An Israeli responds
A guest post by Alifa Saadya

I am an Israeli, a freethinking but observant Jew with an interest in religious studies.I find the article, "The Virtue of Hate," by Meir Soloveitchik troubling [I cited the article here - DS]. First: the issue of forgiveness raised by the story from Elie Wiesel's The Sunflower.

What does forgiveness consist of? And what is its timing?

I am of the opinion, based on harsh personal experience, that sometimes "forgiveness" consists of allowing a person to be who and what he is. I believe firmly in what some will call "divine justice" or perhaps the "law of karma." Our actions have consequences, and we will ultimately face those consequences. I do not see this as some mechanistic reward-and-punishment issue. Nevertheless, in order to stay sane and to relinquish drifting into hatred, I have to believe, that for example, the Arab who murdered my friend will face some sort of judgment. When it comes to crimes, God has called on all humankind (not just Jews) to institute courts of law, but Judaism always recognized that beyond the courts of this world there is also a heavenly court. In my faith is that ultimate court, I do not have to waste my energy hating evildoers here on earth. I only have to defend myself when necessary, and hope to bring them to earthly justice when possible.

I really think it is unfair and prejudicial to expect anyone who has suffered much at the hands of other human beings to suddenly open up and say the magic words "I forgive you." Too many people think that "forgiveness" also means the end of the consequences of someone's actions. I do not. My Catholic friends point out to me that recognizing that a sin or crime has been committed, remorse, and some mechanism of asking for forgiveness is but the first step. There is still the punishment due for the act committed, and one of the reasons the priests used to assign prayers of penance or good deeds to be done or other actions after giving absolution is that these acts done out of true repentance may mitigate the degree of God's just punishment. The point is: only God can determine the correct "punishment" and in leaving that up to God, we are "forgiving" the evildoer, and refusing to feed the emotional overload that harmful acts bring about.

Jews believe that we as human beings are responsible for our actions; we have to have the courage to say, "I sinned," and we have to do what we can to make up for our faults. If I stole a book from the library, I must return it and pay the fine; but when you are speaking of someone who is dying and has committed heinous crimes, what can anyone do but leave that person to God? Of what use to the criminal would be the forgiveness of an anonymous Jew, who is not even the one he specifically harmed? Let the criminal find his own forgiveness in some other world of being.

Walking out, I think, was the only reasonable action possible.

Second:

The story of Samson in the article is here used as an example of vengefulness. Well! Samson is hardly a character Jews would wish to emulate. The times of the book of Judges were the "wild, wild East" and you might say that Samson's "good deed" lay merely in the fact that he destroyed idols --- idol worship being in Jewish eyes the worst sin.

I get really upset when "Old Testament" accounts of vengeance are brought up --- often this is merely an attempt to defame Jews of today.

Vengeance, just incidentally, is specifically forbidden in Leviticus 19:17. Look it up. It's the verse that ends with "you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord." Jews teach that when God "signs" a commandment with "I am the Lord" it means it's especially important. And that old "eye for an eye" thing is about making just compensation
for damages: the Jewish world by the time of Jesus had already figured out that you can't create physical damage on the criminal equal to what harm he caused in the first place.

I do not see hate as any kind of "virtue," and what's worse, I think that Soloveitchik feeds into the misconceptions that antisemites and ignorant people are continually ascribing to Judaism. The wicked need to be brought to justice if that is possible; but there is no virtue in hatred.

Soloveitchik writes:

There is, in fact, no minimizing the difference between Judaism and Christianity on whether hate can be virtuous. Indeed, Christianity's founder acknowledged his break with Jewish tradition on this matter from the very outset: "You have heard that it was said, 'You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I
say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous. . . . Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect."

God, Jesus argues, loves the wicked, and so must we. In disagreeing, Judaism does not deny the importance of imitating God; Jews hate the wicked because they believe that God despises the wicked as well.

There is an instructive story in the Talmud about this very subject. I 'm sorry that I have no way to look up the source right now. The famous Rabbi Meir was accosted by some thugs, and was ready to curse them, but his wife, Bruria reminded him that we are to hate the sin, but not the sinner. And in addition, many Christians on reading that quote from the New Testament assume that the phrase "hate your enemy" is to be found in the Old Testament. In fact, it is not there, and scholars are uncertain if it was merely a saying (perhaps common in one of the political movements with which Jesus was familiar) or a text.

In fact, in my acquaintance with many committed Christians, I have discovered that they wrestle continually with the implications of forgiveness, the necessity of forgiving, and the mechanics of doing so. Corrie ten Boom, who with her family rescued many Jews during the Holocaust, recounted how difficult it was for her to forgive a German nurse whom she felt had contributed to the death of her beloved and deeply spiritual sister. Eventually, Corrie found the path to forgiving the nurse only after the woman converted to Christianity. No one who knows the deep religious conviction that Corrie had, could doubt her account of the struggle she had to reach the point of forgiving.

I find Soloveitchik's article offensive and misleading, and it's an embarrassment to me as a Jew to read it.

by Donald Sensing, 8/31/2003 07:41:44 AM. Permalink |   

Loving one's enemies
True stories

I previously said I would post a response about forgiveness is response to Joe Katzman's comments that were in turn respondent to an article in First Things by Rabbi Meir Y. Soloveichik, pursuing his Ph.D. at Harvard.

Joe's post is here, the link to the article is here. It's called, "The Virtue of Hate." An illustration:

Among Orthodox Jews, there is an oft–used Hebrew phrase whose equivalent I have not found among Christians. The phrase is yemach shemo, which means, may his name be erased. It is used whenever a great enemy of the Jewish nation, of the past or present, is mentioned. For instance, one might very well say casually, in the course of conversation, “Thank God, my grandparents left Germany before Hitler, yemach shemo, came to power.”

This is a compellingly thoughtful article, and the rabbi author does recognize and describe very well the difference between Judaism and Christianity in their approaches to forgiveness.

Soloveichik begins with this story.

In his classic Holocaust text, The Sunflower, Simon Wiesenthal recounts the following experience. As a concentration camp prisoner, the monotony of his work detail is suddenly broken when he is brought to the bedside of a dying Nazi. The German delineates the gruesome details of his career, describing how he participated in the murder and torture of hundreds of Jews. Exhibiting, or perhaps feigning, regret and remorse, he explains that he sought a Jew—any Jew—to whom to confess, and from whom to beseech forgiveness. Wiesenthal silently contemplates the wretched creature lying before him, and then, unable to comply but unable to condemn, walks out of the room. Tortured by his experience, wondering whether he did the right thing, Wiesenthal submitted this story as the subject of a symposium, including respondents of every religious stripe. An examination of the respective replies of Christians and Jews reveals a remarkable contrast. “When the first edition of The Sunflower was published,” writes Dennis Prager, “I was intrigued by the fact that all the Jewish respondents thought Simon Wiesenthal was right in not forgiving the repentant Nazi mass murderer, and that the Christians thought he was wrong.”

