Who do you consider to be a great political leader, current or past? And why?

I consider Reagan the best president of the 20th century. He fixed our military, collapsed communism, freed millions of people from enslavement, and I loved the way he did politics.

Second, Lincoln... He ended slavery.

I reckon Tony Blair.

His economic policies are spot on - "Thatcherism with compassion". He is an impressive public speaker. He is a genuine leader - he has risked his career and gone against popular opinion and the opinion of his own party on what he believes is right. (The Iraq issue saw one third of parliament voting against him, most of the dissenters were from his own party.)

Before Blair, I would have said Thatcher because her policies were revolutionary and had profound effect on economic policies and economies throughout the world, including Australia. She was the politician that dared to challenge Keynesian orthodoxy and was in the end proven right. But she was a little too brutal in some ways.

Would that the Australian labor party were to follow Blair's "Third Way". But alas the current leader, Simon Crean, is too much of a union lackey (former ACTU president) and just doesn't seem to have the right stuff every time he speaks.

No brainer. FDR. He pulled us out of a depression, a world war, and gave those with polio courage- all while he himself was handicapped in the latter stages of his career. He was part of the big 3, and did so much for this country.

Patriot

originally posted by Jerrek
Lincoln... He ended slavery.Only as an afterthought. Lincoln’s feelings about black people are well documented. He thought they would never be the equal of whites. He never even mentioned slavery until halfway through the Civil War. The Union was not doing well and many Northerners were ready to call a truce. Lincoln needed something to rekindle their enthusiasm, and he stumbled upon the great idea of promising to end slavery – but only in the Southern states! (It was still practiced in states that hadn’t seceded, including Maryland and Missouri.)

Lincoln’s legacy is that the USA is one of only two countries in this entire hemisphere that wasn’t smart enough to figure out how to abolish slavery by peaceful means. (Haiti is the other.) It’s been argued that as a result, Americans on both sides of the Mason-Dixon line had a convenient focus for their post-war anger and hatred: our black citizens, who could now be blamed for a war that was actually launched without a single thought for their welfare. After 140 years our race relations are conspicously worse than most anywhere else in the Americas. We have white people and black people and a whole lot of problems with racism. In other countries such as Brazil and Cuba, everybody is just a slightly different shade of brown.

I believe that Lincoln is highly overrated. He dragged the Union into the bloodiest war in U.S. history, the only one that was fought entirely on U.S. soil, and one that to this day casts a shadow over our politics.

originally posted by Patriot
FDR. He pulled us out of a depression, a world war, and gave those with polio courage- all while he himself was handicapped in the latter stages of his career. He was part of the big 3, and did so much for this country.Roosevelt spat on the Constitution, setting precedents that still threaten to destroy our political system. He put the government into businesses such as charity and finance, endeavors for which there is absolutely no Constitutional justification. Government welfare is a bureaucratic nightmare, dissipating 75 percent of the money it steals from the solvent by giving it to administrators who spend their lives administering other administrators, and giving a good portion of the 25 percent that is actually meant for “the poor” to dishonest people who have figured out how to beat the system and fill out the forms properly. The Salvation Army and other private charities teach their people a skill that eludes civil servants: how to distinguish between a genuinely poor man and one who is faking it; and they do it with a very small administrative staff. If all the money the government collects for welfare were simply divided up and handed out to America’s poor, each legitimately “poor” family would receive $40,000 per year!

Roosevelt didn’t “pull us out of a depression [and] a world war.” He dragged us into WWII precisely because he figured it would kickstart the economy and end the depression. He died and left it up to Truman to “pull us out” of WWII. All the Japanese wanted was permission to buy petroleum from Indonesia. That would arguably have prevented Pearl Harbor. We could have left the Europeans to fight the same stupid damn war they had been fighting for 500 years without our help. All our help did was replace Hitler with Stalin as the world’s most powerful evil man. What a fabulous improvement!

As for sheer power, cunning, and charisma its a tie between ghengis khan and alexander of macedon.

Whoever gets the award for being good to his people was forgotten by history long ago. Nice guys usually dont make it to history books. Antoninus pius was pretty good in this extent as far as I remember. If he was real and like the legends depict King arthur would take the cake. A number of america's founding fathers might also get into the semifinals.

A number of biblical figures might go into the "greatest" catagory. Starting with god, then lucifer (the devil goes under the same classificantion as ghengis khan. not nice but great nonetheless) , and a whole bunch of others...

I agree with you on most of FDR exsept that I think he should have gotten involved sooner into the war.

Lincholn could not say that the border states would loose slavery. They would have joined the confedrate states then and we would have lost the war. He had to wait till the confedracy had hurt the border states also so they hated the confedracy too. Then he could make the Emancipation Proclamation.

The United States was also had a huge amount of capital in slave labor. We could not end slavery peacfully. We tried to contain it but containment never works. It was in Jeffersons origginal declration of independence that he says how the British promoted slavery making it hard for them to stop the disease.

Mine would be James Madison and Theodore Rosevelt

Theodore Roosevelt is undoubtedly for me the most colorful president we've ever had; dynamic visionary, but a realist. Churchill rose to the occasion. Bismarck unified the Germanic states and melded a great power. Lincoln held a nation together. Slavery was not the issue with him; preserving the Union was. The Emancipation Proclamation was only in response to pressure from the Radical Republicans in Congress, those former abolitionists who, in 1863, wanted the abolition of slavery as part of the gains of a Northern victory.

Roosevelt didn’t “pull us out of a depression [and] a world war.” He dragged us into WWII precisely because he figured it would kickstart the economy and end the depression.

More to it than that. It's obvious from FDR's personal records that he had an intense dislike of Hitler, and often commented during the '30s of the growing 'lawlessness' of Germany and Japan. And the US was coming out of the depression by '41. If FDR just wanted to kickstart the economy we could have remained neutral and traded with both sides.

He died and left it up to Truman to “pull us out” of WWII.

He died one month before Germany collapsed and Japan no longer had a navy to speak of.

All the Japanese wanted was permission to buy petroleum from Indonesia

All Japan wanted was to control east Asia. Japan could have avoided the oil embargoes by renouncing its pact with the Axis, which the US asked for to preserve the US-Japanese relationship, but which Japan refused to do. The US didn't want war with Japan. At the time Asia was secondary to Europe. FDR was more concerned with Germany, but he couldn't afford to have Germany's ally in the East unchecked. While it's true FDR misread Stalin, sometimes you have to choose between two evils.

The United States was also had a huge amount of capital in slave labor. We could not end slavery peacfully. We tried to contain it but containment never works.

Slavery was not just the basis of the southern economic sysyem (king cotton), it was also the defining element of the South's social structure. Southern planters had long resisted the more urbane southerners arguments to industrialize and ease out of slavery. To end the slave system would have ended the southern feudal system, and threatened the ruling oligarchy that not only controlled over 90% of the South's wealth, but also passed around senate seats and governerships at the whim. It was these few extremists' desire to secede that led to their purposely causing a rift between the northern and southern factions of the Democratic Party for the 1860 election, enabling the fledgling anti-slavery Republican Party candidate, Lincoln, to win, even though the party had absolutely no support in the South.

Originally posted by Coldrake
All Japan wanted was to control east Asia.Perhaps so. You're obviously more well read on the subject than I. Yet judging from history it would have backfired. Every nation that "conquered" China ended up being assimilated, losing its national identity, and becoming part of China: the Mongols, the Manchus. It's possible that by 2003 Japan would already be just another Chinese province and they would all be speaking Chinese. This alternate history might have halted the nearly fatal flirtation with communism in China, Korea and Vietnam, which threatens to destabilize and impoverish the region, arguably far worse than a Japanese victory would have.Slavery was not just the basis of the southern economic sysyem (king cotton), it was also the defining element of the South's social structure. Southern planters had long resisted the more urbane southerners' arguments to industrialize and ease out of slavery. To end the slave system would have ended the southern feudal system and threatened the ruling oligarchy.If the Confederacy had been allowed to continue as an independent nation, the issue would have eventually manifested itself as a stagnant economy and been resolved in one of two ways.

