charles,
I am not putting Christianity into a position analogous to Islam. That is part of my point, they are completely different. Christianity arose among practicing Jews as one of many variants. After a period in excess of a hundred years people began to understand that it was a new religion. Islam was created by a man who had met some Jewish merchants and decided that they did not know their own religion. The Ethiopian Falasha are interesting. While there are differences between their practices and those of other Jews, such as the Yemenite community, and I am sure their history is fascinating, I would consider them Jews. They are certainly closer to mainstream Judaism than the Samaritans are. My point was that the official Jewish view of the Samaritans cast them in a light similar to Islam but that I suspect that to be unfair.

Mark B,
Pax. Everything about nukes, power or specweaps, is very tightly controlled. I remember when we did a movement and I was the PRP Courier. The Marines looked happy. They had been told that if an officer stepped over the invisible line they could shoot him. Never wanted to be a Nuke myself. Takes a special type to live in a sewer pipe. OK already I’ll stop. Nukes are more highly selected and their community benefits from not having to deal with the personnel problems and frictions faced by the rest of the service.

Subotai Bahdur,
While I am uncomfortable with your TWANLOC designation I do find your general argument about the nature of the problem thoughtful. There is an issue with drawing lines between those who are part of the democratic community and those who aren’t. Who gets to decide? The unfortunate record seems to be that the deciders get corrupted and drive wedges within the presumptively loyal members of the polis.