Posted on 04/05/2006 5:49:19 AM PDT by .cnI redruM
Academic papers posted on a Harvard Web site don't normally attract enthusiastic praise from prominent white supremacists. But John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt's "The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy" has won David Duke's endorsement as "a modern Declaration of American Independence" and a vindication of the ex-Klansman's earlier work, presumably including his pathbreaking book, "Jewish Supremacism."
Walt and Mearsheimer contend that American national security dictates distancing ourselves from the state of Israel; that U.S. support for Israel has led to such disasters as America's status as the No. 1 target for Islamic terrorists; and that such an otherwise inexplicable departure from good sense can be accounted for only by the power of "The Lobby" (their capitalization), an overwhelmingly Jewish force abetted by some Christian evangelicals and a gentile neocon collaborator or two, who have hijacked American foreign policy and controlled it for decades.
One of Mearsheimer's University of Chicago colleagues has characterized this as "piss-poor, monocausal social science." -----------------break--------
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
S. Africa was as much a democracy as early America, and it was overwhelmed by immigrants whose ancestors moved to the country because of the great opportunities created by the entreprenuership of the Afrikanners and Britons, and then agitated for the destruction of the country through terrorism.
In slurring S. Africa, you slur early America.
LOL It was hardly what we would call a shining example of democracy, with freedom of speech and freedom of the press
"In slurring S. Africa, you slur early America."
The United States is 1789 was not a democracy.
and some enlightened Americans recognized that. But now its two centuries later and standards have (correctly) evolved.
Would you justify Islamic law executing Christian converts by pointing to similar wrongs done by Christians centuries ago?
Warning! This is a high-volume ping list.
LOL It was hardly what we would call a shining example of democracy, with freedom of speech and freedom of the press
It most certainly did have normal freedoms. Anti-apartheid activists were allowed to publish and speak, and held posts in the parliament. It did not have freedom for terrorists to advocate blowing people up, but then most governments don't allow that.
The lack of universal franchise can also not be used against it unless the US pre 1870 (or rather 1920) was also not democratic.
Thank God, it still isn't. Its a Democratic Republic. But your obvious disdain of what my ancestors created is clear enough.
and some enlightened Americans recognized that.
So the Founding Fathers were "unenlightened"?
But now its two centuries later and standards have (correctly) evolved.
The "correctly" part is your own subjective judgement. There is nothing inherently wrong with how the US was originally constituted. A free people has the right to define their own form of government for themselves.
Would you justify Islamic law executing Christian converts by pointing to similar wrongs done by Christians centuries ago?
The execution of Christians for profession of the faith, from an objective view of Christianity being Truth, is always wrong and unjustifiable. From a realistic view, converts in the Muslim world should anticipate this fate, and offer their blood as seed food for the Church, just as the martyrs of Rome did.
The execution of heretics by medieval Christian authorities is an entirely different matter, since it was a matter of capital punishment for a species of treason and renunciation of oaths.
I'd say it's pretty irrational to argue that Jews control all the Christians in the Bush administration. Unless of course you think Christians like Bush and Rumsfeld are easily duped into making war.
"If this sounds personal, it is, although I am only a footnote target for Mearsheimer and Walt. I am a public intellectual and a proud Jew; sympathetic to Israel and extensively engaged in our nation's military affairs; vaguely conservative and occasionally hawkish. In a week my family will celebrate Passover with my oldest son -- the third generation to serve as an officer in the United States Army. He will be home on leave from the bomb-strewn streets of Baghdad. The patch on his shoulder is the same flag that flies on my porch.
Other supposed members of "The Lobby" also have children in military service. Impugning their patriotism or mine is not scholarship or policy advocacy. It is merely, and unforgivably, bigotry."
My favourite part of the piece is its ending.
Well, the people we gave the most money to in the fight agaisnt the Soviets were known back then to be extremely anti-western and anti-Israel. This was pretty well publicized back at the time, such that I, as a middle-schooler and high-schooler in the late 1980's, was well aware of the big mistake being made.
As to their "justly" turning their wrath on us, that result was predicted by the same people noting we were giving way too much money to anti-western groups.
My gut feeling is that these guys are only a step or two from trotting out the Rothchilds, the CFR and the Illuminati.
Ever heard of Carrol Quigley?
I might add that Alouette and Sjackson have criticized me repeatedly (as have some of my real time friends) for not being understanding enough of Israel's situation with regard for the pccupied territories - I am not exactly an apologist for our Israeli friends - but I can recognize antisemitism.
Frankly, I am not understanding at all. Realisticially, Israel either needs to adopt the Kahane solution of total expulsion (which I would view as quite immoral), or else to pull out and fence the Palestinians off. Continued grinding occupation is immoral and unjust. And like most violent and oppressive occupations in the past (Germany in Yugoslavia and Russia, France in Algeria, the British Settlers in Rhodesia, the Russians in Afghanistan, the Cubans in Angola, etc.), especially those attached to colonialist undertakings like the settlements, it has provoked a low-level guerilla war that needs only the backing of an outside power to turn into a conflagaration, and which needlessly provokes outrage among the Muslims due to their "Noble Arab Land" concepts of themselves and their countries. Israel will be far better off by simply drawing its own sensible boundaries (the current proposal is far from sensible, since it leaves Israel too narrow near Natanya), granting citizenship to those inside it, putting up a security perimeter, and immediately pulling out of the rest, leaving the remaining Palestinians to sort out their own problems. Perhaps at some point in the future, they will want to live peacefully with Israel. At the time, the fence might be opened up.
