The New York Times Thinks So
The daily propaganda which masquerades as news and as learned opinion has just gotten my goat.
Yesterday, the New York Times published an editorial condemning Switzerland as “intolerant” for having voted to ban minarets—minarets, not mosques.
God, I cannot recall an editorial in their pages condemning Arab and Muslim countries for not allowing any Christian churches, Jewish synagogues, or Hindu and Bahai temples to be built. Nor has the Paper of Record really focused on the real refugee story in the Middle East: that of Arab Jews who were forced to flee the Islamic world and came as refugees to Israel between 1948-1956 and constituted a “silent” exodus, one which is still ongoing. My friend Pierre Rehov directed and distributed the most haunting and powerful film with this exact title.
Further, in today’s New York Times, a typically biased piece titled “Jewish Nationalists Clash with Palestinians” also appeared. Note: The headline does not say “Israeli citizens,” nor does it describe the Palestinians as “nationalists” as well. But the main omission is this: The Times’ Isabel Kershner fails to note that the confrontation turned ugly when Americans and Europeans (Swedes) physically assaulted Jewish “nationalists” with clubs and stones. What are they doing here? Where are they when Sderot is being shelled? And, by the way, the fact that the Israeli High Court, which has rendered many pro-Palestinian decisions, ruled that these particular Palestinian nationalist settlers were there illegally is not given the proper weight in this article.
The fact that Jordan is already a “Palestinian” state never seems to register in this newspaper. True, the Jordanians did not want the mainly Palestinian terrorists and massacred and expelled them in 1970; Israel alone is expected to live with them.
But the most troubling article today is one that the distinguished Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter and author, Tony Hurwitz, wrote. Horwitz compares John Brown the “abolitionist” and “terrorist” to—you guessed it—Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and the 9/11 hijackers. The title of his piece is “The 9/11 of 1859.”
What are they drinking or smoking over there?
The Times certainly should have had editorials condemning Saudi Arabia and other such countries for not permitting the construction of churches, synagogues, or Bahai temples. Nevertheless, there is something silly about banning minarets.
Terrorism is an extremely important issue. The oppression and honor killing of women in Islamic societies is an extremely important issue. The Times should write about these outrages and condemn them time and again. Minarets, on the other hand, are achitecture. Focusing on peripheral issues distracts us from the major problems.
George Jochnowitz (1):
…Nevertheless, there is something silly about banning minarets.
Not at all. The Swiss, rightly, view the minarets (the tower from which the call to prayer is issued) as a Muslim symbol of conquest and dominion, especially in a ostensibly Christian country. Note that the mosque is not banned, just the prayer tower.
There is a song that has these lines: The old gray mare, she ain’t what she used to be.
If the Gray Lady were a horse, it would have been shot by now to put it out of its misery.
Just imagine, a world without the NY Times. Those reporters worth their salt would be grabbed in a New York minute by other publications.
it’s the nytimes desperate attempt to get some readership – even if they are muzzies. you know the times gets an infusion of bucks to keep them alive from these filthy scumbags in the middle east, probably syria. we have a spineless creature for president so they try everything.
Wow, the Swedes finally show some spine!
Stand by for the Jihad.
Death to the Infidel!
Same old, same old.
If there was a such thing as editorial malfeasance, this would be it.
Ms. Chesler, your work is brilliant. Every single time. What a gift to be able to read your work. We need more, many more voices, like yours. Thank you.
While I do not share Judy’s ‘enthusiasm’ for her position, the truth is unmistakable. The Times prints viewpoints of its own that are, but for the choice of nouns and verbs, identical to those any mainstream ME muslim opinion, anti-American and anti-Israeli and essentially protective of Islam against all comers.
I cannot BELIEVE that the gays and lefties at the Times are actual fans of Islam… but I CAN believe that their hatred of traditional Judeo-Christian values is so great that they gravitate almost instinctively to Islam simply to help it, to help ANYONE, defeat Judeo-Christianity.
