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From the profound and thought-provoking, back to the political and shallow. (Sorry, MarsDog!)

When the terrain doesn't correspond to the map, follow the map! Well, isn't that the very defining point of Leftism?
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"Simplistic" is a partly relative and subjective judgement and I agree it’s not very flattering. What I thought of for example was that Islam has never really had a philosophy of ethics in the way Christians and Hindus have. The Christian always asked “what is God and what does he want with my life?” All the Muslim ever asked was “what is the correct literal meaning of the Quran?”. He was tied to it since it was the literal word of God, it doesn’t problematize like Jesus does in the gospels. Hence, you are forbidden to eat pork simply because God says so, not because it has any relevance or consequence outside of itself. There is no right in itself in Islam, no transcendance, there is only, ‘if God says so you must obey’. This is echoed through the entire set up of Islam. Why do you think Islam is translated “submission”?

Yes, Christianity has had the the dogma of literal inspiration itself, most poignantly among Protestants, yet the literary corpus of Christianity is very different from that of Islam. It encompasses a thousand year tradition of written word from numerous sources and settings. From the Songs of Songs, actually consisting of ritual chants in some Semite fertility cult context, to the gospels and the philosophically condensed letter writing of Paul, all by different authors expressing varying perspectives. All of this required interpretation, and not mainly interpretation to the literal word, but of its cosmological and metaphysical significance. Of course this has also spawned numerous heresies, denounciations and conflicts regarding the true faith throughout the entire history of Christianity. If nothing else, it provoked thought, the evolvement of Scholastic philosophy, Protestantism and eventually secularization itself.

The holy scriptures of the latecomer religion Islam are entirely different. It consists largelly of the Quran and the Hadiths, the latter simply being commentary and broadening of the Quran. The Quran, written by a clansleader robber baron in the desert, is given at a single specific point in time, consists essentially of nothing but a long list of commandments, fixed and ready, with high and low, profoundness and shallowness all hopelessly jumbled together (but since they are the literal commandments of God himself, who has simply spoken through Muhammed, given equal importance).

The problem of the Muslim, in other words, while sensing the absurdities of his scripture, has always been to circumvent unagreeable aspects by finding other lines in the Quran which he could turn to his benefit, yet never to question or see beyond the scripture itself (how could God be wrong?). Or he could simply submit unquestionably to the whole by self-imposed brainwashing. This is what Quran schools do. Bottomline: Islam is a religion to make dumb people dumber, and I highly doubt that its formation, coinciding with a fix and ready military machine to conquer the world is without significance. In contrast, Christians could be said to take texts out of context and ascribing them with a metaphysical meaning originally unintended. This is particularly true for large segments of the Old Testament. That’s maybe no less of a delusion, but in my opinion the resulting cultural input is rather more creative.

Jews were often treated relatively better because of their Dhimmi status than in Christian societies. However, for Christians, Dhimmi status often meant a quite considerably worse state of affairs, with occasional outbursts of plundering and persecution. The Jews are also a fringe group, not really important to the aspect of political control in medieval times.

The 1100’s was not precisely the heyday of Islam in the western Mediterranean. In the previous century, the Cordoba caliphate was broken up into several segments where imported Berb, Slav and Arab contingents fought each other. Poetry, culture and science did flourish during this time, but like I said, it was a period of decline. In the mid 1000’s the Christian kingdoms in the north went on the offensive, taking all land north of the Tajo and recaptured the old Visigoth capital of Toledo. The Omayyad caliphate was discontinued and eventually Muslim Berbs (from Marocco) took control of Andalusia. In the 1100’s these were unsuccessful in recapturing ground lost to the Christians. They also established a severe and intolerant rule towards the Dhimmi which meant that remaining Mozarabs (Arabized Christians) fled into Christian lands. To the considerable loss of Muslim Spain, I dare say. The Berbs even failed to consolidate their rule in relation to the native Muslim population, soon making them their enemies.
I find it hard to accommodate these events to some highly civilized and tolerant court in Marrocco, but allright, I don’t know everything.

And prior to the 1000’s breakup of the Cordoba caliphate, in the late 900’s, there was of course the orthodox Muslim dictator al-Mansur, figuring at a time when the Omayyad caliphs had largelly lost power to their First Ministers. In an attempt to reafirm the strength of Islam he widely persecuted the Christians, burnt the philosophical writings of the caliph’s library and destroyed the basilica of Santiago de Compostela.

Neither were the days of the Muslim conquest of Spain in the early 700’s, when the Muslims were really resolute and agile, a very tolerant era. The relative tolerance and cultural flowering came with consolidation and complacency. I believe this outlines somewhat of a rule in Muslim societies. Cultural achievement is because of others, generally conquered peoples, and tolerance occurs when the Muslims themselves are lax and more opted to pursue the wealth and flowering of life rather than expanding Islam.

