From: wthyde1953@gmail.com
Don wrote:
> William Hyde wrote:
>> Don wrote:
>>> William Hyde wrote:
>>>> Don wrote:
>>>>> Cryptoengineer wrote:
>>>>>> Bobbie Sellers wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> "Amongst Our Weapons "by Ben Aaronvitch
>>>>>>> Hard cover 294 pages from DAW Books $27 US.
>>>>>>> Well I may have read this before but it was a romp.
>>>>>>> Ben Aaronvitch with his Rivers of London series seldom
disappoints
>>>>>>> Amongst Our Weapons is another tale of Peter Grant in the
Folly
>>>>>>> and out to Manchester where he releases, but no that would
be
>>>>>>> telling. He is a very busy sort with magic rings and
heart ripping
>>>>>>> murders. Lesley is on the scene but still being criminal in
her
>>>>>>> behavior. Even our Tank-breaking wizard Nightengale is not
>>>>>>> able to handle the Spanish Inquisition's Angel of Death but
>>>>>>> Peter does and releases the Spanish woman enslaved to be
>>>>>>> the Angel.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I wasn't expecting the Spanish Inquisition!
>>>>>>
>>>>>> ...though with that title, maybe I should have.
>>>>>
>>>>> The Gaza genocide guy's father, Polish Jew Benzion Mileikowsky, alias
>>>>> Benzion Netanyahu, wrote a book on the Spanish Inquisition entitled THE
>>>>> ORIGINS OF THE INQUISITION IN FIFTEENTH CENTURY SPAIN:
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Long story short, Sicut Judaeis prohibits Catholics from mistreating
>>>>> Jews
>>>>
>>>> And the USSR had a wonderful constitution, full of respect for human
rights.
>>>>
>>>> Some Jews escaped the inquisition by pointing out that they had never in
>>>> fact been baptized or claimed to be Catholic. The inquisition, obedient
>>>> to the above, would then turn them over to the state, whereupon they
>>>> were expelled from Spain, which I think counts as mistreatment.
>>>> Especially as not all survived the expulsion.
>>>>
>>>> This although it was known that the Jewish community in Spain dated at
>>>> least to the second century AD, and probably to some centuries BC,
>>>> arriving with the Phoenicians. A much longer time then, than those
>>>> noble Spanish who claimed Visigothic ancestry.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> and prohibits Jews from positions of cultural authority over
>>>>> Catholics. The Inquisition exclusively applied only to Catholics. And,
>>>>> from a papal perspective, once a Catholic always a Catholic, until
>>>>> death.
>>>>> Did some Spanish Jews convert to Catholicism solely because they
>>>>> coveted cultural authority over Catholics? This contention creates
>>>>> controversy.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> About as much controversy as the Flat Earth. But with added racism.
>>>
>>> Your followup certainly confirms controversy, no?
>>
>> No.
>>
>> If every time we correct someone who says something which is wrong means
>> that the issue is a controversy, then all issues are controversies,
>> which means that no issues are controversies.
>>
>> You may find Cecil Roth's "The Spanish Inquisition" enlightening. It is
>> a old book (1937) written before the current state of Israel existed, it
>> is well written, and short. Covers the origin and practice of the
>> inquisition, and its persecution of Jews, Muslims, Protestants, and any
>> kind of free thinker.
>>
>> Here's a story from the book. A Spanish aristocrat was well aware that
>> his right-hand man was in reality Jewish. Unusually for his class, this
>> didn't bother him. But one day he got news that the inquisition was
>> taking an interest in his assistant. So, in an audience with other
>> people so he could not speak openly, he said "Gomez, the onions begin to
>> smell". Gomez left that night and made it safely to France.
>>
>> I've always wondered if that was a code phrase they had previously
>> agreed to, or whether in the Spanish of that day that was a metaphor for
>> something going wrong as in "There's something rotten in the state of
>> Denmark", in English.
>
> An associate tells me a somewhat similar story from familial lore. In
> this case, "It's a good night to pick berries in the woods." was code
> for "The Russians are coming! Skedaddle!! Double-quick!!!"
>
> Yup, for real, seriously.
>
> From my perspective, the probably pedestrian THE SPANISH INQUISITION
You've not read the book, but you are prepared to describe it
> isn't the most interesting thing about Roth. It's his A LIFE OF MENASSEH
> BEN ISRAEL: RABBI, PRINTER, AND DIPLOMAT, wherein Roth says:
>
> within a generation or two, the marranos became assimilated
> enough ... their worldly success was phenomenal ... they
> almost controlled the economic life of the country ... made
> fabulous fortunes as bankers and merchants ... thronged the
> liberal professions ... the vast majority of Conversos
> remained faithful at heart to the religion of their fathers
> ... Their Christianity was merely a mask ... They were
> Christians in nothing, and Jews in everything but name.
And what is wrong with that?
Do you expect people who have been forcibly converted to be sincere? Do
you have the right to demand that people die rather than make a false
conversion?
When the Jews became officially Christian, the civil restrictions they
had laboured under were removed. In human history it is quite common
that people once liberated go on to outperform. This can fail to happen
when they quarrel among themselves, or when the liberation is in name only.
Or, having been given these rights, do you think it is somehow immoral
that they used them? Tried to better their place in the world? Even
tried to do better than their oppressors?
What happened was quite predictable. And also predictably, when the New
Christians and Moriscos were crushed, not to mention freethinkers and
intellectuals of all kinds, the Spanish economy and Spanish power went
into decline.
The Spanish economy became so weak that they relied on the Dutch for
their coastal trading. Even while at war with them. The Dutch took the
money to fight the Spanish at home.
William Hyde
--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)
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