What do the Times’ “gay mafia” think will happen to THEM when Islam becomes socially dominant in America?
Idiots.
I rarely read the New York Times, but picked it up today on the train. I read the Horwitz opinion piece of John Brown and almost lost my breakfast. It was truly infuriating to anyone who knows anything about American history.
Justice requires me to point out that Mohammad was a slave owner, and therefore, slavery is permitted by Islam and the Koran. Slavery is still being practiced today in many parts of the Muslim world.
For fundamentalist Muslims to be linked in any way with abolition is just factually and historically wrong.
Nevertheless, there is something silly about banning minarets.
Not really–it illustrates to Muslims their own intolerance in the lands from which they came, or it does for any who have the brains to see it.
What you want to do to the infidels, the infidels can do to you. That’s a message that needs to be hammered home to them in any way it can. Intolerance is not a one way mechanism that always must work to their advantage.
I’m sorry, I can’t get past the phrase: “Horwitz describes Brown as a ‘bearded fundamentalist’.” Is that supposed to be adulation or condemnation? Because one of NYT’s favorite epithets to throw at Christians or social cons is “fundamentalist” If one listens to the MSM, fundamentalist is usually shorthand for mouth-breathing, woman-beating, knuckle dragger.
While I agree that this describes Al-Qaeda perfectly, it doesn’t seem like that was the way the author meant it.
The rest of the article is such drivel I won’t even comment on what’s wrong with it. Instead, I will sit back and enjoy Ms. Chesler’s take-down.
Ever lived next to a Minaret? It is not a “prayer tower”, it is a “call to prayer tower”, 5 times a day, with loudspeakers. If church steeples were fitted with sound amplification systems and rang the Angelus 5 times a day, new ones would be banned as well.
And in 1859 would John Brown have been convicted by the readers of the NY Times? Unlike KSM, a trial in Manhatten for John Brown was never in the cards.
Al-Qaeda is an abolitionist movement. It wants to abolish western civilization, personal liberty and Jews/Christians. To compare it to John Brown is laughable.
Nor has the Paper of Record really focused on the real refugee story in the Middle East: that of Arab Jews who were forced to flee the Islamic world and came as refugees to Israel between 1948-1956 and constituted a “silent” exodus, one which is still ongoing.
They’ve focused on that issue more times than I can remember. You’re a liar. I can’t imagine how you face that prune-like face every morning knowing that you’ve sold your integrity for the pleasures of ignorance and bigotry. I pity the students who can stay awake during your droning lectures.
John Brown *was* a terrorist, in spite of the fact he was fighting for a cause that was ultimately just. That being said, however, he was a brutal and more than slightly crazy individual. On one occasion, Brown killed half a dozen men personally, one at a time, by splitting their skulls with a broadsword. He did it in front of their families, because they were pro-slavery activists in Kansas. Now there were a lot of violent acts in Kansas at the time–there was a reason that it was called “Bleeding Kansas”–but Brown was in a class by himself.
Where Horwitz seems to go astray is in his discussion of Brown’s impact. While the Harper’s Ferry incident raised fears in the South, it essentially fizzled, and other factors (Uncle Tom’s Cabin, the Dred Scott Decision) had made the armed confrontation all but inevitable by 1860. Brown’s actions added fuel to the fire, to be sure, but it was already burning pretty brightly. It *is* possible to overstate his influence…
I read Confederates in the Attic when it came out, and it is at times an entertaining book. It comes across however as a rather superficial book, by an author who’s a novice with regards to the Civil War, but learning about the war. He’s written other books, and his wife won the Pulitzer a couple of years ago writing about the Civil War. Hopefully he’ll eventually get some of it right. Brown was largely a footnote.
1. Oh Jochnowitz!
From minarets they yell Islamic shahada, about Allah and Muhammad, which is like having towers in nowadays world,
used to yell “heil Hitler” everywhere,
which means, having Symbols (practically used or not), saying that Politics there is (increasingly) that of Islamic Muhammad or
Nazist Hitler.
