Klinghoffer's Essential Hypocrisy.
I was struck by Judith Apter Klinghoffer's denunciation of
things like Obamacare. I understand that Klinghoffer is now
resident in Israel.
Israel is a classic European welfare state, with all the usual
branches such as Universal Health Insurance (funded by a
progressive income tax), compulsory European-style education to
the age of eighteen (Abitur-level, equivalent to junior
college in our terms), housing, etc., etc. I realize, of
course, that some of these benefits are only available to
Jews, in the form of military veterans benefits, and that
Israel is a bit less socialist for the minority of Israeli Arabs.
The case I heard of involved programs addressing the needs
of very young children. However, Israel is at least ashamed of
such lapses, and not proud of them, and in that particular case,
corrective action has probably been taken by now. Parenthetically,
Israel is one of the two western developed countries (the other
being Sweden) where famous people are most likely to have messy
tax difficulties without being excessively greedy, without getting
into Gordon Gecko territory. The tax authorities decide that
someone like Ingmar Bergman or Yitzhak Rabin is too much of a big
shot for their liking, and that he offends their
bourgeois sensibilities, and they set about cutting him down
to size.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_care_in_Israel
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_in_Israel
Israel happens to be in an alliance of expediency with the
American Republican party, for the time being, until the
Republican Party becomes isolationist, as it was in the 1930's, or
something like that. At a certain point, American business will
lose interest in oil, and consequently, in the Middle East.
Klinghoffer's insistence on Free Enterprise for the United
States is a classic example of "communist-party-line-following,"
and is essentially cynical and hypocritical.
[There was some confusion about where Klinghoffer lived, and when.
However, she took a stance which included unlimited support for
Israel, and, in the United States, Grover Norquist's program of
low taxes paid for by the dismantling of Health, Education, and
Welfare services, and economic resonses to depressions.]