From my perspective as a Christian westerner, I am disappointed that Israel will most likely not unilaterally annex Bethlehem, but unfortunately, Israel has alienated the Christian Palestinians and made them allies of the Muslims, which seems to me, incredible, given the great advantages a "divide and conquer" strategy would have had.
Hermann is the only person I have ever encountered who considers medieval executions of heretics to be justified.
From a realistic view, converts in the Muslim world should anticipate this fate, and offer their blood as seed food for the Church, just as the martyrs of Rome did.The execution of heretics by medieval Christian authorities is an entirely different matter, since it was a matter of capital punishment for a species of treason and renunciation of oaths.
You know, in Islamic countries with Sharia law, Islam is part of the state and they make the exact same argument you are making - that Christian converts are committing a crime against the state by renouncing their commitment to Islam.
Killing someone for their religious beliefs is evil. It was evil when the Catholic church did it to Jews, it was evil when it was done to Catholics who would not renounce the Catholic church in England and it is evil today.
If that graphic was intended to mean that the Jews killed Christ then I would remind you that it was God's plan and that no human living in the l900 years had anything to do with it.
If I misunderstood your post then I apologize.
http://www.slate.com/id/2138741/
This is the same webrag that ran the essay defending Cynthia McKinney's MIHOP and LIHOP theories. The day after the Joe WIslon oped in the NY Times they ran a banner headline reading "BUSH LIED." (I haven't figured out how to make the 48pt font work on this, so I don't do Slate's propagandizing justice. let's just say you'd have to pick up an issue of Debka or VDare.com to find anything that caters to the lunatic right the way Slate caters to the moonbat left.
I agree. Good thing the authors never said that. They discuss Israel "control" of the occupied territories, and claim the Israel Lobby "controls the debate" on this topic in the US. They don't claim that the Israel Lobby controls Christians in the Bush Administration. They do claim that Israel has "Christian" allies in the Evangelical movement such as Jerry Falwell and Dick Armey, who believe in and promote the same policy that AIPAC does. I think that is self-evident from their own statements.
I take it from your posting such hysterical nonsense, that you haven't actually read the paper. Why not do so? Then you could actually know what you are discussing. And we could proceed rationally.
http://ksgnotes1.harvard.edu/Research/wpaper.nsf/rwp/RWP06-011/$File/rwp_06_011_walt.pdf
"Hermann is the only person I have ever encountered who considers medieval executions of heretics to be justified."
That is certainly the first time I've ever heard that argument made.
Yes, they did. I know what's in that screed.
The US is still, thank God, not a democracy. But I know you are using that term loosely to refer to our Democratic Republic.
You said "There is nothing inherently wrong with how the US was originally constituted. " and you also said apartheid South Africa was a shining example of democracy.
I did. South Africa and the US were constituted as moder nation-states for and by their free white inhabitants with a democratically elected Republican government with the franchise inhering in the citizens, who were also the white inhabitants. There is nothing inherently unjust about such an arrangement, unless you believe that people cannot justly govern themselves by arrangements of ethnic particularlism, but must admit to citizenship and equality any person who comes along and demands it.
I'm gonna give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you forgot about the 3/5 compromise.
Slaves were not and could not become citizens of the US, since the US was intended to be a country for white persons only. The 3/5 compromise was wrong not because slaves were not counted as whole persons in the enumeration, but because they were counted at all, seeing as they were totally excluded from membership in the nation. The South wanted them completely counted and completely excluded from citizenship, the North wantend them completely excluded on both counts.
You know, in Islamic countries with Sharia law, Islam is part of the state and they make the exact same argument you are making - that Christian converts are committing a crime against the state by renouncing their commitment to Islam.
Yes, I am aware of that. It was the same case in Roman times. The only objective difference is that Christianity is Truth, while Roman Paganism and Islam are demonic falsehood.
Killing someone for their religious beliefs is evil. It was evil when the Catholic church did it to Jews, it was evil when it was done to Catholics who would not renounce the Catholic church in England and it is evil today.
Well, I disagree with this. The implication is that religion has no material bearing on any other part of life but is purely a private interior matter, therefore it matters not a whit what a man believes, or whether he believes anything at all, and that every man should be free to believe and proselytize any believe he wishes anywhere under any circumstance, and that also therefore religion should have no bearing or influence on the external world apart from its own structures.
If on the contrary, religion is viewed as mattering a great deal, and being a matter of eternal salvation and damnation, it is quite sensible to punish people with penal sanctions who violate the peace of a community by attacking its religious basis. Furthermore, if adhering to the true religion is a matter of eternal salvation, those who attempt to turn people away from it are spiritual murderers, and could reasonably be punished for a crime that is the equivalent of soul-murder.
The first view, which you are espousing, leads to the view that those who advocate a religious basis for society must be punished or excluded, because they are a menace to the personal freedom of choice of such a society, this personal freedom of choice in matters of spiritual belief being upheld as far more valuable than the contents of those bleiefs. In this manner, the first view really is not different from the second, it simply substitutes indifferentist religious liberty for Catholicism, or Judaism, or Islam, or medieval Protestant confessional states, and commences the advocation of persecution from that premise, with the persecuted being anyone who actually takes religion seriously and wishes to see it influence society. We can see the beginnings of that here in the US with Public School Laws, Mandatory Schooling Laws, State meddling in Marriage and employment, abortion clinic protection laws such as FACE, etc.
Please provide the quote and cite the page then were they did say that.
Here's the link again to help you find it, if you can:
http://ksgnotes1.harvard.edu/Research/wpaper.nsf/rwp/RWP06-011/$File/rwp_06_011_walt.pdf
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