Zero-Track Mind

Some people base all of their views on a single defective principle.

In 1989, I made my first visit to Israel. As part of a busy trip from north to south, we spent a good amount of time in Jerusalem. Two places that touched my heart were the Western Wall, where a person starts to spill out his soul as he approaches the ancient walls that once saw the Second Temple in all its glory. The other site was Yad Vashem — the official Holocaust Museum. The former remains as it was then, while the museum has gone through a major renovation that has made it even more powerful.

At Yad Vashem, one exhibit led me to uncontrolled sobbing. The Children’s Memorial is, on the one hand, a very simple exhibit. It shows pictures of children who were murdered by the Nazis; it has lots of burning candles and reflected light, and in the background one hears the names of these children. One walks through and comes out a complete wreck. I was so moved by the experience that I wrote to the man who created it: Professor Moshe Safdie. Safdie was born in Haifa and at the time was a professor at Harvard. Much to my surprise, he not only wrote back but also sent me several of his books. I learned that the open area in front of the Western Wall was also his doing. After being captured in 1967, the area in front of the Wall was filled with Jordanian garbage. There was a competition on how to develop the site. Safdie said to open it up into the plaza that it is today. At certain times of the year, 50,000 or more people can stand there in prayer. He said that one did not need any additional adornments at such a location.

A few years after arriving in Israel, I had the opportunity to meet Moshe Safdie in his office in Jerusalem. He was developing the super-successful Mamilla Mall that is the bridge between the Old City of Jerusalem and the new city. Next to it is the City of David, another one of his creations. While we shmoozed, I asked if failed building projects were the result of not enough money. His answer was very interesting. He said that while many ugly or incomplete buildings truly reflected a failed budget, he said that there was another class of awful structures. He noted a certain famous architect of the day who built all of his projects according to Fractal Theory. He said such buildings were more art than function and were often not pleasant for use. The same argument has been leveled against Frank Lloyd Wright, whose buildings are incredible but often described as being difficult to live in, especially as he designed them for his height, 5’9”.

It was a refreshing pleasure to see British conservative Jacob Rees-Mogg discombobulate Tucker Carlson. Carlson forgot the cardinal rule of modern Weirdo Right blogging: never interview someone who disagrees with you. Bring on Megyn. Get the Tates. Where’s Piers? Watching Tucker with his compliant interviewees is boring, as he never challenges them, however crazy their ideas or comments are. The Tates professed their innocence, and that was it. Carlson never pushed back. He never sought out the authorities to ask about the material in the indictments. And such an approach works with someone who is a kindred ideological spirit. Rees-Mogg was not. He put a dunce cap on Tucker when the latter wrongly claimed Russia’s economy was larger than that of the U.K. A quick Google search would have shown otherwise. He posited that England would have been better off today having not fought the Nazis. Living under the jackboot of Hitler was not an improvement in life for the French, Russians, or anyone else conquered by the Germans. Rees-Mogg described himself as “reassured” when Carlson promised him that he was actually not a Nazi.

So why would Tucker Carlson, on several occasions, either let Hitler off the hook or even suggest that he was not all that bad? He had on a “historian” who claimed that it was really Winston Churchill who should wear the mantle of evil for World War II, and poor Hitler killed those Jews because there was not enough food to feed them. I believe that Tucker is not so much into fractals as Jew distaste. If one organizes his life and program around the Jews being evil, then everything flows from that one central hypothesis. Israel defending itself from Hamas is a genocide. Israel killing Gazan youths actively involved in terror is evil because Israel kills kids. Israel attacking Iran after the latter has promised for decades to wipe out Israel is Bibi Netanyahu trying to rule the world. When one has an overriding ideological rule, everything has to bend to it. I haven’t heard Tucker mention the recent Flydubai incident. There is really nothing to make the Jews look bad. It was an Islamic terrorist, and the regular Israelis rose to the occasion to subdue him and get the plane under control. No Jew attack lines? Let’s just move on.

For many on the Left, Donald Trump can only be bad. Even if their stock portfolios go north, there is less crime in their towns, and fewer illegal aliens cruise their streets, they will only attack the sitting president. They cannot allow their ideological barrier to admit that Donald Trump is doing a good job in weakening Iran, a country that would love to drop an atomic bomb on Washington. The hatred of Trump is so intense that there can be no admission whatsoever that Trump’s handling of the Strait of Hormuz is a net plus for the world and the energy economy. Bill Maher is rare as a liberal because he can point out that Hamas are the bad guys and that Donald Trump does some things right. Tucker Carlson has also turned on Trump and has not said a good word (of which I know) for months or longer. There are those who say that demography is destiny. I say that ideology trumps all else, including truth, facts, and even one’s own interests. How many clueless Westerners went to places like Syria or Iraq to “do good” and never came home? They never could admit the evil of many who live in such places. Let Trans for Palestine go to Gaza. They wouldn't last two minutes.

Truth is hard because it truly can be uncomfortable. I was way overweight but refused to admit it until I had a pinched nerve in my back. Fifty pounds less today, I can acknowledge what I refused to accept then. People will go to such extremes in their anti-truth ideologies that they will claim that the Flydubai was a false-flag while the Omani copilot supposedly told his interrogators that he planned to hit the Ben Gurion Airport terminal, as the change in course would be too late to be stopped. Jew hatred has become so extreme that it has become terrorist praise. There are witnesses and ample evidence of horrific things that Hamas did three years ago today. People could minimally say nothing; rather, out of their hatred of Jews, they praise people who killed families whole and beheaded babies. Ideology almost always trumps truth — and good. That is usually a safe first working principle.

God is described as the Lord of Truth. Where you find the truth, you will find Him. Tucker can praise Putin, but those pushed out of windows would say otherwise if they were still alive. Ignore the liars and always look for the truth. It may be hard to find, but the effort is worth it. Lies always collapse; if not today, then soon enough.

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