July 2, 2017: http://lukeford.net/blog/?p=115451 This Torah portion tells the story of Balaam, who is not Jewish.
* As the West becomes steadily more tribal, the more relevant these texts become. In the world as described by the Torah, it doesn’t matter that not all Amorites or Edomites or Canaanites or Midianites are bad people, they are members of an enemy tribe and if they get in your way, they must be destroyed. That’s the sane way of thinking. For a sane tribal man, if his people are merely inconvenienced, let alone menaced by another tribe, all of that tribe becomes the enemy until it is subdued.
* If Western liberalism is dead, and conservatism is but a subset of liberalism, then what replaces it? The primary opponent of liberalism over the past 100 years has been fascism. Fascism is a reaction to liberalism. What are the other viable alternatives to liberalism?
* “Balak saw all that Israel had done to the Amorite.” Power matters. Offensive capability matters. You can never be sure of a competitor’s motivations, so if the competitor is more powerful than you, you have good reason to fear.