In contrast, I offer for your consideration the remarkable story of Nazi Oberst Herbert Kappler and Monsignor Hugh O'Flaherty of the Vatican's diplomatic staff.

Like Wiesenthal's account, this is a true story.

In Rome in World War II, Nazi Gestapo Colonel Herbert Kappler was responsible for rounding up escaped Allied prisoners and for destroying the Italian partisans. It was also his job to round up Jews and send them to Germany for slave labor. Later, the Jews were killed in concentration camps after they became too weak to work. The Wisenthal Center describes him thus:

Kappler was responsible for deporting approximately 10,000 Italian Jews. He also murdered 335 Italians in retaliation for a partisan bomb which had killed 33 Germans in 1944.

Kappler had been hand-picked for this job by none other than Reichsfuhrer Heinrich Himmler because of Kappler had brutally, successfully suppressed the Belgian underground. In Rome, Kappler sent the Gestapo into the streets to enforce his will; any who resisted were often gunned down on the spot. Kappler himself put a bullet through the head of a Catholic priest who had been captured carrying messages for the partisans.

The greatest obstacle to Kappler's work was an underground railroad, managed out of Rome, which was concealing more than 4,000 allied escapees (mostly downed allied airmen) and Jews. They were hidden in the city, the countryside or infiltrated north to Switzerland. While Kappler was very successful in rounding up Italian Jews outside Rome, he was able to capture only 1,007 of the 9,700 Roman Jews. The rest were exfiltrated or hidden by a Roman underground.

The key figure in this underground railroad was an Irish priest of the Vatican's diplomatic service, Monsignor Hugh O'Flaherty. Colonel Kappler greatly hated Father O'Flaherty. O'Flaherty coordinated the humanitarian effort by arranging financing and hideouts. He often physically escorted his charges part of the way on their journey. Kappler could not arrest O'Flaherty because O'Flaherty was a citizen of Vatican City, not Rome. And Vatican City was off limits by order of Hitler himself.

One day, however, Kappler determined that O'Flaherty was too dangerous merely to be arrested. Kappler determined to seize him and make him disappear. O'Flaherty was warned of the plot by none other than the German ambassador to Italy, enabling O'Flaherty barely to escape.

Kappler soon afterward sent a pair of disguised assassins into a Roman church to kill O'Flaherty as he prayed, but O'Flaherty eluded them. Kappler then posted snipers at various places around the Vatican with orders to shoot O'Flaherty immediately upon his departure, even by a single foot, outside the limits of the Vatican.

This could not stop O'Flaherty. He evaded the eyes of the Germans and made his way out of Vatican City to continue his work, disguised as a laborer or perhaps a shopkeeper. When Kappler captured another priest, O'Flaherty dressed in the uniform of a German officer and boldly walked into the prison to give his friend confession before he was executed. Kappler's frustration and fury grew and he intensified his efforts to capture O'Flaherty and destroy the partisans and their network.

The night came when O'Flaherty's luck ran out. One evening as he lay in bed, Kappler's aide, dressed in priestly robes, entered his room and placed a pistol to his temple. He commanded O'Flaherty to come with him. He took O'Flaherty to the Coliseum, dark and foreboding. A figure loomed ahead. In a moment O'Flaherty could see it was Col. Kappler.

Kappler spoke first. "I know about you," he said. "People have told me you can't pass a beggar without giving him money, that you will help anyone, Americans, British, Jews, Arabs, all the same. They say you believe in brotherly love."

O'Flaherty regarded the Nazi with suspicion and disdain. "It's why I became a priest," he replied. "What do you want?"

"The American Army is closing on Rome now," replied Kappler. "It won't take them long to get here. As you know, my wife and family are here. There is no German transport to take them back home. If the partisans capture them, they will kill them. I want you to get them to safety. You know how!"

O'Flaherty was stunned. His rage welled up inside him and he shouted, "No! It is too much to ask! You have sent thousands of families to their deaths, but now you want me to save yours! No! It is the reward of your evil! I will not do it!" O'Flaherty turned and walked away.

Kappler shouted after him, "It's all a lie! Your God, love, mercy-all lies! You're no different from anyone else!"

The Allies later captured Col. Kappler. The interrogator shocked Kappler by asking him, "Colonel, we know you have set up infiltration routes in and out of Rome. Who got your family to Switzerland? Tell us and it will go easier for you at your trial." Stunned, Kappler stammered that he did not know who got his family out.

After the war, Monsignor O'Flaherty was honored by the Allied governments. He was awarded the U.S. Medal of Freedom and was made a Knight Commander of the British Empire. Colonel Kappler was sentenced as a war criminal to life in prison. He served his time in Gaeta prison, between Rome and Naples.

In all the years he was imprisoned, Kappler had only one visitor. Every month, year after year, Monsignor Hugh O'Flaherty visited Herbert Kappler in his cell. In 1959, after almost 14 years of visiting, O'Flaherty baptized Kappler into the church.
_________________________________

The commandment of Christ to love one's enemies and pray for them is not an order to feel affection for them in one's heart. It is a command to treat them in a way that is intended to lead them into righteousness before God. This is not a matter of moonlit nights and violin music. It is almost always unpleasant to do, and difficult.

Not only Christians can forgive, and not all Christians do. But I think I am on pretty safe ground saying that only Christianity holds that forgiveness is a special obligation of its adherents.

by Donald Sensing, 8/30/2003 10:20:18 AM. Permalink |   

Heat wave may be worst natural disaster in French history
It has killed more than 11,000 people in the first two weeks of August. That's a conservative estimate.

by Donald Sensing, 8/30/2003 09:27:06 AM. Permalink |   

This girl and her mom really need to get a life
"A Westmoreland County [Pa.] cheerleader is taking her school to court, claiming a demotion has irreparably harmed her." link

by Donald Sensing, 8/30/2003 09:24:58 AM. Permalink |   

The Najaf bombing
Grim's Hall has some interesting observations, including the idea that the Shia Iranians were behind the bomb that killed Shiite cleric Baqir al-Hakim.

Al-Hakim was one of the most important Shi'ites in Iraq, the leader of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution, and brother to one of the members of the US-backed Governing Council, Abdel-Aziz al-Hakim.

