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To: vladimir998; CynicalBear
Rummel includes 114,401 who were starved or tortured to death while waiting in prison. His theory of democide includes all such indirect deaths not just the ones who were directly murdered - or in this case, burned.

The holocaust numbers, for instance, would include people who died in the death camps due to the poor conditions, starvation, etc.

The inquisition was brutal and should not be dismissed with a hand wave.

Send your source information to Rummel.


2,714 posted on 09/10/2011 10:13:13 PM PDT by Alamo-Girl
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To: Alamo-Girl

You wrote:

“Rummel includes 114,401 who were starved or tortured to death while waiting in prison.”

For inquisition trials? That would be another example of Rummel not being a good historian. The rules of the inquisition forbade torture for any reason other than obtaining information and even then it could not result in the breaking of skin, breaking of bones, cause bleeding or permanently harm someone. Thus, no one was tortured to death in an inquisition trial.

“His theory of democide includes all such indirect deaths not just the ones who were directly murdered - or in this case, burned.”

And, as I just pointed out, it still doesn’t work. Clearly he is simply wrong.

“The holocaust numbers, for instance, would include people who died in the death camps due to the poor conditions, starvation, etc.”

Wouldn’t that be obvious? But that doesn’t help you with the central problem: Rummel’s numbers are completely wrong and are not supported by the sources. All reputable historians would agree that Rummel’s numbers regarding the inquisition are wrong. All of them.

“The inquisition was brutal and should not be dismissed with a hand wave.”

Inquisitors were rarely brutal in any way. The rare cases of torture and execution connected to inquisitional trials make that plain. Also, it was an age where what you call brutality was much more accepted than today. Did you know rick burning was a death penalty offense in 17th century France? Did you know that stealing a woman’s hankerchief in 17th century England was a death penalty crime? And if I am not mistaken, trying to kill yourself in early modern England was punished with the death penalty. Talk about the height of ironies.

“Send your source information to Rummel.”

I see no point in doing work for him since he was not able to evaluate good from bad historical works and research before. Since no one takes him seriuously as a historian - except those who are all but illiterate about history - it would do little good in any case.


2,716 posted on 09/10/2011 10:26:34 PM PDT by vladimir998
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