Minarets are like: (Islamic) bayonets (certified by Erdogan, Prime Minister of Islamo-Turkey), banners with Mao’s face, hitlerian Swastika, and else.
Do you want them, you keep them in your own house, and you are totally free to joyfully smile at them: 60% of Swiss voters chose “the other option”.
People in Europe (see Polls which show how many people would gladly ban minarets on their Country, too) are fully aware of the fact that minarets are “just” (willing to put it that way!) a symbol.
The more or less hidden question is: “the symbol of what?” – and 60% of Swiss voters answered to that question, and they did it by civilly and democratically and directly and undependently (please value those adverbs and their meaning!) voting “yes” to the “minarets’ ban”.
EDITED DOWN, TOO LONG
I take exception to your use of the term ”Arab Jews” – we were Jews who lived in Arab countries.
That aside, I will be most pleased on the day when the NYT finally goes bankrupt & closes it’s doors for good.
Al-Qaeda is a lie spouted by shills of the globalist banking elite working for the Vatican, which seeks to eliminate Islam by igniting WWIII.
17. Anonymus, the Documentary self is called The Forgotten Refugees, and that says it all about the condition of those Refugees.
About your [injust] defaming (liar) and insulting (“prune’s face”) Phyllis Chesler, this is just the typical reaction and strategy against Truth tellers, applyed by Islamic/Islamist people and their followers. I just remember most famous Wafa Sultan’s interview at Aljazeera, and reactions of one like you – she has been defamed and insulted (“ugly”); recently about an Exposer of Islam, and in the frame of Swiss vote, he has been defamed and insulted (“old”, “ugly”).
This situation says a lot about the indoctrinated and inhuman/sick mentality of people like you (and of those you’re following).
1. Jonchowitz: please check the story of (legendary or not) Swiss Hero “Willhelm Tell”, which refused to (metaphorically and practically) bow before a supremacist symbol placed where he lived. He freed Switzerland and his story tells us that supremacist symbol(s) correspond to a much wider (political) Reality. Please note: Swiss (legendary or not) Hero did not hurt anyone, did not kill anyone, at the opposite, he got oppressed and risked to be killed, which says a lot about Swiss Heroes (in case there were some [*]) and Ideals.
[*] 60% of Swiss are.
Justice requires me to point out that Mohammad was a slave owner, and therefore, slavery is permitted by Islam and the Koran.
Also unlike the Southern owner of slaves who was not supposed (of course some did it but they couldn’t do, it openly) to use his slaves sexually, Muslim law allows it and Muhammad had no qualms on at least one occasion in raping captives whose husbands and family he had just put to death (Of course Muslim chronicles say the woman had jsut converted to Islam and was willing. Yeah sure, of her own free will and without being compelled by fear).
About the main subject: where does Alqaida take inspiration from?
Here a brief (and reliable …) analysis about radical Islam, by a former associate of Alzawahiri:
http://www.newsmax.com/Tawfik_Hamid/archive/ (please check articles: oct. 15, 2009; sept. 16 and sept. 11, 2009; and others).
I would rather say that Reformers of Islam (Apostates of Islam included) form an Abolitionist Movement – which happens to be exactely the opposite of what’s stated in the Hurwitz’s article.
To hell with the New York Times and anyone else who disagrees with what the Swiss government did (although I hope they changed whatever alert status they have to “red”). They should only have banned muslims along with minarets!
Horwitz does note that the war in Afghanistan has, indeed, “killed more than twice as many Americans as (were killed by the) hijacked planes.”
?
900+ soldiers and Marines have been killed in A’stan, less than a third of the death toll for 9/11. Is Horwitz an idiot, or a liar?
Go to this site, crank up your speakers, and click on the audio button to hear the Mohammadean call to prayer:
http://www.learnnc.org/lp/multimedia/4569
Can you imagine hearing that blaring at 1,000 decibels five times a day? In every city and town in European Union?