. . . another possibility exists also: that it is the work of forces from Iran, trying to destroy a powerful Shi'ite organization that has been increasingly willing to work with the United States.

Possibly, but Grim also says it is less likely the work of Iran than Baathists.

by Donald Sensing, 8/29/2003 10:07:14 PM. Permalink |   

California public schools promoting Islam, group charges
The left-of-center Americans United for Separation of Church and State has written the superintendent of the Byron Union School District, somewhere in California, informing him that a school's curriculum "to teach students 'about' religion, crossed the legal line and must be discontinued."

Americans United for Separation of Church and State has contacted school officials in California, raising legal questions about a seventh-grade class in which students were asked to adopt Muslim names, dress in Islamic clothing and memorize Islamic prayers.

Americans United's letter said that while "teaching students about the world's religions, including Islam, is a laudable goal," the plan to require students actually to carry out Muslim acts of worship cross the line.

Which of course it does. Just imagine that the school was instead requiring students to act out Christian baptism or receive the Eucharist. (hat tip: LeanLeft)


by Donald Sensing, 8/29/2003 09:57:33 PM. Permalink |   

Affirmative action for dolls
My wife is the director of a preschool and pre-Kindergarten run by a local United Methodist Church (not mine). Every year her school is inspected by the state's regulatory and licensing agencies. If the school does not pass the inspections, it can be closed by the state. There are a lot of different inspections at the school year's beginning.

Please note that this is a private pre-school.

Today she went shopping in preparation for an inspection coming up this week. It was for a doll. She told me that the state licensing agency requires that her school have three dolls of at least two different races.

Of course the school may have more than three dolls, but it may not violate the "two races per three dolls" ratio.

Do you think that mandating affirmative action for dolls is a permissible power of government? The state can close the school for not having an approved racial mix of dolls! Leave a comment.

Update: I am reminded of Steven Den Beste's observation that the job of bureaucrats is to regulate, and left to themselves they will try to regulate everything.

by Donald Sensing, 8/29/2003 08:04:11 PM. Permalink |   

This is the key thing
Josh Claybourn writes about Christian duty and taxes, a topic I have been outlining for a post myself.

It seems the governor of Alabama has been seeking to raise taxes based on an understanding of Christian ethics. His quest is being advised by Univ. of Alabama law Professor Susan Hamill, who spent some time in Tennessee recently claiming a connection bewteen her idea of a just tax structure and biblical teaching.

Says Josh,

Some Christians look to Acts 4:32-37 as evidence that the Bible endorses socialism, or a system like it. But there is a strong difference between voluntarily giving your plurality to those in need, as they did in Acts, and government mandated coercion.

And that is a key point. (Hamill published a paper in the Alabama Law Review with an explanation of her legal theology of taxation.)

Question: The governor of the state explicitly claims that higher taxes is a "Christian duty" of Alabama's citizens. Why does not some Alabaman challenge the tax hike on the First Amendment's establishment clause?

After all, if the Chief Justice of the state's Supreme Court can't display the Ten Commandments, how can the state's governor be allowed to shape tax policy explicitly upon Christianity?

by Donald Sensing, 8/29/2003 07:28:15 PM. Permalink |   

Why the Left loves immigrants
. . . whether legal or illegal. Rich Lowry explains succintly that once upon a time, halting illegal immigration would have been a principal cause of American liberals. Case in point: the late Barbara Jordan, "one of the great liberal voices of the past three decades, [who] called for cutting back on immigration in the 1990s."

Immigration, whether legal or illegal, depresses jobs and wages for lower-income citizens. Raising low wages for working Americans used to be a foremost concern of liberals, but,

On the left today, multiculturalism trumps all, and instead of higher wages, liberals prefer to give low-income Americans political correctness.

But what motivates the Right in permitting uncontrolled immigration? Do they want the cheap labor, even when it runs the risk of politically alienating lower-income American voters? I must confess I just don't get it.


by Donald Sensing, 8/29/2003 05:47:34 PM. Permalink |   

Space aliens are football fans!
Last night the mysterious space aliens who form crop circles landed in a field in the Aemrican West and corn-cut a paean of praise to retired Denver Broncos quarterback John Elway. The crop image is of Elway hoisting a trophy over his head.



So the space aliens are Broncos fans. And they call themselves an "advanced" civilization. Hah!

by Donald Sensing, 8/29/2003 02:12:20 PM. Permalink |   

I gotta get me one of these!
A church member of mine asked me last night how long I thought it would be before Judge Moore's 2.5-ton monument of the Ten Commandments would wind up on eBay. Ha, ha!

It's not there yet, but you can get your very own Ten Commandments necktie!



Click the image to bid! (No, it's not my auction.)

Update: As Barry noted in his comment, a replica of the Alabama monument is indeed on eBay.

by Donald Sensing, 8/29/2003 02:01:19 PM. Permalink |   

Where I stand
My two "thought experiment" posts yesterday about the Ten Commandments and the statue of Athena in Nashville's Parthenon building garnered a lot of commentary, most of it good, and no few links, for which I am always grateful. I was not taking a personal position in the posts so much as thinking about some new angles in the debates about religion and state.

For the record, here are my positions on both:

The Commandments have been removed and should have been removed.

The statue of Athena should stay (there is no legal action about it at all). But I also think that if someone were to mount a legal challenge against it, the city of Nashville would not be able successfully to defend it.

A good commentary on the Commandments was released this morning by Tom Teepen, writing for Cox newspapers:

. . . the claim has been repeatedly made that the Ten Commandments are (choose one) the source, foundation, bedrock, cornerstone of American law and therefore deserve standing in the public, and specifically the political, arena.

This assertion would be a strong point in favor of their government-sanctioned promotion, with history trumping church-state separation, except for the awkward fact that it isn't true.

American law overwhelmingly derives, as you would imagine, from English common law and especially from Sir William Blackstone's magisterial "Commentaries On the Law of England," a legal best-seller in the crucial period when the American Revolution was gestating.

And all that in turn owes more than a little to Roman law, particularly to its seminal Twelve Tables that codified customary law, and to the Germanic Code that followed it. Somewhere way back there, the Ten Commandments played into the stream of thought that became western jurisprudence, but then so did Hammurabi's Code from Babylonia and the civil law of ancient Greek city-states.

Which is a fuller version of what I wrote here:

I personally think that the Ten Commandments are very poor examples of religious legal precedent for America. The idea that there is some reasonably direct link from the Decalogue to American jurisprudence is a huge stretch, IMO.

Fact is that even Church law owes more to Roman law than to the Hebraic tradition.