1. By implosion, as in Brazil. Its slaveholders were universally regarded as the cruelest and most arrogant aristocrats in the New World, yet in 1893(?) even they had to throw in the towel because slavery simply doesn't work. In other countries the governments simply wrote the slaveholders a check for the current market value of their slaves, which by then wasn't a whole lot, and immediately handed them all writs of manumission.

2. By begging to be readopted by kindly old England as a colony again. The Brits had long cast covetous eyes on their cotton supplier, and when the slave-based economy of the southern aristocrats ceased to support their aristocratic lifestyle, becoming British citizens might have seemed an attractive option. The Queen would have immediately freed the slaves, as had already been done throughout the Empire. By now of course the Confederate American colonies would have the same independence as Canada. They would undoubtedly be a similarly peaceful neighbor, chuckling over our differences and still calling us Damn Yankees, but closing ranks with the U.K. and the U.S. in wartime just as they have always done. The key difference between that alternate history and reality would be the fate of the black Americans on both sides of the Mason Dixon line. There would be no Civil War or Reconstruction to blame on them. It was no secret that white Southerners (and Northerners) were already happily having mixed-race children out of wedlock with their slaves. The practice would surely have become even more common and more legitimate in a South without the Reconstruction-spawned K.K.K. and in a North that didn't see hundreds of thousands of dead Union soldiers every time it looked into the face of a freedman. Who knows, by now the people in both subsets of the fifty States might be various shades of brown, just like the other former slaveholding nations. Isn't that a nice dream?

I lived in the south most of my life. I never hear anybody blaming the Civil War on black people. First off the confederates started the war. Linchon only wanted to stop the spreading of it to the western states.

England would not have gotten rid of slavery. They were doing far worse things then slavery at the time. I would have rather been a slave and worth something then a colonist and being starved to death because of the colonial system.

Yet judging from history it would have backfired. Every nation that "conquered" China ended up being assimilated, losing its national identity, and becoming part of China:

That's very likely true. Japan was having a lot of trouble in its occupation, only having success in the north. The coalition of the Chinese nationalists and communists made it very difficult for the Japanese, particularly as US aid increased.

If the Confederacy had been allowed to continue as an independent nation, the issue would have eventually manifested itself as a stagnant economy and been resolved in one of two ways.

I pretty much agree. Britain was encouraging more cotton production in Egypt and India, reducing its needs on southern cotton. As the need for their cotton diminished, the power of the planters would have diminished. Cotton was no longer the driving force behind the American economy after 1840; transportation, specifically the railroad, was. And the South could not afford to continue to lag behind the North in education, industry, transportation, etc. By the end of the 19th century the South would have had to either reconsider rejoining the Union or approaching Britain. While the planters may have desired to rejoin the empire, they would not have the true aristocratic status they had in America. They might have been better off investing in industry and becoming giants of the status of the Carnegies and Rockefellers. I think that the average farmers in the South, who made up the overwhelming majority of southern society, would have pushed for reunion with the North. That was the only way for them to actually have some political influence in a federal republic as opposed to the oligarchy they had existed in since 1783. JMO.

i think it's mahatma gandhi. he managed to make the indian freedom struggle a non-violent one. the concept of a non-violent revolution at the time was ludicrous. yet he managed to do it. it wouldn't have been possible if he didn't have the support of the people, and everyone supported him. they felt they could trust him. his universal appeal, and non-violent, yet crippling methods, like swadeshi and all the principles under it, still amaze me.

he never stood for any election, but was a member of the Indian National Congress, so i guess that qualifies him.

There's three that particularily stand out for me.

1 - Pierre Trudeau
2 - Fidel Castro
3 - Nelson Mandela

Carmagio, you reminded me..i have 1 more:-

Che Guevara.

Actually, I forgot about Che, add him to my list as well....... thanks :)

Ronald Reagan: Ended the Soviet empire and eliminated what was and still is at this point the greatest threat to the world that has ever existed.

The American Founding Fathers: Established the greatest and most powerful nation in the history of mankind.

Charles Martel: Saved Western Civilization from Muslim invaders.

Originally posted by Patriot
No brainer. FDR. He pulled us out of a depression, a world war, and gave those with polio courage- all while he himself was handicapped in the latter stages of his career. He was part of the big 3, and did so much for this country.

Actually, it was Axis warmongering that ended the great depression. All Roosevelt did was curse us with unprecedented government involvement in our economy.

I knew it'd cause some controversy. Here's my argument:

He put the government into businesses such as charity and finance, endeavors for which there is absolutely no Constitutional justification.

Well, there isn't Constitutional justification for much. Executive orders have been issued from our first President, and none have been legally challenged, to my knowledge. FDR did what he had to do in order to ensure that our economy rebounded.

Actually, it was Axis warmongering that ended the great depression. All Roosevelt did was curse us with unprecedented government involvement in our economy.

Axis warmongering? That's not true. Our domestic economy was caused by internal margin buying. So how could a foreign political move so greatly influence the American dollar? It is possible, do not misstate me, that it did influence our economy at the time, but not so much as to remove us from a Depression that was worsened by the Dust Bowl. Socialist procedures were required to help the country, much like France after their revolutions.

Patriot

Originally posted by Patriot
Axis warmongering? That's not true. Our domestic economy was caused by internal margin buying. So how could a foreign political move so greatly influence the American dollar? It is possible, do not misstate me, that it did influence our economy at the time, but not so much as to remove us from a Depression that was worsened by the Dust Bowl. Socialist procedures were required to help the country, much like France after their revolutions.

Had there been no World War II, or no American involvement in World War II, would we have still recovered from the depression in the same time frame?

Mr. Reed says it better than I could hope to: Great Myths of the Great Depression (http://www.mackinac.org/article.asp?ID=4013)

Ronald Reagan: Ended the Soviet empire and eliminated what was and still is at this point the greatest threat to the world that has ever existed.

I wasn't quite alive during the Reagan administration, but from what I've heard, from my various liberal relatives and friends who were alive and self conscious at the time, was that they were terrified of the man, and hated him for the incredible amounts of money he spent on the military, which did destroy the Soviet Empire, but also "forced" every president since then to spend just as much or more on the military itself, which is not as warranted considering the fact that we lack a large, foreign enemy to dehumanize.

The American Founding Fathers: Established the greatest and most powerful nation in the history of mankind.

I thought we were weaklings until after WW2. I would argue that Great Britain is the greatest and most influential nation ever. If it weren't for them then we wouldn't be here!

Charles Martel: Saved Western Civilization from Muslim invaders.

I think that western civilization would have been a great deal more peaceful if Christianity had been eradicated by Islam. I researched Islam, and found that most or all of the Islamic rulers of the middle ages preached a thing called tolerance, a concept thought completely insane by more European legislators. If you lived in an Islamic country and were not a Muslim, and as long as you worshipped the bible and paid a small tax you were fine. There are other aspects of Islam as well that make it particularly intriguing (Mohammed was fairly wealthy before he started preaching, then was dirt poor for the rest of his life) and, in my mind at least, make it better than Christianity.

Che Guevara

I know little about this guy..all I do know is that the word che is used to say that something is cool in Spanish. So the fellow must have been pretty influential.

How come no one's mentioned Garfield? He never gets any credit as the greatest president in this nation's history!

Originally posted by Pollux V


I know little about this guy..all I do know is that the word che is used to say that something is cool in Spanish. So the fellow must have been pretty influential.


Basically, he was a marxist. Che, Fidel and Raoul Castro planned the cuban revolution, overthrowing the pro U.S. Batista regime.

Eventually moved to Bolivia, where the U.S. had been training and backing Bolivian soldiers. He was eventually captured and killed by Bolivian soldiers.

Kind of hard to judge Garfield on less than 6 months of office. He may have proven to be a strong president, but the assassins bullet made it a moot point.

Originally posted by Pollux V
I wasn't quite alive during the Reagan administration, but from what I've heard, from my various liberal relatives and friends who were alive and self conscious at the time, was that they were terrified of the man, and hated him for the incredible amounts of money he spent on the military, which did destroy the Soviet Empire, but also "forced" every president since then to spend just as much or more on the military itself, which is not as warranted considering the fact that we lack a large, foreign enemy to dehumanize.