As for Muslim Fundamentalism, to put it crudely, there is really no such thing. Fundamentalist Islam is Islam taken seriously.

This isn't exactly true. According to figures I've seen, Sweden has a higher rate of violent crimes per capita than New York City, which is about the same population size. Regrettably.

You could probably call the EU an empire if it works out, but built on voluntary basis, not subjection. I think that for it to function well you need a combination of centralized power in Brussels, controlling all issues that are of continental importance while leaving the rest to national home rule. Europe today is a little bit of the opposite. A rather weak power structure with too many cooks, often pursuing irrational policies, trying to control everything.

Then there is economic policy. I am of the opinion that a given power area needs to base its economical development on the home market, which in turn requires protectionism and an emphasis on relative autarchy. That's the way the US became an economic superpower. The new Europe will cover the entire spectrum of resources needed to establish a similar autarchy and homemarket-driven development. Yes, I guess that's somewhat fourth reichish, if the expression is allowed. However, the political elite (and even their leftist radical children) tend to be free-trade advocates and open border globalists. Not very promising in my opinion, although I still think, and sincerely hope, that Europa has the potential to become a very major player.

There seems to be a continual attitude problem in the United States, which reveals itself in passages like this. It can use its satellites for military purposes and does so on a regular basis, yes? Then it's rather imprudent not to expect and accept that everyone else will do the same.

Yeah, I know... (thanks for telling me).

I simply can't believe that you wrote what you just did. In fact, female circumsition is something that I could have gone to war over. Never mind the oil in Iraq. It's a barbaric, painful, disgusting, mentally retarded, degrading custom that deprives females of the experience of being human. In short, it's despicable. Do you have any idea what a child must feel having to go through this? Personally, I'd rather be dead.

Yeah, sure. Just wonder why it's those nicely mannered liberals who can write poetry who seem totally devoid of any human empathy.

That's because American Conservatism has been infiltrated and taken over by a body that is not Conservative at all, but rather has its background in Liberalism and Trotskyism and the American public haven't noticed.

You should look here:
http://www.amconmag.com/]http://www.amconmag.com/

I'm not sure what to answer since I'm not sure what Rivkin is after.
Got any context for it?

I don't believe there is any difference here. Maybe we value the pretensions of the individual less and the needs of the community more. At least if we take Kant seriously?

Part of the problem here is that widely unrelated issues are being dealt with as aspects of the same.
I can concede as much as that a successful integration of Europe will entail the formation of an independent foreign policy in which America will not "take a lead". But why would you expect anything else? We are not your slaves who need you to lead the way, in fact we were your parent.

When it comes to the present dissanance however, you must understand that this is simply because the European public are reacting to all the crazy moves that have been taken since 9/11. It has nothing to do with Europe believing itself to be "beating" you and therefore can dump America in some way to exemply that shift. We are much too timid for that. Least of all do Europeans have any particular confidence in its own present elite and federal power structure. It may happen anyway that a line will be drawn across the Atlantic of course, but it is not in some willful and sinister way sought after. Regime change in Washington would clear out most of our difficulties. (Yes, that is easier said than done, since not even Kerry probably would have had enough room to maneuver, given all the guarantees he had to look after, if that ever was his intention.)

It is true we do not have the cultural and anachronistic anomaly that the Evangelicals represent, in fact we shipped them all over to you. :;): Europe has changed a lot since then while these Bible thumpers that so readily can be exploited for widely differing goals obviously have not. Yet, we have our own problems of PC power structures and cognitive dissonance. I'm very doubtful at the moment that the European superpower to be will turn out very well, if at all. Those in power presently are globalists and oldtimers of the passive Cold War era, and as long as they prevail, Europe will not in my opinion achieve a voice of its own. To be truthful, this whole unification business wasn't even our idea. Basically, we are all tied up in the same net, and as we rattle the strings in antagonistical swings, the powers that are might well be just sitting back smirking at the whole spectacle.

Believe it or not, my main enemy is my own government, not the cowboy in the White House on the other side of the ocean, although I think it's deeply deplorable that the Unites States so frivoulously plays with the fate of the world, maiming all those people in the process, because of ignorance or whatever, not to say the fate of our entire culture. What will happen the day you wake up and discover you have been fooled from the start, that the emperor never had any clothes?

Gawd, am I in a dramatic mood today...

Ah, don't believe it...

This document is full of propaganda. I believe the issue of the death penalty is about as contested in Europe as it is in America, if you actually care to listen to what people think. That the elites are not allowed to dissent about denouncing it is a whole different matter entierly.

And why should banning it necessarily be a good thing? Why is "universalism" considered a good thing right out of hand? I don't think so. I think it's a profoundly false philosophy with fearful consequences, although the loud-speakers that are brainwashing the populace everyday from school age to the newspaper editorials are constantly telling me it's an integral part of "democracy". By the way, isn't universalism precisely what the regime behind Bush stands for?

