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July 3, 2008

Rabbi Dr. Abraham J. Twerski: A spiritual budget (TOUCHING!)

Jeff Jacoby: Israel still paying for its defeat

JWisdom:: Re-Jew-venating prayer, Part IV by Rabbi David Aaron

July 2, 2008

Jonathan Tobin: Appeasers Make Poor Patriots

The Kosher Gourmet By Kathleen Purvis: Slaw, y'all: For BBQs or Sabbath dinner, these southern recipes are something else!

JWisdom:: Rabbi Mordechai Becher: Jewish Rx for A Simpler Life

July 1, 2008

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Q. I think it's important to leave a legacy to my children. How much should I save towards this end?

Paul Greenberg:A President who is history deficient?

JWisdom:: Holocaust in the Perspective of Faith by Rabbi Nosson Scherman: Poland's Unique Antisemitism

June 30, 2008

Jonathan Rosenblum: Remembering the architect of Torah Judaism for the modern world

Abe Novick: Hulk: Still a Jew?

JWisdom: : Putting the Spirit Back into Spirituality, Part 2: The Abandoned Child

June 26, 2008

Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski: Quantum leap to evil

Caroline B. Glick: Victimized families must not be allowed to dictate policy

June 25, 2008

Rabbi Yonason Goldson: Today in Biblical History: King Jeroboam of Israel prevents pilgrimage to Jerusalem

Jonathan Tobin: Real Friends and Real Enemies

JWisdom: Raping of reason By Rabbi Sroy Levitansky

June 25, 2008

Steven Emerson: Kristof: Never Mind the Terrorists

Stratfor Intelligence Briefing: Mediterranean Flyover: Telegraphing an Israeli Punch?

JWisdom: Rabbi David Aaron: Re-Jew-venating prayer, Part III

June 24, 2008

Caroline B. Glick: What were they thinking!?

Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.: Guilty knowledge

JWisdom: Holocaust in the Perspective of Faith by Rabbi Nosson Scherman: Warping Innocence

June 23, 2008

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Diploma dilemma

Jeff Jacoby: A world without children

JWisdom: Rabbi Dovid Gross: Putting the Spirit Back into Spirituality --- Introduction

June 20, 2008

Rabbi A. Henach Leibowitz: Man: The Crowning Glory of Creation

Caroline B. Glick: Israel's darkest week

JWisdom: We aren't worthy? by Rabbi Sroy Levitansky

June 19, 2008

Rabbi Elazar Meisels: The saints who don't come marchin' in

Chris Christoff: Muslim woman demands an apology from Obama after camera snub

June 18, 2008

Jonathan Tobin: Still Dancing Around Jerusalem

The Kosher Gourmet by Steve Petusevsky: Chilled fruit and vegetable soups

JWisdom: Souls Need A Check Up? by Rabbi Mordechai Becher

June 17, 2008

Rabbi Avi Shafran: Baby Einstein

Caroline B. Glick: Bush's rhetoric, Bush's policies

JWisdom: Re-Jew-venating prayer, Part II by Rabbi David Aaron

June 16, 2008

Varda Branfman: Bob Dylan, won't you please come home?

Diana West: Academic dares to question the 'religion of peace'

JWisdom: Holocaust in the Perspective of Faith by Rabbi Nosson Scherman: Positive Backfire

June 13, 2008

Rabbi Berel Wein: Trading manna for whine

Caroline B. Glick: Peace with friends

JWisdom: From the mouths of … by Rabbi Sroy Levitansky

June 12, 2008

Michael Feldberg: Meet Paul Revere's pal, the Orthodox Jew who played a key role in laying Boston's cultural and business infrastructure

The Kosher Gourmet by Kathy Manweiler: No need to be tempted by Wendy's mandarin chicken salad

JWisdom: Re-Jew-venating prayer, Part I by Rabbi David Aaron

June 11, 2008

Rabbi Avi Shafran: What would Hillel say?