The destruction of the Soviet empire and the threat it represented was more than worth the price in military spending required to do it.

And I don't see that any future presidents are "forced" to maintain this level of spending, since military forces can be cut and equipment decommissioned.

Originally posted by Pollux V
I thought we were weaklings until after WW2. I would argue that Great Britain is the greatest and most influential nation ever. If it weren't for them then we wouldn't be here!

America is a very young, relative to other nations. Has any other nation ever become as strong as fast as the United States?

Originally posted by Pollux V
I think that western civilization would have been a great deal more peaceful if Christianity had been eradicated by Islam. I researched Islam, and found that most or all of the Islamic rulers of the middle ages preached a thing called tolerance, a concept thought completely insane by more European legislators.

Things change.

Islamic nations of today aren't what most people would consider shining examples of peacefulness and tolerance.

Predominantly Christian nations of today aren't the brutal theocracies that they were in the Middle Ages.

Also, notice the irony of you glorifying Islam of the Middle Ages as peaceful and tolerant even as Muslims were invading and attempting to conquer Europe.

Originally posted by Pollux V
If you lived in an Islamic country and were not a Muslim, and as long as you worshipped the bible and paid a small tax you were fine.

Things change. In today's world, would a Christian living in Saudi Arabia or Iran enjoy the same rights, freedoms and safety as a Muslim living in Norway or America?

Originally posted by Pollux V
There are other aspects of Islam as well that make it particularly intriguing (Mohammed was fairly wealthy before he started preaching, then was dirt poor for the rest of his life) and, in my mind at least, make it better than Christianity.

I'm not religious and my knowledge of the Bible is limited, but I don't recall reading anything suggesting that Jesus ever was a wealthy man.

Originally posted by Pollux V
I know little about this guy..all I do know is that the word che is used to say that something is cool in Spanish. So the fellow must have been pretty influential.

Che Guevara was a communist, so that's all anyone should need to know about him. But since I never mentioned him as a great leader, I'm not worried about it.

Originally posted by Pollux V
How come no one's mentioned Garfield?

Because his cruelty to Odie showed his true colors.

originally posted by Salty
England would not have gotten rid of slavery. They were doing far worse things then slavery at the time.Uh, wrong and right. Historical sequence error. Britan did more than its share of bad shit. But it abolished slavery early in the 19th Century. By the time of the Civil War the Royal Navy was intercepting slave ships, sending the slaves home and throwing the captains in prison. The only way people could get more slaves was to encourage the slaves they already had to have children. Queen Victoria would absolutely have freed the slaves if the Confederacy rejoined the Commonwealth. That is indisputable.
originally posted by Galt
Ronald Reagan: Ended the Soviet empire and eliminated what was and still is at this point the greatest threat to the world that has ever existed.A sweeping generalization made from a typically short-sighted American perspective on history. The various waves of Mongol tribes (Finns, Tatars, Huns, Magyars, Moguls, Turks, they just kept on coming every couple of centuries) came close to wiping out Western civilization several times. Ask a Persian or a Greek who was the greatest threat! Then how about Hitler? The USSR had eighty years to fester its evil self. Look what Hitler managed to do in twenty! And, um, need I remind us all that there is only ONE country in the entire world that ever actually deployed NUCLEAR weapons in a war, and for god’s sake it deployed them against CIVILIAN targets, TWICE?Had there been no World War II, or no American involvement in World War II, would we have still recovered from the depression in the same time frame?I don’t know, it depends on how fussy you are about defining the “time frame.” No recession anywhere ever lasted more than a generation, except in countries like Bangla Desh that seem to have been founded on the principle of “Let’s see if we can create a country that is destined to be in an eternal depression.” And of course the real fuck-ups of cosmic proportions like the Mayas, who actually destroyed their surrounding environment and had to revert back to the Stone Age and wait for the Aztecs to arise and send out troops to conquer them. The U.S. economy reached its nadir in the early 1930s and was slowly rebounding. By 1950 things would probably have been about the same whether or not we had participated in Act II of the Great War.America is very young, relative to other nations. Has any other nation ever become as strong as fast as the United States?Yes. Argentina. In 1900 it had a higher standard of living than the US, and I’m fairly sure its independence came later than ours. Its total collapse in one century is a sobering lesson to us all.Things change. Islamic nations of today aren't what most people would consider shining examples of peacefulness and tolerance. Predominantly Christian nations of today aren't the brutal theocracies that they were in the Middle Ages.Islam arose 600 years later than Christianity and its development has paralleled the same time frame pretty well. First an energetic faith evangelized by zealots. Then the state religion of a large empire or two which spread it by the sword. Islam is just about at the point where people got really fed up with Christian dogma and had themselves an Enlightenment and a Renaissance. There are many Muslims in the more moderate, secular countries who seem more akin to Galileo than to the Archbishop of Seville. Perhaps in a few more centuries Islam will be where Christianity is today. Its two most recognizable symbols are Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny.originally posted by Patriot
Well, there isn't Constitutional justification for much. Executive orders have been issued from our first President, and none have been legally challenged, to my knowledge.You say that like it makes it all OK. Setting the precedent of ignoring the Constitution and getting away with it merely emboldens one’s successors to do the same thing, ever more blatantly. The government has now taken over the education, charity, energy, finance, and transportation sectors, and for good measure institutionalized a system of racial quotas that would have astounded and dismayed Harriet Tubman, W.E.B. duBois, and Martin Luther King Jr. FDR did what he had to do in order to ensure that our economy rebounded.“You can never do just one thing.” Every politician should have that saying tatooed on the inside of his eyelids. Yes, in the short run FDR made quite a few people less poor. But in the long run he is largely responsible for just about all of the excesses in my previous list, except for Affirmative Discrimination. Oddly enough, the righteous goal of Equal Opportunity seemed to get twisted into its evil twin, Reverse Discrimination, during one of the Republican administrations.originally posted by Pollux V
I thought we were weaklings until after WW2.No. America became a Great Power after our astounding performance during WWI. We were admitted to all the gentleman’s clubs after the Treaty of Versailles. I would argue that Great Britain is the greatest and most influential nation ever. If it weren't for them then we wouldn't be here!Well that’s getting pretty cosmic. You could say the same thing about every civilization which came before them. There were only seven peoples in all of history who actually developed civilization out of a Stone Age culture. The Chinese, the ancient Egyptians, the Mesopotamians, the Indians (some say the Harappans and the Hindus were two separate instances, but the evidence is pointing the other way), the Olmecs, the Incas, and Zimbabwe (a lost kingdom whose name has been recently coopted). Absolutely everyone else in the world is merely descended from barbarians who were CONQUERED by one of those civilizations and had civilization HANDED to them, often at spearpoint. The original “civilization” from which ours and all of Europe’s is descended is Mesopotamia. So if you want to bow toward the source of everything we are, you’re going to have to do it in the direction of the capital city of Mesopotamia: BAGHDAD!

Isn’t life just so deliciously ironic?

Originally posted by Fraggle Rocker
A sweeping generalization made from a typically short-sighted American perspective on history. The various waves of Mongol tribes (Finns, Tatars, Huns, Magyars, Moguls, Turks, they just kept on coming every couple of centuries) came close to wiping out Western civilization several times. Ask a Persian or a Greek who was the greatest threat!

The various waves of Mongol tribes were a threat to the Western World specifically. The Soviet Union was a threat to the world in general, regardless of geographic location or cultural identity.

Originally posted by Fraggle Rocker
Then how about Hitler? The USSR had eighty years to fester its evil self. Look what Hitler managed to do in twenty!

There's that German efficiency. Instead of comparing two decades of Hitler to eight decades of Soviet tyranny, we should compare two decades of Hitler to two decades of Stalin.

Originally posted by Fraggle Rocker
And, um, need I remind us all that there is only ONE country in the entire world that ever actually deployed NUCLEAR weapons in a war, and for god’s sake it deployed them against CIVILIAN targets, TWICE?

What would have been the death toll of both Americans and Japanese had we decided to invade and occupy?

Originally posted by Fraggle Rocker
Yes. Argentina. In 1900 it had a higher standard of living than the US, and I’m fairly sure its independence came later than ours. Its total collapse in one century is a sobering lesson to us all.