I’m glad the Swedes are putting their collective feet down on the Islamization of the world.
21. Kochevnik: allow me to understand (you, your mind) please – is Reality an invention of the Vatican? I kindly invite you to watch the following Documentary (it’s Reality, not Islamic lies or deceptions you seem to believe in)
INTERESTING VIDEO WHICH LINKS ISLAMIC SLAVERY IN AFRICA (SUDAN) AND TERRORISM OF ALQAIDA [AND WHICH SHOWS THE NON-SENSE OF LINKING ABOLITIONISM TO TERRORISM – THEY ACTUALLY ARE OPPOSITES): http://kitmantv.blogspot.com/2009/12/child-of-terror.html
http://kitmantv.blogspot.com/2009/12/child-of-terror.html
#17 Of course you must remain “Anonymous” to be so rude to one who speaks the truth. You cannot refute the truth, so you rely on personal insults. (Totally classless) “What is essential is invisible to the eye.”
Bravo to Switzerland for banning minarets.
What I am afraid will happen with the newspapers is that they will be “bailed out” by the government. It would make it so much easier to control them.
Bravo to George Jochnowitz (comment 1.). He got it exactly right.
Well, i find it interesting that we suddenly think Brown was a great guy. Brown was basically on the right side, but there are two things to note. one, the guy was batshit crazy. the abolitionists tried their best to ignore that, and to brown’s credit he did a pretty good job covering it up, too, but he was a nut.
Second, brown did murder civilians. in kansas. after some anti-abolitionists engaged in violence the bleeding kansas fight, he found some random pro-slavery people, and hacked them to death as their family watched. its very hard not to call that something morally similar to terrorism.
Now a tougher issue is also brown planned to murder lots of civilians in the rebellion he was attempting to start, namely the people who owned slaves and helped to be the enforcers for the owners. normally, you would say “hands off the civilians” but these people were personally the perpetrators of a crime that rivalled the holocaust in sheer evilness. i lean toward saying that in the limited situation like that, the fact they are civilians shouldn’t slow you down a bit.
And let me say a few things also. first, don’t mistake me for some neo-confederate or something like that. i have zero sympathy for the southern cause, but even then what brown did in kansas was a step too far.
Second, i find the NYT’s moral inversion to be stunning. KSM’s goals and motives were not murky. they are tyrants in waiting. and for them to equate liberation with enslavement is stunning.
Dr. Chesler,
Thanks for all your timely and courageous work.
cb
Banned by Huffpo
I think you mean the *Swiss,* not the *Swedes*…
Since Horwitz thinks that from al-Qaeda’s point of view their cause is “just” because infidels have been “occupying holy Muslim lands” does he also think it is just that infidels don’t want Muslims “occupying” their lands? Does Horwitz think it “just” that infidels who believe in religious freedom, free speech and equal rights have the right to keep those who do not have those same beliefs from “occupying” their lands? Does Horwtz believe that freedom and Sharia can co-exist? Does Horwitz have a clue?
Bravo to the Swiss.
The magnificent Sophia Hagia cathedral in Istanbul, built by Constantine, now has minarets. There are but a few frescos left; destroyed because they depicted Christian themes. Some tawdry Islamist signs composed of cloth stretched across wood, obscure beautiful fretwork inside.
Banning minarets is not silly. Converting, destroying and looting Christian churches has long been a policy of Islam and minarets are the symbol of their dominance.
Also remember, the minarets are very phallic looking, and in the ancient world, anything phallic was regarded as
a sign of strength.
39. yes, of strenght, the problem is that Islam states a woman worths a half of a man. And that’s not (just) Religion, this is Legal System (with Courts, already popping up in Britain and someone requested them to be activated … in Switzerland), and Politics.