It might be that Europe keeps the edge in some areas and that living standards are better in some respects, whatever remains of the welfare state, but don't worry, globalization, neo-liberal downsizing and cultural-demographical transformation will at least see to equalizing that.
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"Back up?" Heh, walking on dangerous ground here... Guess it was just my reckless way of saying that we shouldn't draw conclusions based on oversimplification or culturally percieved notions.

Allright, never heard that myself, though. You know some net source that's non-conspiracy related?

Well, I am not an expert on Freemasonry, but to suggest that the obelisk in front of St. Peter's, the ones brought home by the Roman emperors or as a grave monument on any churchyard has something to do with Freemasonry is, well, nuts.

Nah... Freud is wrong. Just because something is a elongated and raised it doesn't imply it has to represent a phallos. Contrary to popular opinion, the male psyche doesn't operate like that.

About obelisks:

http://egipto.com/obeliscos/histo2.html … isto2.html

I wouldn't rule out obelisks couldn't have been used in a fertilty function somehow, somewhere. In fact, I have a weak memory of an Old Testament line where obelisks are mentioned in connection with the smashing a temple to Baal, but if so that's in Palestine, an anti-Canaanite or internal Hebrew affair and thus fringe. They could also have been used as a magical protection of the sacred grounds, just like in Egypt, although Baal is a Semite god(s). The Egyptians themselves do of course link obelisks to the sun god Ra and the act of creation, so in a very early and primitive stage, who knows, yet, in a general sense... no, creator deities are seldom fertility gods, they are rather either otiosi or bringers/upholders of order, and the Romans most definitely didn't regard the obelisk as a fertilty symbol. Did they wish to dramatize the chtonian and orgiastic they would turn to Venus, Cybele, Isis and Ishtar etc and make use of similar cults.

The Illuminati as far as I know, was an organization created by a certain former Jesuit priest by the name of Adam Weishaupt (+ 1830) that flourished in the late 18th and early 19th century Bavaria.

Yes, it probably was everything you might demand from a covert organization trying to impose Enlightenment and encyclopaedic philosophy upon an unsuspecting world, and it did also connect to the more powerful and moderate Masons of its day.

However, it seems to have been rather locally confined and following (or despite) harsh prohibition by the Bavarian authorities, the order petered out during the first half of the 19th century, obviously without ever recruiting very many prominent members. It was revived in 1880 by Freemasons who settled in Berlin in 1907, and I believe that, at least not so long ago, it still lingered on in a withering and inconsequential state.

I could of course be wrong and deluded, but this is what my rather outspoken, 1920's encyclopedia tells me.

The eyed pyramid on the dollar bill, I'm not even sure actually is a symbol of Freemasonry. It was used as an Enlightenment symbol during the French revolution, of that much I'm certain. I've seen it myself on propaganda posters.

Also, I believe the correct translation would be 'New World Order' ("Novus Ordo Sec{u}lorum"), yet I'll admit my Latin is a little rusty. If it is a general Enlightenment symbol, its use by US founding fathers should surprise no one.

I've encountered these strange theories about obelisks and star patterns before around here somewhere. It seems rather out of context. The obelisk was an important religious symbol in ancient Egypt connected to the worship of the benevolent Sun God.

The Romans, the new sun of the world, over time deemed it appropriate to bring a number of obelisks to Rome as a sign of their importance, splendour and and probably because of their generally sympathethic attitude towards foreign cults. Not that they took religious matters all that seriously. I believe the first one was brought to Rome by Augustus and was intended to be used as a giant solar clock. It now stands in the Piazza del Popolo, by the way.

The Renaissance and latter popes, who shared the caesars' taste for great architecture and were infatuated with everything from Antiquity, revived the tradition of raising obelisks. Although, they needn't go to Egypt to get them like the promoters of this conspiracy theory believe (in fact, they wouldn't have had the resources to do so) but used those that lay around here and there among the the ruins of the city. The one in Piazza San Pietro was taken from the nearby Circus of Hadrian. It's interesting because originally it is said to have carried a globe containing the remains of some famous emperor (currently don't remember which). However, this was removed, most likely because it was considered too pagan to adorn the front of the new St. Peter's. Nowadays it sports a cross. Can't really see how that would indicate some ancient Baal or Moloch cult or whatever is claimed.

In the same vein, the obelisk in Washington and the one in Paris (I believe) simply reflects the continued reverence for Classicism.

Likewise, to suggest that geometrical patterns in city squares etc would have some sinister occult meaning appears to me quite peculiar. Piazza San Pietro should according to these guys be of satanic importance because of its eight spoked wheel configuration. It could just as well imply that the pope is a Buddhist.

There are many conspiracy theories out there. Some more plausible, some less so and a bunch that appear utterly ridiculous. For some reason though, it seems the last type habitually draws the largest crowds. Maybe they exist solely to detract attention from the very real conspiracies of the world, pursued diligently by secretive powers that are.
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