Argentina gained its independence from Spain in 1816. In 1900 Argentina had a higher standard of living than America. By the end of the World War I America was among the most powerful countries in the world and by the end of World War II our status as world superpower was indisputable. At what point was Argentina the most powerful country on earth?

Originally posted by Fraggle Rocker
Islam arose 600 years later than Christianity and its development has paralleled the same time frame pretty well. First an energetic faith evangelized by zealots. Then the state religion of a large empire or two which spread it by the sword. Islam is just about at the point where people got really fed up with Christian dogma and had themselves an Enlightenment and a Renaissance. There are many Muslims in the more moderate, secular countries who seem more akin to Galileo than to the Archbishop of Seville. Perhaps in a few more centuries Islam will be where Christianity is today. Its two most recognizable symbols are Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny.

I never claimed that Islamic countries will never be peaceful and tolerant, but only that they aren't peaceful and tolerant right now. Had Islam destroyed Christian Europe we could all very well be living under a regime similar to the Taliban.

Churchill. ...'nough said.

Galt, you can ignore Fraggle Rocker... he is one of those American flag burning people that loves to see Americans die.

Ataturk- freed a people founded a nation

Hitler- inspired a nation, revitalised Germany, took over mainland Europe. Granted he was a complete asshole.

Lizzy I- her manoeuvring to avoid taking a husband, the way she steered a middle road between catholicism and protestantism. She kept a balanced budget. Was a super smart chick.

Reagan didn't kill communism, communism was already failing, in fact Reagan thought so himself.

Originally posted by Fraggle Rocker
Uh, wrong and right. Historical sequence error. Britan did more than its share of bad shit. But it abolished slavery early in the 19th Century. By the time of the Civil War the Royal Navy was intercepting slave ships, sending the slaves home and throwing the captains in prison. The only way people could get more slaves was to encourage the slaves they already had to have children. Queen Victoria would absolutely have freed the slaves if the Confederacy rejoined the Commonwealth. That is indisputable.


Funny a Navy composed of slaves stoping slavery. Ironic isint it?

England still did slavery. It just did it economically. Forced people to not industrialize only make cash crops. Its even worse then slavery because the pesant has no value to the motherland.

Consider the times. It was pretty bad in most places.

winston churchill..... king of motivation.

Galt, you can ignore Fraggle Rocker... he is one of those American flag burning people that loves to see Americans die.

Here we go....if you're not with us, you want to destroy us. No shades of gray....

Churchill. ...'nough said.

Yeah, definitely one of the more interesting historical figures.

The destruction of the Soviet empire and the threat it represented was more than worth the price in military spending required to do it.

And I don't see that any future presidents are "forced" to maintain this level of spending, since military forces can be cut and equipment decommissioned.


Name a single president after Reagan who hasn't spent as much or more on the military than he did. Then have a look at what was spent on the military before he took office.

America is a very young, relative to other nations. Has any other nation ever become as strong as fast as the United States?

Live fast, die young. The brightest burning candle is the first to die out. Notice how the largest stars are also the first to implode. Metaphors! I think in the 15th or 16th century Spain was in the same position we were, probably the most powerful country in the world, what with their armada, then one poorly commanded battle and that was it. Spain became the neutral territory it is today. Such a thing must have been inconcievable to the spaniards at the time!

Islamic nations of today aren't what most people would consider shining examples of peacefulness and tolerance.

Predominantly Christian nations of today aren't the brutal theocracies that they were in the Middle Ages.

Also, notice the irony of you glorifying Islam of the Middle Ages as peaceful and tolerant even as Muslims were invading and attempting to conquer Europe.


On your first point, I agree. It's probably the Brits fault, they really shifted everything around in the middle east after WW1...

On your second point I also agree.

My dates may be incorrect, but I believe Pope Urban II declared the crusade against Islam two hundred years before the Battle of Tours (the battle that stopped the Muslim Invasion). Plus, the Europeans were attempting to conquer each other anyway. On that account, of the whole conquer-and-kill thing, I believe both the Muslims and the Christians were in the same boat. They both conquered. BUT--look at how far Islam got. Now look at how far Christianity got. Christianity has been spread predominantly across several continents, while Islam has, more or less, a bit of Asia, most of the Middle East, and some of Indonesia. That's it.

Things change. In today's world, would a Christian living in Saudi Arabia or Iran enjoy the same rights, freedoms and safety as a Muslim living in Norway or America?

True. But in the middle ages, would a Muslim enjoy the same freedoms in France or Austria? I think that the Middle Ages lasted a bit longer than our modern age (which probably begins at the Industrial Revolution). So the Muslims have the Christians beat--they've been nicer for longer, even if they aren't that nice any more.

I'm not religious and my knowledge of the Bible is limited, but I don't recall reading anything suggesting that Jesus ever was a wealthy man.

Alright, but isn't it harder to give up your wealth when you already have it? Jesus may have always been poor--but Mohammed was poor at first, then became rich, then, when he began preaching, gave it all up to get his message across. That's proof enough for me that the man believed in what he was teaching.

Basically, he was a marxist. Che, Fidel and Raoul Castro planned the cuban revolution, overthrowing the pro U.S. Batista regime.

I wonder what would have been better...whoever Batista named as his heir...or Fidel...

The various waves of Mongol tribes were a threat to the Western World specifically. The Soviet Union was a threat to the world in general, regardless of geographic location or cultural identity.

But with a lunatic president at the helm and half the nation supporting him, don't you think the United States, now significantly more powerful than the Soviets ever were, is a much greater threat?

What would have been the death toll of both Americans and Japanese had we decided to invade and occupy?

The Japanese would have given up. They were brainwashed by Hirohito, but they would have given up. Anything was better than dropping two goddamn atomic bombs.

Originally posted by Pollux V
Name a single president after Reagan who hasn't spent as much or more on the military than he did. Then have a look at what was spent on the military before he took office.

Well we have been using the military in the past 10 years. We obviously need it other wise when ingnore the world things like Rwanda happen.



Originally posted by Pollux V
Live fast, die young. The brightest burning candle is the first to die out. Notice how the largest stars are also the first to implode. Metaphors! I think in the 15th or 16th century Spain was in the same position we were, probably the most powerful country in the world, what with their armada, then one poorly commanded battle and that was it. Spain became the neutral territory it is today. Such a thing must have been inconcievable to the spaniards at the time!

The Romans stood for over 1,000 years and they had the entire known world.

Originally posted by Pollux V
My dates may be incorrect, but I believe Pope Urban II declared the crusade against Islam two hundred years before the Battle of Tours (the battle that stopped the Muslim Invasion). Plus, the Europeans were attempting to conquer each other anyway. On that account, of the whole conquer-and-kill thing, I believe both the Muslims and the Christians were in the same boat. They both conquered. BUT--look at how far Islam got. Now look at how far Christianity got. Christianity has been spread predominantly across several continents, while Islam has, more or less, a bit of Asia, most of the Middle East, and some of Indonesia. That's it.

Absolutly wrong the crusades were done after the Islamic empire was divided. The Battle of Tours was done while the Islamic empire was still unified. The is more then a couple 400 years in the diffrence of the dates.

Originally posted by Pollux V
But with a lunatic president at the helm and half the nation supporting him, don't you think the United States, now significantly more powerful than the Soviets ever were, is a much greater threat?

Don't even try and compare Bush to Stalin. It makes you look like a fool. Stalin had killed more people then Hitler.

Originally posted by Pollux V
The Japanese would have given up. They were brainwashed by Hirohito, but they would have given up. Anything was better than dropping two goddamn atomic bombs.

Then why did we have to drop them? The fire bombing killed alot more people then the atomic bombs did.

Well we have been using the military in the past 10 years. We obviously need it other wise when ingnore the world things like Rwanda happen.

We were "using the military" before then too;)

he Romans stood for over 1,000 years and they had the entire known world.

How does this debate my point? The Romans took a lot longer to rise to power than we did.

Absolutly wrong the crusades were done after the Islamic empire was divided. The Battle of Tours was done while the Islamic empire was still unified. The is more then a couple 400 years in the diffrence of the dates.

This I will get to later, I have to go soon.

