From: g@crcomp.net   
      
   William Hyde wrote:   
   > Don wrote:   
      
      
      
   >> 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.   
      
   When you ask "what is wrong with that?" you leave me with the impression   
   you condone lying and deceiving. Lies and deceptions open the door to   
   irrational insanity.   
      
   Anglo usury took over after Spanish usury ran out of victims.   
      
   Usury is always immoral because it's fruit is always the same:   
   riots followed by aristocrats using their military to impose order.   
   Usury requires a modicum of mathematical intelligence but demands   
   complete subservience to Mammon.   
      
   Freethinkers may need to forego a jot of freedom in order to spend   
   more time thoroughly thinking things through. Meanwhile, the Semitic   
   Palestinian Catholic Latin Patriarchate intends to build a new   
   hospital to replace medical facilities destroyed by the Jews during   
   their Gaza genocide:   
      
      
      
   --   
   Don.......My cat's  )\._.,--....,'``.                     veritas    _|_   
   telltale tall tail /,   _.. \   _\  (`._ ,.               liberabit   |   
   tells tall tales.. `._.-(,_..'--(,_..'`-.;.'              vos         |   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)