subjects in that way -- notably the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. I have even stood in the room where Madison did it.
It's sad to hear that Madison's estate, Montpelier, has been taken over by "woke" revisionists who want to emphasize the fact that he was a slave-holder. (It wasn't his only failure; he arguably erred in going to war against Britain in 1812, and failing to conquer Ontario.)
https://www.heritage.org/progressivism/commentary/the-woke-takeover-james-madisons-montpelier
Still, it's worth remembering that America owes much to a president who cared enough about ideas to devote months at a time to their study and interpretation. Those ideas persist, and survive the flaws of the man who brought them together in so elegant a fashion.
This week's show will be slightly different from the norm: we'll focus on clips and topics, rather than guests -- and that, hopefully, will mean more input from the callers (unless you are all watching football on opening weekend).
Topics:
- The state of the economy
- The fight against crime
- The midterm election fight
- The struggle for peace between Russia and Ukraine
- The airstrike on the Venezuelan drug cartel
- The attempt to sink Kennedy
- The war in Gaza
- The case against Harvard
- The Trump presidency
Tune in: SiriusXM Patriot 125, 7-10 p.m. ET / 4-7 p.m. PT
Call: 866-957-2874
This week's Torah portion includes several laws about conduct in civic and personal life, the common theme of which is boundaries -- setting bounds to what one may do at home, at work, and even in the battlefield.
One noteworthy passage concerns Amalek, the evil nation that attacked the Children of Israel as they made their Exodus from slavery to freedom. Deuteronomy 25:17-19 commands Jews to obliterate Amalek's memory.
The South African government accused Israel of genocide on the basis of a story about Amalek in the Book of Samuel, in which King Saul was commanded to wipe out the entire evil Amalekite nation.
Because Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu quoted this week's portion -- "Remember what Amalek did to you" (25:17), the South African government claimed he was commanding soldiers to commit genocide.
It was an absurd and malevolent misreading of the Bible and of Jewish tradition. The commandment, as observed by Jews today, is to remember the evil of Amalek and fight ...