(I wonder how so called Feminists and Left-wingers, who hate Right-wingers, are so enthusiast of supporting them – minarets – and it – Islam -? Unless Islamic/Islamist people and Islam/Islamism did not already infiltrate their Parties, or an Islamic/Islamist … penis … did not infiltrate something else. Sorry for being so crude but: it happens that a woman in love totally looses her mind and rationality, and starts supporting his man/male’s Ideology. She projects her own Love on it, and therefore she thinks that Ideology is lovable. Eventhough it is hateful; by the time she usually gets to know it. Looking at minarets with starring eyes doesn’t turn them into “Love carrying” Symbols; they remains minarets, the bayonets, of Islam).
what you ignore is that the Muslims can’t call for their prayors from minarets in our countries
The Swiss issued the same question by us, we have 1600 mosquées but only 10 minarets of average heigh. included into the archirectural projects. These were harshly discussed, not at a national level but at local’s. Each centimeter motivated long discussions. Now, I don’t know what to think, Muslims need an official place to assembly and to pray, that is controlled. But as our churches were built for that populations who lived far away could orientate themselves through bells towers, the same use couldn’t possibly be viewed nowadays, as everybody has cell phones and clocks.
So of course minarets are then hubris, and a will to assert a conquerring cult into christian environments.
Mayors concils who hesitated, will have to think about what their populations really want, and not make a consensual decision, this is a citizen question
Why do the Swiss never go to war? Because they take care not to let themselves get dragged into other people’s wars, and because they arm themselves to the teeth so that no one is stupid enough to attack them.
I have educated myself finally about Islam, the Qua ran, and Mohamed.
This much is clear. islam is NOt a religion, its a call to fight to those who are not in Islam.There is no morality in the Quaran ,except that sexing with little girls is ok. Killing women is fine. Discarding wifes is great. Emulating Mohamed who lived in the desert, conducted raids against his own people, is a role model to follow. Kill kill kill as many infidels as you can.
I dont care how nice their sing song is from the minarets. Non-Muslim people don’t read Arabic, we want to be fair to strange religions, but Islam is not a religion. its a fight club.
The author speaking about John Brown as a “bearded fundamentalist” is a moron with the typical Liberal depth of education.
John Brown does have something in common with KSM (or vice versa)and that is that the man was a mass murderer. On May 23rd 1856 John Brown and six followers murdered several families by hacking them to death with swords, they were unarmed. John Brown envisioned a bloody and brutal slave rebellion like the one that occurred in Haiti in 1791 where the slaves took revenge upon the French by pillage, rape, torture, mutilation, and death.
In fact it was the actions of John Brown and Nat Turner that ended the debate in many southern State Legislatures about the abolition of slavery and lead to harsher laws pertaining to slaves. One such law that was passed as a result of these uprisings made it illegal to educate a slave, a law which Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson disregarded in teaching a Sunday school class to slaves. Also prior to these uprising there were more abolitionist organizations in the South than in the North.
John Brown is not and never was a man to be admired, unless of course you admire Charles Manson and Timothy McVeigh.
Also a note to the publicly educated:
The so called “Civil War” was never about slavery until it became politically expedient. The Emancipation Proclamation did not actually free any slaves, it allowed Northern slave owners to keep their slaves and “freed” the slaves in a different nation where he had no jurisdiction. It would be like Canada’s PM proclaiming that gay marriage was legal in US while at the same time keeping it illegal in Canada. The EP was a political move and was issued to keep European powers from aiding the Confederacy.
The War of Succession (a much more accurate title) was fought mainly over State’s rights, taxation (the Southern states provided most of the Federal tax income), and expanding Federal power. Slavery was a major issue of the day, no different if a civil war were fought today with most people of a side being either Pro or Anti-Abortion. Pro-Slavery soldiers and generals fought for the North and man who were against Slavery fought for the South, there was no real clear divide.
# 43: hey zbudapest, you described islam very well in your post!!! No wonder where ever Muslims live in this world, there is no peace!!