Don't even try and compare Bush to Stalin. It makes you look like a fool. Stalin had killed more people then Hitler.

I know that. I wasn't comparing Bush to Stalin. I was comparing the US to the Soviet Union. The United States, as of now, is more powerful than the Soviet Union ever was. And, with a crazy person at the helm, significantly more dangerous. I don't know if you've checked into the history of Russia, but Stalin wasn't the Soviet Union's only leader.

Then why did we have to drop them?

You tell me.

Originally posted by Pollux V
We were "using the military" before then too;)

You mean like in vietnam where we could not minimize civilian cassualties and had a large amount of cassualities on our side.

Originally posted by Pollux V
How does this debate my point? The Romans took a lot longer to rise to power than we did.

You say great states fall apart quickly. U.S. took a century to get to become a notable power in the world and WWII to become a super power and the cold war to become THE super power.

Originally posted by Pollux V
I know that. I wasn't comparing Bush to Stalin. I was comparing the US to the Soviet Union. The United States, as of now, is more powerful than the Soviet Union ever was. And, with a crazy person at the helm, significantly more dangerous. I don't know if you've checked into the history of Russia, but Stalin wasn't the Soviet Union's only leader.

Well we don't have a crazy person at the helm. We don't even have a helm. A president dosen't have that much power. USSR has not liberated nearly as many people as the United States has.

Originally posted by Pollux V
You tell me.

Did you just read that part of my post? We were killing more japanese by not droping the atomic warhead. Buy doing that it shows that resistance is useless. Surrender or die. Even thought fire bombind killed many more people they still thought they had hope.

Originally posted by Pollux V
My dates may be incorrect, but I believe Pope Urban II declared the crusade against Islam two hundred years before the Battle of Tours (the battle that stopped the Muslim Invasion).
The Moorish (Islamic) invasion of Europe began in 711 AD, which preceded the first Crusade by nearly 400 years.

Originally posted by Pollux V
Plus, the Europeans were attempting to conquer each other anyway. On that account, of the whole conquer-and-kill thing, I believe both the Muslims and the Christians were in the same boat. They both conquered. BUT--look at how far Islam got. Now look at how far Christianity got. Christianity has been spread predominantly across several continents, while Islam has, more or less, a bit of Asia, most of the Middle East, and some of Indonesia. That's it.

Islam being generally isolated to the Middle East and Asia is not due to their lack of imperialistic efforts, but rather their inability to conquer the whole of Europe and hold the areas they did overrun.

Originally posted by Pollux V
True. But in the middle ages, would a Muslim enjoy the same freedoms in France or Austria? I think that the Middle Ages lasted a bit longer than our modern age (which probably begins at the Industrial Revolution). So the Muslims have the Christians beat--they've been nicer for longer, even if they aren't that nice any more.

Who was nicer 800 years ago is irrelevant. I care who is nicer now, in the recent past and for the foreseeable future.

Originally posted by Pollux V
Alright, but isn't it harder to give up your wealth when you already have it? Jesus may have always been poor--but Mohammed was poor at first, then became rich, then, when he began preaching, gave it all up to get his message across. That's proof enough for me that the man believed in what he was teaching.

I don't know which is harder. I don't really care for either idea.

Maybe Mohammed did believe what he was teaching. Teaching that the earth was flat and believing it didn't make it so, did it?

Originally posted by Pollux V
But with a lunatic president at the helm and half the nation supporting him, don't you think the United States, now significantly more powerful than the Soviets ever were, is a much greater threat?

Do you have any proof that Bush is a lunatic other than that he apparently doesn't share your views on foreign policy?

Originally posted by Pollux V
The Japanese would have given up. They were brainwashed by Hirohito, but they would have given up. Anything was better than dropping two goddamn atomic bombs.

The Japanese didn't even surrender after Hiroshima was vaporized by our first atomic bomb. What makes you think they would have surrendered the moment a US Marine stepped foot on their shores?

The bottom line is that dropping the atomic bombs probably saved hundreds of thousands of Japanese lives and definitely saved tens of thousands - if not hundreds of thousands - of American lives.

Originally posted by Pollux V
Name a single president after Reagan who hasn't spent as much or more on the military than he did. Then have a look at what was spent on the military before he took office.

Irrelevant. Not cutting military spending is not the same as not being able to cut military spending.

Brian Connachan was a superb political leader.

Eugene Victor Debs
Leon Trotsky
Ernesto "Che" Guevara
Patrice Lumumba
Gamal Abdel-Nasser
Ho Chi Minh(for beating the US, not for being a good guy per se)
are the first that come to mind off hand.

originally posted by Pollux V
The Japanese were brainwashed by Hirohito.A minor point at this juncture, but just to set the record straight. It was Hirohito's generals who were passionate about starting the war in the first place and not giving up at the end. I've seen numerous references to the analyses of the time which leaned toward the conclusion that Hirohito himself actually had a good bit of Buddhism in his soul and would never have chosen war as a path on his own. The American leadership believed that he had a strong pacifist streak and were careful to maintain his dignity after the surrender. His pleas to the citizenry to regard the occupation forces as friends, and their continued respect for his leadership, are given a lot of credit for the speed, harmony, and success of the rebuilding effort.

As for whether nuking civilians brought the war to a speedier conclusion and saved lives in the long run, people will argue that forever. Some say they would have kept fighting until we shot the last four-year-old and the last flag hit the ground; that the only way to get them out of that mindset was to convince them that Americans are a people with absolutely no honor and we would commit as heinous an act as necessary to win. Others say Hirohito would have finally grown a backbone and shamed the generals into backing down rather than be remembered forever as the guys who caused the total destruction of Japanese civilization. I say we are clever enough to have found a third path. Perhaps sending Korean or Chinese troops in to occupy the first fallen Japanese city, using their racism against them. The civilians would have been so outraged that they might have rebelled against their own military leaders.

Regarding Islam: don't forget it has a huge presence in sub-Saharan Africa. Kenya, Uganda, Somalia, etc. Must be more than a hundred million Muslims on that continent not counting Arab North Africa. And for all practical purposes it has ALL of Indonesia AND Malaysia, two gigantic countries. And its foothold in North America has grown too large to ignore. The Sufi movement is catching fire in the U.S., displacing Zen as the exotic Asian religion du jour. Fortunately it is the pacifist branch of Islam, Mohammed's Quakers, as it were.

originally posted by fraggle rocker :-

The Sufi movement is catching fire in the U.S., displacing Zen as the exotic Asian religion du jour.
-----------------------------------------

this just triggered off something which i'd been feeling for a while. the US is such an amalgamation of different cultures etc. one day 'this cool eastern religion is in', next day it's another. many people whom i've seen look to eastern religions for comfort without understanding them. when another 'cool' religion comes along they adopt that.

'the moorish invasion of europe......'. invasion of europe? invasion of spain more like. as far as i know the moors were restricted to spain. how can you classify the invasion of spain as the invasion of europe? another reason for there being more christian countries in the world today than muslim countries is that muslims never undertook spreading their faith as a great mission. sure when they conquered a place they would try and force it's inhabitants to their faith, but they were nothing like the christian missionaries who went all over the world....converting.

why does christianity lay such an emphasis on conversion? are people of other faiths inferior? can they find 'salvation' only if they embrace christianity? i find this very pathetic.

oh yeah, and anyone that dosen't agree with america is a flag burning bastard that loves to see americans die?
:bugeye:

it's exactly this kind of attitude that makes people flag-burning- american-death-wishing people.

They conqured most of the know world. Islam started in Arabia it conqured spain all the way to Persia, and some of the Byzanitne Empire.

The reson they stoped at spain was because they lost. They also didn't care the much about exspansion.

Airavatar you act like everybody is supports Missionaries in America. Not many people are that way. We have them here in the USA too. There anoying here also. We just can't stop somebody comming over there and saying stuff.

I myself despize the concept of a missionary for ANY religion. My personal belief is religion should be approached the same way one would approach stamp collecting. Its just something to take your mind off the world, provide a little comfort, and boost the ego a tad. NOT something to start a war over or to force on somebody else.

ie no: "The 1952 Grenich Eagal stamp is the only true stamp. Believers in all other stamps will burn in eternal hellfire!"

