From: g@crcomp.net   
      
   William Hyde wrote:   
   > 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.   
      
   Here's your dilemma: If you disapprove of the Jews' deception then why   
   do you ask "what's wrong with that?"   
      
   --   
   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)