The religious right's emotional attachment to displays of the Ten Commandments really sort of baffles me, anyway. We Christians consider ourselves inheritors of the New Covenant prophesied by the major Jewish prophet Jeremiah, and fulfilled in the person and work of Jesus Christ. The section of Jeremiah in which he prophesies the New Covenant is Jer. 31:23-40. Verse 33 seems particularly relevant:

"This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after that time," declares the LORD. "I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people.

Of what value to American jurisprudence or Christian faithfulness is displaying a stone monument of the Ten Commandments? The law of the Lord is supposed to be written on our hearts! And what is the Law of the New Covenant? According to the apostle Paul, in his letter to the church in Rome:

The commandments, "Do not commit adultery," "Do not murder," "Do not steal," "Do not covet," and whatever other commandment there may be, are summed up in this one rule: "Love your neighbor as yourself." Love does no harm to its neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law (Romans 13: 9-10).

If Alabama or any other state wishes to acknowledge divine law as a foundation for its own code and society, I can't think of any better example. But I suppose it not judgmental enough for some people.

by Donald Sensing, 8/29/2003 01:54:23 PM. Permalink |   

Gunman on loose in south Nashville, shots fired
A gunman entered a business called Electric Picture Company on Logan Street in Nashville a short time ago. Shots were fired. The SWAT team is on the scene and reported to be inside the building. Developing . . . .

Update: Everyone is out of the building except for the gunman and one employee. Police spokesman Don Aaron said that they have reason to believe the gunman was looking for a woman with whom he had had a relationship.

Update 2: Aaron just said that one employee of the company is dead. The SWAT team has not apprehended the gunman yet.

Update 3: Just announced that the gunman, Thomas Edgar Harrison, shot himself to death and was found by the SWAT team.

by Donald Sensing, 8/29/2003 12:50:38 PM. Permalink |   

My computer is croaking this morning
So I'll be back after I get it fixed.

Update: Seems to have been the CPU cooling fan gone bad. Warranty replacement and I'm back in business.

by Donald Sensing, 8/29/2003 08:54:22 AM. Permalink |   

State-sponsored paganism
Is it time for equal protection to have some real bite?

I wrote that Alabama Judge Roy Moore’s reasoning about displaying the Ten Commandments is grievously flawed. Even so, his primary question does strike to the heart of the matter: “Can the state acknowledge God?”

There is a long-standing history of judicial rulings that the answer is, “No.” In the 1960s, federal courts ruled that no public school may sponsor prayer. Just a couple of years ago, the US Supreme Court ruled that one-minute “open mike” times in a Texas district just before high-school football games - when students, chosen by students, could say whatever they wanted - was unconstitutional not because students were praying during the minute, but because one might pray.

Not only that, but the open-mike time was challenged by a plaintiff before it had even been done the first time. The offense claimed, that a student might pray, was in fact wholly imaginary. No student had prayed because no student had even spoken yet.

So when Judge Moore’s supporters protest that the judicial history of rulings and public policy relevant to religion-state matters is slanted against Christians, I am unable to disagree. Consider two examples:

In elementary school in Fairfax County, Va., my sons were taught in class to make construction-paper representations of Jewish menorahs in December, which were then stapled to class and school bulletin boards. But no student or teacher was permitted to post even a picture of Santa Claus or a Christmas tree because those things were “religious” (read, Christian?).

A public school teacher told me this week that she is required to stop instruction in her class three times per day so the single Muslim student in her class may leave the room to recite his prayers in another part of the school. She is not permitted to continue teaching while he was gone because “it would be discriminatory.”

Equal protection under the law? I think not. If the people are to be protected from expressions of Christian religion, then they must also be protected from expressions of non-Christian religion.

So this statue must be torn down and removed from a public park owned and operated by the city government of Nashville, Tenn.:



This is a statue of the goddess Athena of ancient Greek religion. It stands inside a full-scale replica of the ancient Temple of Athena, The Parthenon, in Nashville’s Centennial Park. The statue of Athena is 41 feet, 10 inches tall, weighs 12 tons and was built inside the Parthenon building from 1982 to 1990. The Parthenon itself was built in 1920.

Athena was one of the pantheon of Greek pagan gods and goddesses of ancient times, the patroness of the city of Athens. This statue is overtly religious. Athena had no identity in ancient Greek religion except as a divine being.

An argument that the Parthenon and the statue are principally of historical value, not religious, fails for two reasons.

First, because in years past attempts by Christian groups to have the Ten Commandments displayed in court houses as historical references have been rejected by the courts and disallowed.

Second, the city of Nashville claims no historical connection with ancient Greek religion. The city does not claim that Athena specifically or pagan practice generally figure into Nashville’s jurisprudence, development or history.

So, questions for you, gentle readers:

Do you agree that if the Alabama Supreme Court may not display the Jewish and Christian Ten Commandments in its lobby because it would constitute state sponsorship of religion?

If so, do you also agree that the construction of a replica of a pagan temple on government land, using public money, in which sits a 12-ton, gilded statue of a pagan goddess, contracted for and maintained by the Nashville government, is equally unacceptable? If not, why not, and on what legal basis would you disallow the former and not the latter?

In your heart of hearts - be honest! - do you support a “wall of separation” between religion and the state, or only between the church and the state? Why?

Please leave a comment with your answers, if you care.

Endnote: Centennial Park was built by Nashville in 1897 to host the exposition of the 100th anniversary of Tennessee’s statehood. It was a time in America of high interest in classical civilization. A replica of the Parthenon was built on the present site for the exposition, but it did not include a statue. The structure was intended to be torn down after the exposition, but it proved so popular that it remained in the park. It was replaced in 1920 with the present, permanent structure, an exact replica of the original temple on the acropolis in Athens, and so certified by the Greek government. As I said, only in 1982 did the city take the decision to erect the statue of Athena.

by Donald Sensing, 8/28/2003 09:36:47 AM. Permalink |   

Thought experiments about the Ten Commandments
Questions for Judge Roy Moore, the Alabama legislature and federal Judge Myron Thompson

Alabama’s Chief Justice Roy Moore has achieved international notoriety for placing a granite monument of the Ten Commandments in the lobby of the state’s Supreme Court building. By federal court order, the monument was removed yesterday despite the defiance of Moore and protestors supporting him.

Moore had a piece in OpinionJournal this week explaining his position. He wrote that the issue in the case is not the monument itself, nor even the Decalogue itself, but simply one question: “Can the state acknowledge God?”

We must acknowledge God in the public sector because the state constitution explicitly requires us to do so. The Alabama Constitution specifically invokes "the favor and guidance of Almighty God" as the basis for our laws and justice system. As the chief justice of the state's supreme court I am entrusted with the sacred duty to uphold the state's constitution. I have taken an oath before God and man to do such, and I will not waver from that commitment.