“The Times’ Isabel Kershner fails to note that the confrontation turned ugly when Americans and Europeans (Swedes) physically assaulted Jewish “nationalists” with clubs and stones”.
…………………………………….
Why doesn’t the IDF shoot these hostile foreign invaders? The left is no longer simply calling for the destruction of Israel and the ethnic cleansing of its Jews, but is now physically engaged in bringing this about.
Anyway the NYT is useful for lining the trashcan.
43@zbudapest
Thanks for your bigoted, unbalanced hate toward a billion people on this planet. As if christianity was any different except for a name change.
42@myth buster
Swiss also guard the Vatican gold, which needs safekeeping while Jesuits go about instigating WWIII.
kochevnik, are you serious? Christianity is not any different than islam? Please tell me where Christians are beheading people, stoning, lashing, genitally mutilating and “honor” murdering, and throwing acid in the faces of women? Please show me all the Christian suicide bombers and all the murders against non-believers and people who have converted from Christianity to another religion.
I am also really sick of the word “bigot” being thrown around so easily. Islam is not a race or ethnicity or nationality, it is a belief system and a horrible one at that.
Since we have here Apologists for Islam (48.) who try to portray Critics of Islam as people’s haters, I post here the last (just the last after several previous!) Article about “how things are”:
http://memri.org/report/en/0/0/0/0/0/0/3799.htm
To mister or miss Indoctrinated and Brainblocked (48.) go and read Islamic textes and then the Christian Gospel – you certainly will be able to see the Differences (please switch on your Brian and Heart before analyzing).
The West and so called Christian Countries are wellcoming Immigrants, they are even helping them, and watch at what Islamic/Islamist Immigrants are doing in their host and wellcoming Countries: either nothing special (they work like anyone else) or giving problems (living at the shouldern of Social Welfare) or something negative (Riots, Acts of Violence, Vandalism, …). In Islamic Countries Immigrants or Locals (“Apostates”) cannot even dare to say or promote what they think or they believe in, and we see how Critic of Islam (and its Totalitarianism) is suppressed (by Threats) everywhere.
About Swiss bank System, it is well known everywhere, and so called “the Vatican” – if you’re right – is just an Institution among others: in the West and in Switzerland too, we (Westerners) have Laicity and State and Church are not the same thing (at the opposite of what happens in the Islamic/Islamist world).
WWIII is instigated by the Islamic/Islamist world, not for nothing waging Wars was Muhammad’s job. Khadafi said: “either Europe/the West accepts to submit to Islam, or they have to wage a War against Islamic/Islamist people” – would you blame them for choosing option II? Even if they lived in Peace and wanted to still living in Peace? But they did the enormous Mistake to kindly accept Islamic/Islamist Immigration, therefore …. Erdogan said: “minarets are Islam’s bayonets”, which recalls the concept of sword, the Symbol displayed on Saudi Arabia’s flag, and the means Muhammad slaughtered hundreds of (innocent) people ….
About muezzin’s call and bells, I ask you: is that the same thing? One yells the shahada, the others make a sound, which is used by several Faiths, and which has a spiritual Meaning. Not to forget that Islam forbids bells’ sound – and I think this has been forbidden right because it represented and represents any other Belief than Islam (Islam is not exactely a fight Club … it is a fight Clan).
Don’t forget that Christian churches are not political Parties: in the West there is Laicity and State and Church are two different Things; not the same can be said about Islamic/Islamist mosques, neither it can be said about the Islamic/Islamist world.
This is another very important and main point which makes so, that muezzin’s call and bells represent two very different concepts: the former is a political (Islamic/Islamist) call; the latter is a spiritual (universal) call.
Mr Real Deal
I don’t know if you were publicly educated but it looks like youir tecahers were former journalists in teh Ptravda.
You have brought all the topics aka lies of the Confedrate priopaganda at teh time they were looking for the Consfedration being recognized by the Europeapn nations were the slavery cause didn’t play well. Those leise were later entousiastically unerthed by Marxist historians alongf withn euro-supermacist ones who needed to throw dirt on America in order to make forget abopu some events like Auschwitz who seriosly undermined Europe’s moral stand.