I think of it as more of art. You can't nor should ever force somebody to find something beatiful. You can show somebody a painting, even say why you like it. If they don't thought there is no point in trying to convice something is beautiful because its there own personal beliefe.

I guess its simular to your post clockwood

Salty

You can't nor should ever force somebody to find something beatiful. You can show somebody a painting, even say why you like it. If they don't thought there is no point in trying to convice something is beautiful because its there own personal beliefe.


The pseudism in aesthetics , will they ever catch up with pseudoscience nr #1 ethics ?
Hey.......are we talking about religion here ?

Clockwood

I myself despize the concept of a missionary for ANY religion. My personal belief is religion should be approached the same way one would approach stamp collecting


It cannot be not true , as If I am reading my own writings .
But Ur not a stampcollectors-razzia fan as I am I suppose ?



a flag burning bastard that loves to see americans die?


:D

Salty

They conqured most of the know world


Both u and Airavata seem to forget about the Turks when you speak of the Islamic invasion of Euro . When it comes to Euro it was the Turks who are responsible for the many muslims of todays Yugoslavia for instance . And ofcourse lets not forget the Central Asians of today , including Russia .

Fraggle

Regarding Islam: don't forget it has a huge presence in sub-Saharan Africa. Kenya, Uganda, Somalia, etc. Must be more than a hundred million Muslims on that continent not counting Arab North Africa. And for all practical purposes it has ALL of Indonesia AND Malaysia, two gigantic countries. And its foothold in North America has grown too large to ignore


Over 1.2 B , 20% of World Population is follows Islam
In about 2015 Id say , there are more Muslims than Christians on this planet .


The Sufi movement is catching fire in the U.S., displacing Zen as the exotic Asian religion du jour. Fortunately it is the pacifist branch of Islam, Mohammed's Quakers, as it were.


(heflores)>Hey it seems you have going to have alot more Self claimed Gods to meet you according to this , Im sure that the Americans as individual and independant as they are , they'll head for the deepest of Sufism . Oh wait , more than half of the Muslims in America already did , although not through Sufism . Whitch brings me back to the pacifism mentioned here , i do not know if those muslims will be that peacefull when their day comes , and what could possibly happen if ties between the Islamist movements who cause "terrorism" will find in these Islamic men their brothers ?

But back on topic :

-Josif Stalin-eliminating opposition
-Adolf Hitler-increase wealth
-Vladimir Lenin (bordering)-create system
-Ho Chi Minh-kick amerikan ass
-Fidel Castro-survive
-Tito-unite

Im not saying I support any of these people , Im just saying they were great at what they did ; politics .

I dont consider Che to be one , I think Che is much more a militant rather than a diplomat , I think a politican needs to be balanced between the 2 .

I was wondering when we can start speaking of politics , what period in time where? And I dont mean th way politics have always been around , I mean when did it get this life of its own .

Both u and Airavata seem to forget about the Turks when you speak of the Islamic invasion of Euro . When it comes to Euro it was the Turks who are responsible for the many muslims of todays Yugoslavia for instance . And ofcourse lets not forget the Central Asians of today , including Russia .

I wasn't talking about that invasion. The Turks got alot farther in Europe all the way to Austria. That wasn't in the 700s though under the original Islamic Empire. ;)

Originally posted by airavata
'the moorish invasion of europe......'. invasion of europe? invasion of spain more like. as far as i know the moors were restricted to spain. how can you classify the invasion of spain as the invasion of europe?

After invading and conquering most of Spain they attempted to do the same to France, who managed to defeat the Moors in battle thanks to the courage of Charles Martel and his army. The Moors were "restricted to Spain" not by choice, but by their inability to defeat the French.

If during World War II the Japanese had landed troops along America's west coast and attempted to move eastward but were stopped in...say...Utah, Idaho and Arizona, would you now be arguing that the Japanese didn't invade America but only California, Oregon and Washington?

Originally posted by airavata
another reason for there being more christian countries in the world today than muslim countries is that muslims never undertook spreading their faith as a great mission.

Attempting to invade and conquer Europe wasn't "a great mission"? Keep in mind that most of the Middle Eastern countries were once Christian.

Originally posted by airavata
sure when they conquered a place they would try and force it's inhabitants to their faith, but they were nothing like the christian missionaries who went all over the world....converting.

They were everything like Christian missionaries, and arguably worse.

Originally posted by airavata
why does christianity lay such an emphasis on conversion?

I have no idea. I'm agnostic.

Why does Islam?

Originally posted by airavata
are people of other faiths inferior?

I doubt they find people of other faiths inferior. They may find the other faiths inferior, but probably not the people.

Originally posted by airavata
can they find 'salvation' only if they embrace christianity? i find this very pathetic.

Christians have some nerve actually believing their religion to be true...

Do you expect people of all faiths to base life decisions on the premise that their religion is false, or just Christians?

Originally posted by Salty
They conqured most of the know world. Islam started in Arabia it conqured spain all the way to Persia, and some of the Byzanitne Empire.

The reson they stoped at spain was because they lost. They also didn't care the much about exspansion.

After listing the lands conquered by Muslims, how can you say they cared nothing about expansion?

Originally posted by Galt
After listing the lands conquered by Muslims, how can you say they cared nothing about expansion?

I meant after they conqured that they got tired of exspanding. They could have easly raised another army and crushed the French. Its just that now they had to concentrate on internal problems. Plus its cold and france and if they are anything like me they like it where it dosent snow :)

i consider the christian missionaries worse than the muslim invaders in terms of spreading their faith. the spread of islam was only incidental along with the annexation of an area, but christian missionaries went on journeys SPECIFICALLY to convert people to christianity.

Originally posted by airavata
i consider the christian missionaries worse than the muslim invaders in terms of spreading their faith. the spread of islam was only incidental along with the annexation of an area, but christian missionaries went on journeys SPECIFICALLY to convert people to christianity.

The missionary who knocks on your door is worse than the "holy warrior" who tries to kill you and steal your land?

I have my doubts...

Originally posted by Fraggle Rocker
You gotta be joking. Rome was a model of tolerance, which is largely responsible for the fact that Christianity was spread so easily and peacefully throughout the Empire. But as soon as that spread was complete and the Roman Empire became the Holy Roman Empire, tolerance went out the window.

First of all, the quote to which I was responding made no specific reference to medieval Christianity, so I based my response on Christians of today.

There is also the little question of tolerance in the pre-Christian Roman Empire. Refresh my memory; was it Scientologists who the pagan Romans threw to the lions?

Originally posted by Fraggle Rocker
The medieval Christians were about as intolerant a people as you’ll ever find this side of the Cardassians. (Of Star Trek.) They felt that anybody who wasn’t a Christian was pretty much not human.

Have you any idea how militant Islam portrays Christians and Jews?

Originally posted by Fraggle Rocker
That was how they justified slavery and the Crusades. Of course it wasn’t a short leap to feeling that anybody who wasn’t European was inferior. When the Crusaders got to the Mideast they started killing everybody they met, including entire villages full of Semitic and Turkic people who had been Christians for generations. When they got to the New World they thought the Indians were not even human, so destroying their libraries and their culture was no different than knocking down a termite hill.

How did Muslims justify their slave trade and "crusades" into Christian Europe?

Of course the Crusades were brutal and horrible, but one is forced to consider the possibility that they may not have been nearly so bad - or may have never happened at all - had Muslims not first invaded Europe.

Originally posted by Fraggle Rocker
But it is generally agreed that Jews fared better in Islamic lands then they did at the hands of the Christians.

Generally agreed to by whom?

Originally posted by Fraggle Rocker
And that when Muslims had the upper hand they treated Christians slightly better than when the situation was reversed.

Could this be due to the fact that by the time the situation had reversed, Muslims had been invading, conquering and occupying land in Christian Europe for several centuries?