By telling the state of Alabama that it may not acknowledge God, [federal] Judge [Myron] Thompson effectively dismantled the justice system of the state.

I am not a lawyer, but if this and the rest of Moore’s piece are typical examples of his legal reasoning, then he is certainly correct that Alabama needs the favor and guidance of God, especially in cases he touches.

The invocation of God’s guidance Moore cites is in the preamble to the Alabama Constitution:

We, the people of the State of Alabama, in order to establish justice, insure domestic tranquility and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, invoking the favor and guidance of Almighty GOD, do ordain and establish the following Constitution and form of government for the State of Alabama:

It’s an awfully long step from a general declaration beseeching God to favor to the state’s people to using the preamble as specific authority for the specific display of the Ten Commandments.

Moore asserts that the US Constitution does not grant to the federal government, including the federal judiciary, the authority to tell the state government of Alabama that it may not acknowledge God in the conduct of its public business.

But Chief Justice Roy Moore is not, to borrow a phrase, “the controlling legal authority” for whether or how the Alabama state government may invoke "the favor and guidance of Almighty God" in the state’s judicial system or any element of the state’s apparatus.

That task, if it is to be done, belongs to the legislature of the state of Alabama, not to a lone judge, even if he is the state’s chief justice.

Moore accuses federal Judge Thompson, who ordered the monument’s removal, of issuing an edict not supporting the US Constitution as it is written, but as he “would personally prefer it to be written.” He says that Thompson has made his personal preference (by implication, a preference for godless government) the law of the land.

But Moore is really the one who has tried to make his personal preference the law. He enjoyed no legislative authority specifically to display the Decalogue as the symbol of compliance with the Alabama constitution. No one on either side of the issue has even hinted that the legislature requires any state court specifically to acknowledge God in any way.

Moore did all that on his own. Now, it may well be that the legislature has given broad power to the judiciary to maintain its own buildings and decide what displays they may use; such authority is common across America, existing in the federal judiciary as well as the states’.

So Moore may have thought he had inherent authority to mount the display. Even if so, I find it incredible that he didn’t also consider Section 3 of the Alabama constitution, which states,

That no religion shall be established by law; that no preference shall be given by law to any religious sect, society, denomination, . . .

Whatever the Ten Commandments do, they do that. The Decalogue is not a generic, secular example of ancient law. The Commandments are religious law; moreover, not just generic religious law. They are Jewish law very specifically.

It’s not their Jewishness that matters, it’s the fact that they are so specifically the law of one “any religious sect, society, denomination,” Judaism, and later Christianity, which includes the Jewish Scriptures and the Commandments as part of its religious tradition.

The God referred to in the Commandments - and for that matter in the state Constitution’s preamble - is not just any old god, but a very specific identification of a particular God, identified in the entirety of the First Commandment:

“I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me.”

The God of the Commandments is the God of Abraham, Moses and Jesus, no other deity.

Roy Moore is wrong that he has the authority to determine, acting alone, how the Alabama state government shall invoke the favor of God, or that there is something uniquely desirable about the Ten Commandments as the means to do so.

So here are three thought experiments for Judge Moore, the state legislature and federal Judge Myron Thompson:

For Judge Moore: If you believe that the Alabama Constitution requires you, or at least permits you, to invoke “the favor and guidance of Almighty GOD” upon your court, then would you agree that a display would meet that test if it simply slightly paraphrased the Constitution’s preamble thus?

The people of the State of Alabama, in order to establish justice, insure domestic tranquility and secure the blessings of liberty to themselves and their posterity, invoke the favor and guidance of Almighty GOD for the maintenance of justice and government in the State of Alabama.

If not, why not?

For the Alabama legislature: If it is indeed important to the terms of the state Constitution that the Ten Commandments specifically be displayed, will you pass legislation requiring that the Commandments be displayed in a manner approximately similar to what Judge Moore did? If not, then may we infer that the Ten Commandments are not specifically necessary to invoking “the favor and guidance of Almighty GOD” for the operation of the state’s Constitution and government?

For federal Judge Myron Thompson, a two-parter:

1. If the state Supreme Court mounts a display that basically quotes the state Constitution’s preamble, as I suggested above, and a challenge was brought, would you rule that the display was in accordance with or defiance of the US Constitution? If so, how would you justify the quoting of a state Constitution to be unlawful?

2. If the Alabama legislature did indeed mandate a display specifically of the Ten Commandments, declaring it to be in accordance with the state’s Constitution, would you rule that the legislature, and by implication the Alabama Constitution itself, is in defiance of the US Constitution?

I think that is the real, as-yet unfought battle: when such a display is directed by a state legislature (whether in Alabama or elsewhere), using the state’s own Constitution as the authority, then the US Supreme Court may be forced to address the issue. And then Judge Moore’s question really will prove to be central: “Can the state acknowledge God?”

by Donald Sensing, 8/28/2003 07:23:50 AM. Permalink |   

Speaking of the United Nations . . .
The Great Powers founded the UN in order to preserve their dominion over the globe.

The United Nations was the brainchild principally of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, although international assemblies of various kinds had been established long before. The League of Nations was formed after World War I. The United States never joined the League and the League fizzled away in the face of Italian aggression before the general outbreak of World War II.

Once America was an active belligerent in WW II, Roosevelt wasted no time in promoting his idea of a successor to the League. As early as a mere month after the attack on Pearl harbor, Roosevelt began using the term, "United nations." In fact, during January 1942, the US, Britain, the USSR and China signed a Declaration of the United Nations "to defend life, liberty, independence, and religious freedom, and to preserve human rights and justice in their own lands as well as in other lands." Twenty-two other nations later signed it and the name stuck in its formal founding session years later in San Francisco.

This is a key fact: Roosevelt conceived of the UN as a means by which the Great Powers (the above-named four nations; note that France was excluded) would enforce order and discipline upon an unruly world. He stated this intention clearly to British Foreign Minister Anthony Eden and Churchill in the spring of 1943. That fall the four governments signed the Moscow Declaration in which they agreed to maintain international peace after WW II ended. Membership in the UN was to be open to any sovereign state, but in Roosevelt's mind the responsibility for policing the world would belong to the four Great Powers. The other three powers evidently agreed.

FDR discussed this postwar role with Churchill and Stalin at their conference in Tehran in November 1943. He actually called the group of the US, UK, USSR and China "The Four Policemen," who would have the authority on their own to use force against any threat to peace. It seems the four governments never discussed or considered that one of them might be such a threat.