Secession was not about fedral on imports since these had been going down for thirty years. Just take a look at secessionist press, at speeches fropm seczessionists politicians and state rigghts ior taxes are berely mentionned. 90% of space was aboutr slavery. Red the Confederation’s constitution and tell me how many lines are on taxes or state rights versus how many on slavery.
Also Lincoln couldn’t abolish slavery in states loyal, to the Union fior the simple reason that he needed to amned the Constitution for doing it and still hadn’t the resuired majority or that entire regiments from pro-Union slave states like Kentucky had laid down arms when a Union General had begun liberating slaves from his own initiative.
While unlike for the previous themes I haven’t investigatzed your claim that two thirds of federal revenue came from the South (I suspect that it is the same kind of drivel that the previous) let ‘s remember that in those times the Federal Government expenses were relatively modest and that most tax money was state taxes. Oh and let’s talk of Virginia were slaves weren’t taxed so most of state revenue was paid by the districts of future West Virginia and spent on slave districts while the western ones languished without bridges or roads.
Let’s talk of a an unfair electoral law who counted slaves 60% of their numbers for electiral purposes thus allowing the South to be overrepresented in the House and thanks to on average lesser population per State to be overrepresnted in teh Senate and both effects in Conjunction to be overrepresented in the electoral college and force fed on Northern throats one pro-slavery Southerner after another.
It is written in the book of Hosea:
MY PEOPLE ARE DESTROYED BY THE LACK OF KNOWLEDGE
BECAUSE THOU HAST REJECTED KNOWLEDGE
I WILL ALSO REJECT THEE.
so it goes…
Shalom! Kol tuv!
Miamaman,
how radical you suddenly became !
uh, be careful to not become a brainwashed “adept” too
Given that Mohammed conquored Christan lands and then called them Islamic lands, it seems to me that by the standards of the NYT editorial it’s the Christians who have a right to attack Islamic nations that are on what was once Christian lands. After all, Christianity predates Islam and is therefore by definition the first to claim those lands. Soooo, when will the Times publish an editorial that states Christians have the right to attack Muslim anywhere they find them and compare Christians who do so to valiant freedom fighters? Obviously, they won’t, so it’s just another nail in the coffin of the Times.
Regards
You also seem to neglect the fact that at the time slaves were treated as property as handed down by the Dred Scott decision. While morally reprehensible black slaves were treated legally no different as a horse or cow, they were property according to the laws of the land, and thus however wrong morally this was a legal issue of property. Liberals point to Roe vs. Wade as settling the question of abortion as not being murder, these people pointed to the Dred Scott decision as settling the question of slavery.
So yes slavery does figure much into speeches, editorials, etc. In fact Mississippi’s declaration of causes of Succession is solely about slavery. Contrast that with South Carolina’s and Texas which enumerate many grievances of which slavery is but one issue.
I stand by my statement that Lincoln freed no slaves, the 14th Amendment was adopted in July 1868, three years after Linclon’s assassination. By you own admission there were pro-slavery Union slave states, now I ask you how could this be if the war was all about slavery? Wouldn’t pro-slavery states all have sided with the Confederacy in that case?
As for the Confederate Constitution it addresses slavery in 4 different places and is pretty specific as opposed to 2 places in the US constitution which are a little more vague. As far as representation in the Senate goes, last I checked there were only 2 allowed per state regardless of population. This holds true whether you’re talking about the US or CS Constitution.
You also seem to neglect that many Northerners were not about living with freed black people but were more for freeing them and sending them back to Africa. There were also fears of Northern whites and European immigrants that they would be replaced by slave labor.