Originally posted by Galt
First of all, the quote to which I was responding made no specific reference to medieval Christianity, so I based my response on Christians of today.Understand. Just trying to put some historical perspective on it. As I said earlier, Islam seems to go through nearly the exact same phases as Christianity, about six hundred years later because Christianity had a 600 year head start.There is also the little question of tolerance in the pre-Christian Roman Empire. Refresh my memory; was it Scientologists who the pagan Romans threw to the lions?The Roman Empire was around for a long time. The earliest Christians were indeed thrown to the lions along with members of many other minorities. But sometime during the next 100-200 years Rome did turn into a very tolerant society. They allowed spokesmen for all religions to evangelize. Some scholars see that as their downfall, for the only religion at the time that was heavily into evangelism was Christianity, so after another century or two they had converted the entire population and its leaders. For those that think the Christianization of the empire brought about its doom, then it's due to the fact that they were originally so tolerant of divergent points of view.Have you any idea how militant Islam portrays Christians and Jews?Yes. As I said, Islam is going through the same phase the the Christians went through about 600 years ago. It tracks so perfectly it's almost spooky. But during the Middle Ages the Muslim empires really were far more tolerant than Christian Europe. Jews prospered in Moorish Iberia; it wasn't until the Moors were run out and the Christians came back into power with the Inquisition that the Jews were in trouble again.How did Muslims justify their slave trade and "crusades" into Christian Europe?They had no disagreement with the Christians about the "fact" that people who were NOT of the Abrahamic religions were barbarians and mertited no mercy. But if you want to pick out the real assholes in the whole sorry saga of the slave trade, how about the Africans who kidnapped and sold their own people? As for military forays into Europe, I'm sure quite a few of them were spouting the same crap that Bush is spouting today: We've got to save those poor people from their wicked leaders. The era during which Christianity had uncontested control over all of Europe and stifled all dissent is the millennium of ignorance and squalor that we fondly refer to as "The Dark Ages." What megalomaniac emperor could resist the temptation to bring those regimes down?Of course the Crusades were brutal and horrible, but one is forced to consider the possibility that they may not have been nearly so bad - or may have never happened at all - had Muslims not first invaded Europe.I'm tempted to defer to your self-proclaimed superior knowledge of history, but I'm distracted by the fact that the Crusades started very early in the second millennium C.E. Europe had by this time been ravaged by Germanic tribes and the early waves of Mongols such as the Finns and Huns and perhaps even the Magyars, but I don't remember the first Muslim incursion into Europe occurring BEFORE the Crusades. Are you sure you have that sequence right?[The Jews faring better under Muslim rulers than Christian ones.] Generally agreed to by whom?How about the Jews themselves? I have yet to meet one or read an account by a Jewish scholar who does not agree with that statement. Jewish life in Moorish Iberia, Arabic Baghdad, or Ottoman Sofia was not Disney World, but it was way better than under the Cossacks or the Nazis. And it was even modestly better than the fate of the average Jew anywhere in Reformation Europe. The European Jews had a brief period of acculturation and acceptance during the two or three generations prior to Hitler, and it was natural for them to believe that they'd finally found peace among the Gentiles, but Hitler really did blow it. Judging from my reading and the Jewish people I've talked with, there were only two times and places that the Jews themselves agreed they were treated better than in the more peaceful Muslim empires. One was western China, where they were welcomed so warmly that they simply assimilated and ceased to be a separate community or gene pool. The other is the U.S.A., where, if you take the complaints of the Orthodox elders seriously, the same thing is happening.Could this [original quote about Christian treatment of Muslims excised by software] be due to the fact that by the time the situation had reversed, Muslims had been invading, conquering and occupying land in Christian Europe for several centuries?Of course. The six-hundred year phase shift between the parallel paths of the two faiths has resulted in "interesting" historical phenomena every time their paths cross.

Originally posted by Fraggle Rocker
The Roman Empire was around for a long time. The earliest Christians were indeed thrown to the lions along with members of many other minorities. But sometime during the next 100-200 years Rome did turn into a very tolerant society. They allowed spokesmen for all religions to evangelize. Some scholars see that as their downfall, for the only religion at the time that was heavily into evangelism was Christianity, so after another century or two they had converted the entire population and its leaders. For those that think the Christianization of the empire brought about its doom, then it's due to the fact that they were originally so tolerant of divergent points of view.

This essentially makes my point for me.

Christians didn't invent religious intolerance in Europe.

Christians are just as guilty of intolerance and persecution as the next guy.

Christians are not more guilty of intolerance and persecution than the next guy.

Originally posted by Fraggle Rocker
Yes. As I said, Islam is going through the same phase the the Christians went through about 600 years ago. It tracks so perfectly it's almost spooky. But during the Middle Ages the Muslim empires really were far more tolerant than Christian Europe. Jews prospered in Moorish Iberia; it wasn't until the Moors were run out and the Christians came back into power with the Inquisition that the Jews were in trouble again.

I've never disputed that Middle Age Islamic kingdoms were more tolerant, at least in some respects. What I disputed - and what started my participation in this debate - was the claim that we would be better off had Islam wiped out Christianity from Europe.

Originally posted by Fraggle Rocker
They had no disagreement with the Christians about the "fact" that people who were NOT of the Abrahamic religions were barbarians and mertited no mercy. But if you want to pick out the real assholes in the whole sorry saga of the slave trade, how about the Africans who kidnapped and sold their own people? As for military forays into Europe, I'm sure quite a few of them were spouting the same crap that Bush is spouting today: We've got to save those poor people from their wicked leaders. The era during which Christianity had uncontested control over all of Europe and stifled all dissent is the millennium of ignorance and squalor that we fondly refer to as "The Dark Ages." What megalomaniac emperor could resist the temptation to bring those regimes down?

I don't really hold African slavetraders in any more contempt than the white or Arabic slavetraders. In the end, they were all greedy people who were willing to violate individual rights in order to profit.

Originally posted by Fraggle Rocker
I'm tempted to defer to your self-proclaimed superior knowledge of history, but I'm distracted by the fact that the Crusades started very early in the second millennium C.E. Europe had by this time been ravaged by Germanic tribes and the early waves of Mongols such as the Finns and Huns and perhaps even the Magyars, but I don't remember the first Muslim incursion into Europe occurring BEFORE the Crusades. Are you sure you have that sequence right?

The Moors began their invasion of Spain in 711 AD. (http://staff.esuhsd.org/~balochie/studentprojects/moorchristian/)

Charles Martel defeated the Moors at the Battle of Poitiers in 732 AD. (http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03629a.htm)

The first Crusade began in 1095 AD. (http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/04543c.htm) (Ignore the biased presentation of the events. I only used this link to get the dates for the first Crusade.)

Originally posted by Fraggle Rocker
How about the Jews themselves? I have yet to meet one or read an account by a Jewish scholar who does not agree with that statement. Jewish life in Moorish Iberia, Arabic Baghdad, or Ottoman Sofia was not Disney World, but it was way better than under the Cossacks or the Nazis. And it was even modestly better than the fate of the average Jew anywhere in Reformation Europe. The European Jews had a brief period of acculturation and acceptance during the two or three generations prior to Hitler, and it was natural for them to believe that they'd finally found peace among the Gentiles, but Hitler really did blow it. Judging from my reading and the Jewish people I've talked with, there were only two times and places that the Jews themselves agreed they were treated better than in the more peaceful Muslim empires. One was western China, where they were welcomed so warmly that they simply assimilated and ceased to be a separate community or gene pool. The other is the U.S.A., where, if you take the complaints of the Orthodox elders seriously, the same thing is happening.

I wasn't disagreeing. I was just asking.

Fraggle

The Sufi movement in America has very few people of Mideastern descent, not a lot of Arabic or Turkic people. Most of the leaders that I have seen are 100 percent American. Many of them are even from Jewish families. Even the few imams who are from Arab families teach their disciples that the people in the world who call themselves Muslims but go around killing people are not true Muslims and they will be very surprised when they die and don’t find themselves in Heaven. There is absolutely no feeling of brotherhood between American Sufis and any of the Sunni or Shia Muslim people who encourage or tolerate terrorism or any kind of violence.


I wasnt speaking of those American Sufi's , I do not consider them muslim , they are as nuch Sufi as they are Zen Buddhists or Sweat-Yogaists .....those trends in America do not even involve acknowledged imams (ofcourse that doesnt say much for its knowledge since the people who have to accept it talk all sorts of bullshit) , no when I spoke of a muslim brotherhood I was refering to the Black Muslims of America , of different kinds of Islamic sects or groups . Ofcourse most of these people wouldnt be considered Muslims by the Iranian Ayatollahs either , but it is a common enemy they have against their common Islamic background . From that corner within the Black Islamic community , there has been plenty sympathy .