By August 1944 France had weaseled its way into Great Power status. What we know today as the UN Security Council was at first called the Executive Council, with the five Great Powers as permanent members. At first there were to be six other member states, which would serve a term and rotate off. The grant of veto authority to the permanent members was discussed then as well and was finalized the next year.

In April 1945 the United Nations was formed in San Francisco. While it was intended to be an agency for resolution of disputes without war (and other purposes) its charter specifically said that regional alliances or other arrangements for security are not precluded.

Animosity between the western powers and the USSR began almost as soon as Germany surrendered. Roosevelt's dream - that the UN would be a means of preserving the Great Powers' cooperative hegemony - was stillborn as the UN became an ideological battleground of the Cold War.

by Donald Sensing, 8/27/2003 02:10:32 PM. Permalink |   

The UN out of Iraq?
The subject has come up again recently, so I link a second time to self-described liberal Michael Totten's view of July 20 that "the UN should have nothing to do with rebuilding Iraq (or any other country, for that matter.) It would grease the skids for another dictatorship because it is categorically against building democracy."

It was true then and it's true now.

by Donald Sensing, 8/27/2003 01:54:48 PM. Permalink |   

Except I heard him say it . . .
Calpundit links to a Washington Monthly piece that (surprise!) rates George W. Bush a bigger liar than any of the following presidents: Reagan, Bush the elder, or Clinton.

First "evidence" up:

On many occasions during 2001 and 2002, President Bush talked about a campaign promise made in Chicago that he would only deficit spend "if there is a national emergency, if there is a recession, or if there's a war," sometimes adding, after 9/11, "Never did I dream we'd have a trifecta." Reporters pressed the Bush's communications staff to prove that Bush had actually made such a statement during the 2000 campaign, but the White House couldn't turn up any proof. Bush continued to insist he'd made the promise.

Except that I heard Bush say it. Whether he said it specifically in Chicago, I can't say, but he definitely said it during a "town hall" format debate with Al Gore that was broadcast on TV. I was there (in front of the TV). I heard Bush say it. I remember it. Next up:

In making the case for a U.S. invasion of Iraq, President Bush stated in early 2003, "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa."

Which means that Bush is a liar, I guess. Problem is, the British government did make that claim, even though the CIA was skeptical. Furthermore, the British government to this day stands by the claim and still maintains its intelligence was good. Whatever the case, it is definitely grossly premature to call Bush an outright liar on this statement, which is what the Monthly does.

The Monthly's panel of judges who rated the four presidents' (three Republicans, one Democrat) dishonesty was made up of Jodie Allen, Russell Baker, Margaret Carlson, Thomas Mann, Norm Ornstein, Richard Reeves, Larry Sabato, and Juan Williams. The "mendacity index" of each was judged to be

Reagan, 3.3 (out of five),

George H.W. Bush, 3.2

Bill Clinton, 3.1,

George W. Bush, 3.6.

What a surprise - a liberal magazine forms a panel of liberal "judges" who decide that liberal-Democrat Bill Clinton was more honest than all the Republicans. Well, bowl me over.

Next: a panel of Southern secessionists rate Abraham Lincoln as America's worst president!

by Donald Sensing, 8/27/2003 01:41:55 PM. Permalink |   

Hatred or forgiveness?
Read this post by Joe Katzman, including the linked article by Rabbi Meir Y. Soloveichik, "The Virtue of Hate".

I will post a response later today (I hope).

by Donald Sensing, 8/27/2003 09:48:35 AM. Permalink |   

"Nations are not altruism machines"
Who said that? Mother Jones online, that's who! So start here and keep going!

by Donald Sensing, 8/27/2003 06:45:01 AM. Permalink |   

Some eye problems
I am awaiting new lenses for my glasses from Eyemasters. The order was filled once, but the lenses were not made correctly and had to be redone. My lenses can't be made in an hour; they have to come from Texas.

As I wait i am often attacked by eye stress and pain, since my eyes are fighting each other over focus and depth perception. Hence, typing is for the nonce a sometimes wretched experience. Like now.

So I'll try to post later tonight or tomorrow morning.

by Donald Sensing, 8/26/2003 04:53:15 PM. Permalink |   

Open Range - a review
Links: IMDB page. Movie’s own website.

How many times has The Western died and been resurrected? It was dead in 1992, then Clint Eastwood brought it back to life with his Academy-Award winning Unforgiven. The next year Kirk Russell breathed more life into the genre’s renewal with Tombstone, a pretty good, if inventive, retelling of the Wyatt Earp legend. Kevin Costner starred in another Wyatt Earp movie released the year after that, called, natch, Wyatt Earp.

Then the genre faded away except for some comic films such as Shanghai Noon. Now some critics say The Western is alive again with the release of Kevin Costner’s third directorial project, Open Range..

Costner previously directed 1990's Dances With Wolves, which won seven Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Directing. It was a big hit, even at three hours plus three minutes long. Next he directed The Postman, 1997, which didn’t do well at the box office and was three hours minus three minutes long.

Now comes Open Range at relatively svelte two hours, 15 minutes. The Oscar buzz has already started for Robert Duvall’s performance. I am wondering whether it is actually possible to make a bad movie if it has Duvall in it. He is an actor of unbelievable talent.

As fine as Duvall’s performance is, the movie would be good even with another actor in the role. I can easily imagine Gene Hackman in Duvall’s role, or for that matter, Michael Gambon, who does play in Open Range as the heavy.

The story itself is one you’ve seen a hundred times before in Westerns going back to the 1930s. Mean Denton Baxter (Gambon) owns a one-street town in the middle of nowhere. The sheriff is his lackey. Baxter’s special hatred is reserved for “open range” cattlemen, who drive their herds around the open country, foraging and grazing wherever they happen to wind up. That’s what Costner and Duvall do.

Costner plays Charley Waite, a man with a past. Duvall plays Boss Spearman, a man with a past. Come to think of it, Costner tends to play Men with a Past, especially when directing. It works in Open Range, though - why else but to run away from his past would a man spend 10 years riding the range with a crusty guy like Boss Spearman?

Baxter’s men do bad things to Spearman’s two other employees. The conflict is drawn. The showdown on Main Street (okay, it’s the only street) is inevitable.

There are three things that save Open Range from being a mere hack retelling of one of the hoariest Western themes. The first is the performances of Duvall and Costner. Costner downplays his part commendably well. Costner has always played the hero’s role anti-heroically, and here it works perfectly. He is a coiled spring; when released the result is almost shocking.

The release comes in the gun battle. Costner’s direction of the gunfight sequences is deft and sure. The pacing, the editing and the camera work are superb. From literally the first shot to the last, the old cliches are avoided. Its setup brings to mind a number of other last stands such as those in High Noon or High Plains Drifter, but the fight itself is nothing like them.

