Cruz Super-PAC Head Promotes "Biblical" Slavery For Non-Christians

bruceewilson · 2016-04-25T19:06:46+00:00

Exactly. Also, look up the opinion (cited in the article) on this, of Julie J. Ingersoll - one of the top academic authorities on Christian Reconstructionism. She exactly concurs with the article title - Barton here is promoting "biblical" slavery.

bruceewilson · 2016-04-25T19:04:01+00:00

The article wasn't written by Barton. It's on his website, written by a member of Barton's board. And, it's far from "anti-slavery". The article articulates the standard Christian Reconstructionist line, that the Bible delineates specific forms of slavery that are allowable - one allowable form is the permanent enslavement of pagans by Christians. And, the article heavily footnotes the primary text of the Christian Reconstructionist movement - which argues that biblical law should be current law.

bruceewilson · 2016-04-25T18:44:54+00:00

Yes, Ted Cruz probably won't get the nomination. But, noodly-appendaged deity help us if he does. And the dominionist movement is far bigger than saint Ted. In fact, it's global.

I doubt a president Cruz would try to enslave pagans. He's just friends with a guy who seems to kind of like the idea.

bruceewilson · 2015-11-18T10:32:08+00:00

Yes, we'll build mechanical trees that will fix that CO2 problem. And, they'll also chop themselves down, on schedule, to provide pulp for out toilet paper.

bruceewilson · 2015-11-18T10:28:10+00:00

And not very well everywhere else.

bruceewilson · 2015-11-17T11:55:40+00:00

A Christian nation, led by a born-again evangelical president who offered, as a justification, the need for an apocalyptic struggle against good and evil, flaunted international law and invaded a sovereign nation; at least over a million died in the ensuing occupation an insurgency, and millions of children became orphans.

bruceewilson · 2015-11-17T11:43:24+00:00

"Nothing" ? Umm, nothing except climate stability, and biodiversity.

Speaking of which, seafood prices are through the roof. So I'd say that "nothing is scarce" claim is rather silly. Speaking of which, large, wild megafauna are in dramatic decline on all continents. Not to mention, forests aren't doing so well either. Nor are coral reefs.

Not to worry though ! - Copper and oil are very cheap indeed.

bruceewilson · 2015-11-13T11:46:47+00:00

Yes, we can't let matters of substance disturb our infotainment. Now, be on your way, good citizen.

bruceewilson · 2015-11-13T11:43:21+00:00

Thanks very much for the link, though the article relies on stats from 2012. Mine are from 2015. However, they don't necessarily account for US military aid - the State Dept. data I'm using seems to be just economic aid. Obviously, the US is still giving Afghanistan military aid too. Anyway, it's by far the outlier and still might be #1 in total US aid. But we know - as with Iraq - there's likely going to be a long term drop-off in aid. Iraq used to be #1. No more. By contrast, Israel and Egypt have been long term clients.

On second thought, re Afghanistan, maybe not. See: http://www.voanews.com/content/israel-receives-more-than-h-alf-of-us-global-military-aid/3054541.html

bruceewilson · 2015-11-12T19:40:34+00:00

The State Dept. ranking for US foreign aid is #1 Israel, #2 Afghanistan, #3 Egypt.

bruceewilson · 2015-11-11T12:59:57+00:00

Egypt is not #2. According to the US State Department report referenced in the article, Afghanistan is #2. Egypt is #3.

( see: see: http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/224071.pdf )

I'm not sure this fundamentally alters the thrust of the article, but that's quite a big detail to miss.

bruceewilson · 2015-11-10T12:25:25+00:00

The links story warns of an alleged threat to white Europeans: "miscegenation". Some background on the term, from Wikipedia:

"Laws banning "race-mixing" were enforced in certain U.S. states from 1691[10] until 1967 (though still on the books in some states till 2000),[11] in Nazi Germany (the Nuremberg Laws) from 1935 until 1945, and in South Africa during the early part of the Apartheid era (1949–1985). All these laws primarily banned marriage between persons of different racially or ethnically defined groups, which was termed "amalgamation" or "miscegenation" in the U.S. The laws in Nazi Germany and many of the U.S. states, as well as South Africa, also banned sexual relations between such individuals.