Jonathan Tobin: UNRWA and NGOs: The Real U.N. 'Insult'

JWisdom: Sara Yoheved Rigler: Greatness Made Simple: How a momentary decision shifted life's course and destination

June 6, 2008

Rabbi Pinchas Stolper: Revelation: The basis of faith

Binyamin L. Jolkovsky: Mere hours after becoming Israel's new 'best friend' Obama backtracks on status of Jerusalem

Caroline B. Glick: UN choosing to protect rogue nuclear programs

JWisdom: Sameness in difference by Rabbi Sroy Levitansky

June 5, 2008

David Lightman: Now Obama wants to be Israel's newest 'best friend'

Obama's remarks to AIPAC policy conference

The Kosher Gourmet By Ethel G. Hofman: Shavous cuisine: Ruby Fruit Soup, Lokshen Kugel with Cheese, Key Lime Curd, Calsone Casserole Frittata with Wild Mushrooms, Sun-dried tomatoes and Olives, Baked Tilapia with Pepper Cheese Cream and Brown Sugar Shortbread

JWisdom: Why a Jewish Jerusalem makes so many nervous by Rabbi Mordechai Becher

June 4, 2008

Jonathan Rosenblum: A different sort of 'religious broadcaster'

Jonathan Tobin: Misgivings on the Road to Damascus

JWisdom: 44 Years Without An Argument? by Sara Yoheved Rigler

June 3, 2008

Daniel Pipes: Obama vs. McCain on the Middle East

Everything's Relative: There is a crisis growing in Orthodox synagogues worldwide, reveals Jordan "Gorf" Gorfinkel

JWisdom: White Facades; Black Secrets by Rabbi Mordechai Becher

June 2, 2008

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Q: Lie to outsmart discriminator?

He writes the songs that make our souls sing:Gavriel Aryeh Sanders interviews Jewish music legend Ben Zion Shenker; includes stirring, uplifting song

JWisdom: Holocaust in the Perspective of Faith by Rabbi Nosson Scherman: Of laws and lives

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!)

Jewish World Review Jan. 4, 2006 / 4 Teves, 5766

Were subway strikers thugs?

By John Stossel


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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | I just suffered through a transit strike. I'm ticked off about it. It didn't hurt me much, actually — I ride a bike most days — but New York's Transport Workers Union tortured a million commuters by going on strike. And going on strike for what? Their employer wanted to raise the retirement age for new workers — not even current union members, people who haven't been hired yet — to a ripe old 62, or make them pay more of their pension costs.


Big deal.


Some 30 people apply for each of these jobs, according to Steven Malanga of the Manhattan Institute. That says a lot about whether those workers are "exploited."


It makes me want to call them "thugs." My mayor called them that. Mike Bloomberg said union leaders were acting "thuggishly."


But are they thugs?


Suppose you want a raise. Your boss offers you less than you think you're worth, so you tell him you won't work unless he makes a better offer. He responds that if you stop working, he'll force you to pay him thousands of dollars — and maybe he'll send you to prison.


Who's the thug, you or your boss?


Your boss — in the transit workers' case, the government — is the thug.


Government is conceited. It thinks it's special. It makes laws to protect itself from the unions of its employees. The federal government and most states pass laws that forbid strikes. The transit workers were threatened with fines of two days' pay for each day on strike, their union with a fine of $1 million per day, and its president with jail time. This was wrong.


The beauty of capitalism is that deals must always be win-win, or they don't happen. You work for an employer if you think you're better off working for him than not doing so; he employs you if he thinks you're worth what you demand.


A strike is simply an organized refusal to work for less than the strikers think they're worth. The principle is the same whether one individual or a union walks off the job: It's the principle of self-ownership, the underlying principle of the whole capitalist system, the principle that we are all free individuals dealing voluntarily to mutual advantage. As John Locke taught in the "Second Treatise of Government," "every Man has a Property in his own Person. This no Body has any Right to but himself. The Labour of his Body, and the Work of his Hands, we may say, are properly his."


Of course, just as workers have a right to strike, employers — morally, at least — have a right to fire them. Under President Reagan, the federal government dismissed striking air-traffic controllers and let eager new employees take the jobs. That might have been a good response to New York's transit strike. Bus drivers must be easier to replace than air-traffic controllers. But replacing the strikers wasn't even discussed. And neither was an even more radical solution: firing both the workers and the public management, or in other words, privatization.


People think that mass transit must be a government function: Who would build the subways? But did you know that private companies built many of New York's subways and ran them until government forcibly took them over? The private sector would do it better.


If private enterprise ran a city's buses, there would be many different bus companies, with many different contracts with their workers.


If one bus company's workers walked out, trains and other bus lines would still be available. This would make a strike much less harmful to the public, but more dangerous to the company, which could find itself out of business. Some London subway-station workers just celebrated the new year with a 24-hour strike; London bus service, operated by private companies, was not interrupted. Too bad New York government, instead of privatizing the bus lines it runs, is taking over the lines operated by private companies.


The New York transit strike illustrated two of the dangers of an overgrown government. When you let government monopolize something, you invite stifling disruption when government fails, and you invite it to try to force people to work — and call them thugs for acting on their freedom.

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