From: wthyde1953@gmail.com   
      
   Don wrote:   
   > 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.   
      
   You should not attempt to determine what other people think.  Nobody is   
   very good at that and you are particularly bad.   
      
   William Hyde   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)