George Gilder Should Join the Winning Team

Legendary conservative thinker George Gilder made a rare guest appearance in the second hour of today's Michael Medved show promoting his new book The Israel Test. This afternoon, as it happens, I couldn't get past the busy signals, much less the tough-to-impress Medved screener, so in case you're interested in what I would have said to the noted philosopher, I'll fill you in via, as the kids say, texting:

Always an honor to make air on the Medved broadcast again, Michael! I thought I'd not only endorse but further Mr. Gilder's thesis and also make a rather bold suggestion to him, which I'm confident he'll reject out of hand. By the way Michael, I'm looking forward to your Seattle Mariners Medhead night out at the ballpark, which as you know commences in about three hours down at Safeco.

As to Mr. Gilder's arguing that the Jewish people have consistently had a disproportionately large impact on our civilization's progression through the ages, I not only agree with it, but years ago I coined a term for it. While we have too many anti-Semites even two generations after Hitler, we don't have enough pro-Semites, as I happily plead guilty to being.

And that of course is also why I converted to Judiasm, although through a movement that represents a non-believing strain of the religion.

But I tell you, Mr. Gilder, this comes into play with my occasional charge voiced on this very program that Michael is soft on terrorism in general and on the Palestinians in particular.
The Israel-Palestine dispute is one of those cases where both sides have powerfully correct positions. But what Michael fails to take into account, in always promoting supposed "moderates" among the Palestinians, is that this is in fact not a mere "problem" needing an elusive "solution", but rather a long-running asymmetrical war in which I happen to find my favorite Middle-Eastern state besieged by an ethnic group I also greatly admire. So if I was advising Hamas, I'd tell them to up the ruthlessness against the Israelis in this asymmetrical conflict. But I'd advise Israel to do whatever it had to do to contain the violence.

This war hasn't been settled because each side is absolutely correct, not to mention determined. So I suspect it won't be solved in my lifetime or in the lifetimes of Michael's future grandchildren. That said, Mr. Gilder, I now want to challenge you to do the intellectually right thing and abandon your Christianity, which Michael in your introduction this afternoon described you as being committed to. If the Jewish people collectively truly are the successful strivers your book portray them as, you should be willing to do what I've done, and that is, join the winning team.

As always, thanks Michael for letting me be part of your terrific broadcast, and we'll look for you down at Safeco Field tonight!

Now all that, all six verbal paragraphs of it, times out at 1:54 at my speaking pace. So it's a good thing I didn't make air with these comments, since at about :35 of that 1:54 I'd likely have been admonished by the host, "Hey, Bryan in Puyallup, focus like a laser!"

BRYAN STYBLE/Seattle