The whole story revolves around the gunfight. No matter how good the rest of the movie is, a substandard gunfight would torpedo it. Instead, the gunfight is so well done that you forgive the movie’s shortcomings in other parts.

The third thing that sets Open Range apart from hackery is the development of Costner’s and Duvall’s characters. Some critics have said that this makes the movie drag; one wrote, for example, that nothing at all happens for the first 20 minutes. Which is true in a way - there’s no action sequence for that time, but this is not an action movie. I might also remind you that in Matrix 2, nothing happened for the entire first hour, and it was an action movie.

It may well be that this is a 115-minute movie told in 135 minutes. The Other Hand Clapping thought so. I personally thought the extra time spent on character development was a plus, adding to the depth of the movie. Besides, movie tickets are so expensive these days that if the director wants to spend an extra 20 minutes telling the story, I don’t mind.

(However, the other characters are relatively under-developed compared to Charley and Boss. That may be what makes the middle 20 minutes or so seem to drag.)

Annette Bening plays a spinster who provides the love interest for the movie. She is the town’s doctor’s sister. Conveniently she and the doc have a house just outside town where Boss and Charley can hang out while figuring out what to do about the fix they’re in. The love interest between her and Charley is low-key and only once prominent. It doesn’t really work very well, but it doesn’t ruin anything, either. It just seems forced into the story, as if to make sure the movie included a major female role. After all, women buy theater tickets, too.

Whether Open Range will revive the Western again is an open question. But it is definitely worth seeing. It’s visually outstanding, the dialog is good except for only a couple of places and the gunfight is one of the best ever in the genre.

Overall, I give Open Range five slugs out of six from a Colt Single Action Army.

by Donald Sensing, 8/26/2003 07:46:44 AM. Permalink |   

British troops back in body armor
In the wake of the killing Saturday of three British Army military police in Iraq and the wounding of another, British soldiers there have resumed wearing flak vests and helmets. This after the Brits had patronized the US military for retaining a "Darth Vader" look which the Brits claimed alienated the Iraqi people. (hat tip: Trent Telenko, via email)

by Donald Sensing, 8/25/2003 06:57:16 PM. Permalink |   

A short course in nouns
All you journalists out there, pay attention!


These are soldiers:

. . . .


These are terrorists.

. . . .

Neither one are "militants." (hat tip: Phil Fraering)

by Donald Sensing, 8/25/2003 03:03:32 PM. Permalink |   

Some catching up here
Here are some links to other people's post I have had squirreled away, meaning to publish, but haven't. Now I am, so go read them!

Some ink and phosphors have been used in recent weeks pondering whether the American Left is prejudiced against Catholics, in light of the difficulties Catholic judicial nominees have had before the Dems of the Senate judiciary Committee, and the Democratic filibuster to block the Senate from voting on them.

Author Tom Donelson writes of a lefty United Methodist professor who fits the anti-Catholic mold.

I asked him why he criticized Roman Catholics for abortion but yet he never criticized his own church for opposing the death penalty for religious reason. Dr. Sample told me, "It is different for the Catholic Church is imposing their beliefs on us." My response to him was, "But Tex, why is it okay for us Methodist to tell politicians to oppose the death penalty but it is not okay for Catholics to lobby against abortions? Aren't we imposing our beliefs?" Tex just stared at me and just muttered, "It is different, Tom, it is different." I just smiled and just asked, "Tex, why it is different or is it that you just disagree with the Catholic position on abortion." Tex just walked away but l learned a valuable lesson, it was acceptable to be prejudiced against Catholics among some of the Methodist left. It is the last refugee of the modern day scoundrels.

See also Ramesh Ponnuru's article at NRO. But not only is the Left possibly anti-Catholic, it is also anti-Semitic (as is the far Right). See here, and here and here.

Jesus Christ - humorist. Chris Lansdown has scriptural evidence that Jesus was a jokester, in an un-cruel sort of way. Well, yeah. And some observations about the temptations of Christ.

Michael Williams has a good, three-part series on democracy.

Part 1: The 19th Amendment -- Good Idea?
Part 2: The "Right" to Vote, and Utility
Part 3: Why Do We Need Democracy?

Trent Telenko seems to think that Iraq is the easy part in the Mid-East.

The America military is learning how to occupy and successfully pacify a secular Arab tyranny. It will be far easier for America's military to occupy another secular Arab tyranny than an Islamic tyranny like Iran or Saudi Arabia. The name for that tyranny is Syria. After Iraq, it will be Syria's turn to play mud flat for Hezbollah and other Lebanese terrorist groups.

Well, maybe. Actually, Iran was very secular before the ayatollahs took over and repetitive reports from Iran, by Iranians, show that the average Iranian wants to be religious in his or her own private practice, but wants to government to get out and stay out of religious regulation. That sort of defines secularism. As for Saudi Arabia, the religious tyranny there is curiously headed by a royal family that openly shuns religious strictures in their own personal lives. The religious enforcement is done by others.

Rantburg has more info on the possibility that Iraqi WMDs were sent before the war to Syria. (hat tip: Richard Heddleson)

Asia Times reports that Cuba has shut down a jammer Iran was using to jam US broadcasts aimed at Iran. The jammer was on Iranian-embassy property.

Let's see: Iran was named as a member state of the Axis of Evil. President Bush said, "You're either with us or you are with the terrorists." Castro lives in a state of perpetual paranoia about a US invasion to begin with. Iran jams American signals from Cuba. What to do, what to do?

Hasta la vista, jammer!

Days before Rich Lowry wrote about "The Indian Scam," how the Indian tribes use casino profits to buy California politicians, Californian Richard Heddleson sent me the link to an AZCentral.com piece detailing how California gubernatorial candidate, and present lieutenant governor, Cruz Bustamante, is beholden to them (and not just the tribes, but a whole line of other groups).

"He is a 'Mini-Me' of Davis," said Jamie Court, executive director of the nonprofit Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights in Santa Monica, Calif. "It is the same interest groups, only in different proportions."

Davis was a gold medal winner for being bought and sold by special interests. Bustamante is not as talented in getting the money, but apparently just as willing.

"What kind of politician do you think I am?"
"We have already ascertained that; now we're just haggling over the price."

Michael McNeil posts about the science of depleted uranium, the ultra-dense metal used to form high-velocity anti-tank rounds.

by Donald Sensing, 8/25/2003 02:48:26 PM. Permalink |   

Baptisms in the Tigris
Reuters writes about American soldiers being baptized in Iraq by their military chaplains. Nineteen-year-old Private Bill Goodwin was one of them.