You also mention the low population of the Southern states, to the agriculturally based South they needed slaves (still doesn’t make it right) because of the nature of the Southern climate in the days before AC and other modern amenities was generally undesirable and even unhealthy to most people of European decent and European immigrants. Summarily ending slavery would have been an economic deathblow to the South. It would be no different than if we were to close the borders and deport all illegals today, our agricultural industry would be devastated and the cost of their products would sky rocket. You set out to ruin a man and they’re going to fight you whether they are in the wrong or not.
I stand by my statement that Lincoln freed no slaves, the 14th Amendment was adopted in July 1868, three years after Linclon’s assassination.
Nice try. you use the wrong adte and the wrong Amendment to prove your thesis. The Fourteeenth Amendment was adopted (ie ratified by States) on July 1868 but what is significative of exexutive’s will is the date it was voted by the Congress ie June, 1868 and even that doesn’t reflect when it was introduced in the circuit for adoption and still less when the executive began pressuring for it.
Anyway, 14th Amendment was not about slavery it was Thirteenth who was adopted after Lincoln’s death but pushed by him.
By you own admission there were pro-slavery Union slave states, now I ask you how could this be if the war was all about slavery? Wouldn’t pro-slavery states all have sided with the Confederacy in that case?
Lets speka instead of steates where slavery was legal. Some of these states like Missouri joined the Union only after armed combats between pro-Union (mostly but not excelusively Free-Soilers);:;and pro-Confedertion citizens. Kentucky declared itself neutral and joined the Union after having been invaded by the Confedeartion. Anyway there were Confederates who opposed slavery and even secession (eg Robert Lee), there were Unionists who favoured slavery (I think Sherman was one of them) and looooots of Northerners who hated slavery but not vehemently enough to risk life and limb for iots abolition. And there were anti-slmavery people who told that it was better to let the South go instead of letting it poison the Republic like it jhad been doing for years. Frederick Douglass, yes that one, was one of them. But that only tells that for people there are some loyalties who are more important than others
Now when you look at the letters from the Union soldiers who enlisted in 1860 what they wrote to their families was not about slavery or even about the Union but “our magnificent system of governement” one whose precepts is that when you have lost an exlection (let’s remind that slavery couldn’t have been abolished before the numberr of states reached 45 that is in 1894) you smile and congratuleta your opponennt instead of acting like a spoiled brat who has been denied a slice of apple pie, seceding, and in order to embolden the High South who had remained loyal, open fire on Fort Sumter. But the fact that slavery was not, at least in 1860 the primary cause tUnion soldiers were ready to risk their lives for does not mean that they did not consider it an important objective in the war (specially for New-Enganders). Also the more the war lasted the more abolition of slavery became one of the goals of war for them.
You also mention the low population of the Southern states, to the agriculturally based South they needed slaves (still doesn’t make it right) because of the nature of the Southern climate in the days before AC and other modern amenities was generally undesirable
My point was about the electoral system who heavoily who favoured the South. Let’s see: a Northern state with 150,000 citizens enabled to vote versus two Southern ones with each one having 50,00 voters and 50,000 slaves. So the number of representatives in the House was calculated on the basis of 150,000 while the two Southern ones is a a total of 160,000 (100,000 + 60% of 100,000 slaves). Then there is the Senate: 2 senators versus 4). And the electotral college: 2 + electors for 150,000 versus 4 + electors for 160,000. No wonder that before Lincoln about every President had been either a Southerner or a dough face from meridional North.
About the calculation I amde. Let’s also highlight that a slave despite not being allowed to vote, was by his mere existence contributing to increase South’s weight and to consolidate slavery.
Minarets may be “just architecture” to some folks. Like swastikas on buildings, right? That’s what it represented to some people.
Ms. Chesler is correct in that minarets are symbols of domination over infidels. The Eastern Orthodox Christians, whose lands have been under attack from Islam for more than a thousand years, understood this very well. That’s why the Eastern Orthodox, when they recaptured lands from Islam, would build a church there with a cross on top of it, placed atop a Muslim crescent, to symbolize the victory of Christianity over Islam.