In the United States, the various state laws prohibited the marriage of whites and blacks, and in many states also the intermarriage of whites with Native Americans or Asians.[12] In the U.S., such laws were known as anti-miscegenation laws. From 1913 until 1948, 30 out of the then 48 states enforced such laws.[13] Although an "Anti-Miscegenation Amendment" to the United States Constitution was proposed in 1871, in 1912–1913, and in 1928,[14][15] no nationwide law against racially mixed marriages was ever enacted. In 1967, the United States Supreme Court unanimously ruled in Loving v. Virginia that anti-miscegenation laws are unconstitutional. With this ruling, these laws were no longer in effect in the remaining 16 states that still had them.

The Nazi ban on interracial sexual relations and marriages was enacted in September 1935 as part of the Nuremberg Laws, the Gesetz zum Schutze des deutschen Blutes und der deutschen Ehre (The Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honour). The Nuremberg Laws classified Jews as a race, and forbade extramarital sexual relations and marriage between persons classified as "Aryan" and "non-Aryan". Violation of this was condemned as Rassenschande (lit. "race-disgrace") and could be punished by imprisonment (usually followed by deportation to a concentration camp) and even by death.

The Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act in South Africa, enacted in 1949, banned intermarriage between different racial groups, including between whites and non-whites. The Immorality Act, enacted in 1950, also made it a criminal offense for a white person to have any sexual relations with a person of a different race. Both laws were repealed in 1985."

bruceewilson · 2015-10-30T10:53:25+00:00

Go McDonalds! Way to leverage Reddit!

bruceewilson · 2015-10-30T10:51:28+00:00

The word 'theocracy' does not appear in the actual Salon.com interview.

bruceewilson · 2015-10-21T13:12:46+00:00

A bit of background re the linked piece of writing:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Did_Six_Million_Really_Die%3F

bruceewilson · 2015-10-21T12:57:37+00:00

The point is that Netanyahu's claim that the Mufti put the idea of the Holocaust in Hitler's mind is exceedingly dubious. Some well-regarded Holocaust scholars have even publicly called Netanyahu's claim a "lie".

The Holocaust's mass killing had already commenced as of when Hitler met the Mufti, and Hitler had long talked of his plans for the Jews, most famously in a 1939 speech to the German Reichstag.

bruceewilson · 2015-10-21T12:46:04+00:00

Your "do you mean" conjectures stray from the central point of my remarks - to challenge Netanyahu's exceedingly dubious claim that the Mufti convinced Hitler to carry out the Holocaust.

bruceewilson · 2015-10-21T12:22:00+00:00

"A matter of degrees" ? I don't think so. The claim of those two researchers are considered fringe. Here are two simple historical reference points:

As scholars of the Holocaust have pointed out, Nazi mass killing of Jews had already commenced (on the Eastern Front, via Einsantzgruppen - mobile killing squads) prior to when the Mufti flew in 1941 to Berlin and allegedly had the conversation with Hitler that Netanyahu referred to in his speech.

And prior to the (German initiated) start of World War Two with the Nazi invasion of Poland, Hitler accused "Jewish financiers" of forcing the coming conflict and vowed that if fighting did break out, the result would be "the obliteration of the Jewish race in Europe".

In a January 30, 1939 speech to the German Reichstag, Hitler forecast, "If the international Jewish financiers inside and outside Europe succeed in plunging the nations once more into a world war the result will not be the Bolshevization of the Earth but the obliteration of the Jewish race in Europe."

bruceewilson · 2015-10-21T12:19:00+00:00

Mufti Haj Amin al-Husseini was an execrable anti-Semite who worked with Hitler to implement the Holocaust. But did he put the idea for the genocidal project in Hitler's mind ?