Responding to the point that the Scriptures admonish, "Thou shalt not kill," Goodwin answered,

"The Bible says 'thou shalt not kill' but the original Greek says 'thou shalt not take a judicially innocent life.' Saddam and his men are pretty evil, if they were tried in any court, they would be found guilty," said Goodwin.

Now, I don't expect a nineteen-year-old Army private to know biblical languages, but the commandment cited is one of the Ten Commandments, written originally in Hebrew, not Greek.

In Hebrew, the Ten Commandments are phrased as negative commands, forbidding certain conduct. The commandments are explicated in Exodus 19:16 - 20:17. Verse 20:13 has the commandment concerned, "You shall not murder," or literally translated, "No murder."

In Hebrew, Lo ratsach, lo meaning to take the negative of the word that follows, ratsach, meaning murder.

Ratsach is not used in the Hebrew Scriptures to describe killing as in war or self defense, other words are used for those acts. So Pvt. Goodwin is correct that the commandment forbids unlawful killing, but not killing as part of battle.

The article points out that soldiers reject the notion that the war in Iraq is part of a clash of religions.

by Donald Sensing, 8/25/2003 01:29:27 PM. Permalink |   

Who'd a-thunk it?
Headline: "Kerry to Fault Bush on Iraq, Veterans"

Well, yeah. That's what opponents do.

by Donald Sensing, 8/25/2003 01:13:23 PM. Permalink |   

Suing every Jew in the world!
Some Egyptians in Switzerland are bringing a lawsuit against "all the Jews of the world" for taking gold, jewelry and other articles out of Egypt during the Exodus of the children of Israel out of Egypt under Moses' leadership.

Dr. Nabil Hilmi, Dean of the Faculty of Law at the University of Al-Zaqaziq, says that the suit is baed on the fact that Zionism claims possession of the Holy Land based "on historical and religious sources," meaning the promise of the Land of Canaan to Moses and the Hebrews in slavery in Egypt.

The book of Exodus records that after Pharaoh finally gave the slaves permission to leave Egypt, Moses told them to go to the Egyptians and ask for valuable and houseghold items to take with them.

The Israelites did as Moses instructed and asked the Egyptians for articles of silver and gold and for clothing. The LORD had made the Egyptians favorably disposed toward the people, and they gave them what they asked for; so they plundered the Egyptians (Exod 12:35-36, NIV).

So it sounds like to me that the Hebrews asked, the Egyptians acquiesced under spiritual manipulation by God. I wonder whether God is named in the suit.

No, because the Muslims believe that the Hebrew Scriptures (and the Christian new Testament) are irretrievably corrupted versions of the revelation Allah gave to the Jews and later the Christians. The Quran, they say, corrects the record.

At any rate, the children of Israel hied off to the east, and Himri picks up the story. The next day or so,

"The Egyptian Pharaoh was surprised one day to discover thousands of Egyptian women crying under the palace balcony, asking for help and complaining that the Jews stole their clothing and jewels, in the greatest collective fraud history has ever known.

"The theft was not limited to gold alone. The thieves stole everything imaginable. They emptied the Egyptian homes of cooking utensils. One of the women approached Pharaoh, her eyes downcast, and said that her Jewish neighbor who lived in the house on the right of her house had come to her and asked to borrow her gold items, claiming she had been invited to a wedding. . . .

"Taking posession of the gold was understandable. This is clear theft of a host country's resources and treasure, something that fits the morals and character of the Jews."

But fear not, the world-famous Ancient Royal Egyptian Police Corps (Pharaoh's Own) were on the job, says Hilmi,

"A police investigation revealed that Moses and Aaron, peace be upon them, understood that it was impossible to live in Egypt, despite its pleasures and even though the Egyptians included them in every activity, due to the Jews' perverse nature. . . .

So there you have it. I wonder what Hilmi would say if the Worldwide Jews decided to sue Egypt for putting them into slavery to begin with.

Obviously, this is just a Jew-baiting publicity stunt. Only a kangaroo court (say, an Egyptian one) could possibly consider it. Even so, the burden of proof upon Hilmi, at. al., is much greater than he imagines because there is no historical evidence that the Exodus ever occurred, except for the single account in Jewish Pentateuch.

There are no Egyptian records of the event at all. Zero, nada, zilch. In fact, there is no historical-archeological evidence that the Hebrews were ever in slavery in Egypt at all. There are persons referred to in ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs as "hapiru" (sometimes transliterated "habiru") but there is no textual or historical connection between them and the people of the Exodus.

So Hilmi must rely on the book of Exodus to support the claim that there was an Exodus at all, and then explain why that part is accurate but the part about the Egyptians giving away their gold, instead of it being stolen, is false. All academic, of course . . . (hat tip to Vanderleun)

by Donald Sensing, 8/25/2003 12:26:40 PM. Permalink |   

Heh!
Again I say, heh!

by Donald Sensing, 8/25/2003 11:47:37 AM. Permalink |   

Why suicide-bombing terrorists are not the ultimate weapon
Wretchard at Belmont Club recounts why some commentators, such as Jessica Stern, think that suicide terrorists are the ultimate weapon, and why some terrorist leaders do, too, such as Hamas leader Ismail Abu Shanab.

But he says they are wrong. The short way of looking at it is this: First, kamikazes, then Hiroshima. So RTWT.

by Donald Sensing, 8/25/2003 09:49:49 AM. Permalink |   

A correction to an earlier post
In my posting entitled, "Bigotry at StrategyPage.com," I named Mr. Adam Geibel as the author of the essay, "TERRORISM: Report From Saudi Arabia," and then took serious issue with the bigoted language the essay uses.

Mr. Geibel has emailed me to explain that he wrote the section on that page regarding matters relating to Kenya, but did not write the section about Saudi Arabia, wherein the offensive language occurred. There is no obvious way for a reader to ascertain that from the way the page is presented, so I think that my naming him as the author was reasonable, but it turns out it was incorrect.

While I still maintain that the essay is bigoted as I explained, I want to make it clear that Adam Geibel is not the author, and extend to Mr. Geibel my apologies for naming him as the writer. I am removing from the post references to his name.

by Donald Sensing, 8/24/2003 03:44:05 PM. Permalink |   

This guy REALLY opposes Arnold for governor
The Angry Clam really, really, really, really doesn't want Arnold Schwarzenegger to be California's next governor.

Check out this poster and you'll see what I mean.

There's other stuff, too - scroll around and you'll see what I mean.

by Donald Sensing, 8/23/2003 08:27:08 PM. Permalink