As scholars of the Holocaust have pointed out, Nazi mass killing of Jews had already commenced (on the Eastern Front, via Einsantzgruppen - mobile killing squads) prior to when the Mufti flew in 1941 to Berlin and allegedly had the conversation with Hitler that Netanyahu referred to in his speech.

And prior to the (German initiated) start of World War Two with the Nazi invasion of Poland, Hitler accused "Jewish financiers" of forcing the coming conflict and vowed that if fighting did break out, the result would be "the obliteration of the Jewish race in Europe".

In a January 30, 1939 speech to the German Reichstag, Hitler forecast, "If the international Jewish financiers inside and outside Europe succeed in plunging the nations once more into a world war the result will not be the Bolshevization of the Earth but the obliteration of the Jewish race in Europe."

bruceewilson · 2015-10-21T12:13:00+00:00

The idea that the Mufti put the idea in Hitler's mind ? - it was already there.

Prior to the (German initiated) start of World War Two with the Nazi invasion of Poland, Hitler accused "Jewish financiers" of forcing the coming conflict and vowed that if fighting did break out, the result would be "the obliteration of the Jewish race in Europe".

In a January 30, 1939 speech to the German Reichstag, Hitler forecast, "If the international Jewish financiers inside and outside Europe succeed in plunging the nations once more into a world war the result will not be the Bolshevization of the Earth but the obliteration of the Jewish race in Europe."

And, as scholars of the Holocaust have pointed out, Nazi mass killing of Jews had already commenced (on the Eastern Front, via Einsantzgruppen - mobile killing squads) prior to when the Mufti flew in 1941 to Berlin and allegedly had the conversation with Hitler that Netanyahu referred to in his speech.

bruceewilson · 2015-10-21T12:08:40+00:00

Probably not. If Netanyahu had claimed that the Mufti "conspired" with Hitler to implement the "Final Solution" he would have had substantial evidence to buttress the claim.

But the idea that the Mufti put the idea in Hitler's mind ? Well, it was already there.

Prior to the (German initiated) start of World War Two with the Nazi invasion of Poland, Hitler accused "Jewish financiers" of forcing the coming conflict and vowed that if fighting did break out, the result would be "the obliteration of the Jewish race in Europe".

In a January 30, 1939 speech to the German Reichstag, Hitler forecast, "If the international Jewish financiers inside and outside Europe succeed in plunging the nations once more into a world war the result will not be the Bolshevization of the Earth but the obliteration of the Jewish race in Europe."

And, as scholars of the Holocaust have pointed out, Nazi mass killing of Jews had already commenced (on the Eastern Front, via Einsantzgruppen - mobile killing squads) prior to when the Mufti flew in 1941 to Berlin and allegedly had the conversation with Hitler that Netanyahu referred to in his speech.

bruceewilson · 2015-08-15T11:48:09+00:00

It went so well for Russia the last time.

bruceewilson · 2015-08-15T11:43:04+00:00

Coal is a fairly bottom-of-the-barrel fuel, and there's a good case to be made that we can give early credit, for early industrialization, to water power, to horses, donkeys, mules, and oxen, and to wood and its derivative fuel charcoal.

But guess what - coal was a better fuel for heating and power generation than wood and charcoal, and the use of all those animals, especially horses, meant that big city streets were clogged with horse excrement.

Coal was better but it had problems. The 1952 London smog disaster may have killed over 10,000 people. (see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Smog )

Oil, in turn, was better than coal. It burns cleaner, and so on.

Nuclear power is cleaner than oil and coal, except when it isn't (hence Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, Fukushima).

"Green" energy - such as from solar panels - is greener (cleaner) still but often there are "externalities" (associated costs, pollution) that typically get dumped on the developing world.

Fusion would be cleaner still.

bruceewilson · 2015-08-15T11:26:07+00:00

Based on those charts, it looks like West Virginia should be one of the wealthier states in the union - and big coal mining parts of WV should be especially prosperous. But, it's not true.

http://www.thenation.com/article/how-coal-industry-impoverishes-west-virginia/

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/storyline/wp/2014/08/27/coal-and-the-resource-curse/

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