As for Sufism in general, I’m not sure that the American version is quite the same as it is elsewhere. We have been told that the Chechens are Sufis, that in fact Chechnya is the largest community of Sufis in the world who actually live together in one place. They are not acquitting themselves very well after the fall of the Soviet Union. But as I have said before, it is impossible for an American to understand an ethnic rivalry that has been fluorishing for hundreds or perhaps thousands of years. I cannot judge the Chechens because I cannot conceive of what it would be like to live in the conditions they have put up with for so long. Perhaps the Soviets could have made Gandhi angry enough to learn to use a rifle.


Not really , if you call American Sufism that what you have described previously , I can tell you that it is not even close to compare with the true Islamic Sufi . Eating porc and being Jewish is not quite an option , the Jews have Qabbalah . Ofcourse the Jews you speak of are the secular atheist-like Jews , for instance Jerry Seinfeld . He's a Zen Buddhist .

But hey , that shit is like Tae Bo to me .

And Chechnya , well Im not thought on the Checnyan Islamic history that well , but as shit is today they want Sharia and are guerilla , they have not reached the suicide level quite like the palestinians yet , but after the theater incident in Moskva Id say the way is paved to some serious opposition . If you are telling me these people to be Sufi , then its not just like Ghandi getting angry , its like Ghandi turning into a Kamikaze militant ........


But it is generally agreed that Jews fared better in Islamic lands then they did at the hands of the Christians. And that when Muslims had the upper hand they treated Christians slightly better than when the situation was reversed. Still you must take some of this with a grain of salt. The Muslim Ottomans were not at all kind rulers of the Christian Armenians. If WWI had not toppled the Ottoman Empire, they might very well have exterminated the entire Armenian population.


When the Sephardim were expelled from Spain by the Inquisition , it was Arabia where they were welcomed .
And when we look at islamic occupation , we seriously have to distinguish between the Turks and Arabs , the Turks were unfriendly warriors , who occupied the Arabic land just as they occupied european land . The Armenians is one of the great examples of Turk oppression , and lets not forget the entire Yugoslavian war centered in the Muslim heritage the hated Turks left the Serbs .

Galt

How did Muslims justify their slave trade


They didnt , and they stopped the whole slavery thing after 817's
Abbasid Slave Caliphs .

Originally posted by Allahs_Mathematics
They didnt , and they stopped the whole slavery thing after 817's Abbasid Slave Caliphs .

Tell that to those who are enslaved by Muslims in Mauritania and Sudan.

i agree with fraggle. medieval christians weer very intolerant. i mean you only have to read 'Ivanhoe' by sir walter scott to gauge the contempt with which jews were treated by christians. and i read in the paper today..... roman catholic priests in spain are requesting to church to beautify queen isabella...the first step towards being made a saint.

they say she should be made a saint because she spread christianity throughout the latin world and converted millions to the 'faith.' well along with converting people, she exiled jews and muslims from spain, and she instigated genocide in latin america. she also set up the inquisition, which tortured and burned 'heretics'. and priests want her to be made a saint?

Tell that to those who are enslaved by Muslims in Mauritania and Sudan.


Im not familliar with the situation in Sudan , perhaps you could elaborate a bit ? Who exacly is enslaving who ?

Augustus, the emperor of emperors.

Originally posted by Allahs_Mathematics
Im not familliar with the situation in Sudan , perhaps you could elaborate a bit ? Who exacly is enslaving who ?

The southern Sudanese Dinkas who are animists are enslaved and mutilated by northern Sudanese Arab Muslims, as described in the article linked below.

Modern Slavery (http://www.infoplease.com/spot/slavery1.html)

Gengis Khan was pretty good. Also a certain king of whom I am decended. And L. Ron Hubbard is increasing in stature (althouth posthumously).

"baaaaa baaaaaaaa baaaaaaa"


No political leader is "great". Stop behaving like sheep.

Originally posted by hypewaders
"baaaaa baaaaaaaa baaaaaaa"


No political leader is "great". Stop behaving like sheep.

LOL:D :D :D
"great political leader" .. oxymoron

:rolleyes:

I don't know where I first posted these statements, but since we all seem to hang out on the same boards, anyone who read them will probably also read this.

Regarding the burning of the library at Alexandria. Recent articles in the Washington Post about the looting of the museum in Baghdad made parallel references to the destruction of the library of the Ancient Egyptians. The writers said that the question of who was responsible for the burning has not been settled. I had originally reviewed at least a dozen respectable university websites, and they all agreed that it was done by the army of Caliph Omar of Baghdad in the early years of Islam. Perhaps the current reporters are simply being politically correct and giving the benefit of the doubt to Muslims. Perhaps after living in the home of Caliph Omar they have been swayed by their hosts' version of history. Or perhaps they have truly uncovered some sources that several great universities missed. In any case, in all fairness I am compelled to admit that controversy exists about the facts in this case.

Regarding Sufism in Chechnya. The same newspaper expanded the recent history of the Chechens. According to these sources, as the USSR was imploding, Muslims from Arab countries began migrating into Chechnya, using their financial resources to gain political power and urging the populace to break away from Russia. (The sources did not specify whether the immigrants were Shia or Sunni.) Their goal was assumed to be for Chechnya to unite with a nearby already-independent Muslim nation such as Azerbaijan.

This would explain why an originally Sufi people would suddenly be killing Russians in contradiction of Sufism's pacifist doctrine. They have been converted to an older branch of Islam that does not rule out violence as a way to settle disputes.

I am still displeased that none of the sources I have read have discussed the ethnic background of the Chechens. Or the Azeris or the Kurds, for that matter. Many of the peoples in that area, such as the Georgians, seem to be the sole remnants of truly ancient ethnic groups with origins far back into the Stone Age (long before the diaspora of the highly successful Indo-European tribes from the same region ca. 10,000 BCE) who have no discernable relation to each other or to any other living populations.

At any rate, it is my duty to uphold the standards of scholarship of SciForums and bring these articles to your attention.

Peace.

Fraggle

This would explain why an originally Sufi people would suddenly be killing Russians in contradiction of Sufism's pacifist doctrine. They have been converted to an older branch of Islam that does not rule out violence as a way to settle disputes.


http://www.flex.com/~jai/satyamevajayate/sufi.html

I havent studied it very carefully yet.......I dunno , but its interesting . It backs up what ur saying .


I am still displeased that none of the sources I have read have discussed the ethnic background of the Chechens. Or the Azeris or the Kurds, for that matter. Many of the peoples in that area, such as the Georgians, seem to be the sole remnants of truly ancient ethnic groups with origins far back into the Stone Age (long before the diaspora of the highly successful Indo-European tribes from the same region ca. 10,000 BCE) who have no discernable relation to each other or to any other living populations.


Interesting thing U bring in here . Do u have some links or info on this 10.000 BC thing , because IF the Indo Europeans came from that region (caucasus) from that time , then why do we know absolutely nothing about the Euro history before the Greeks ? Have they been unable to create anything , or werent they there ?

And also I would like to mention the hilarious origin of the caucasus theory by Johann Friedrich Blumenbach ....his idea was Georgians were the most beautifull people ever ( :eek: ) , and thats why the white man of Euro cannot but origin there in the caucasus area......

Id appreciate interesing links , info or anything that deals with these kind of theories on all origins of mankind, especially accademic ones .

Peace

Originally posted by Fraggle Rocker
I had originally reviewed at least a dozen respectable university websites, and they all agreed that it was done by the army of Caliph Omar of Baghdad in the early years of Islam. Perhaps the current reporters are simply being politically correct and giving the benefit of the doubt to Muslims.


Can I have a link to these respectable university websites?

Funny thing is, the burning of the library has always been a widely disputed topic among historians.

From ehistory.com.....

So who did burn the Library of Alexandria? Unfortunately most of the writers from Plutarch (who apparently blamed Caesar) to Edward Gibbons (a staunch atheist or deist who liked very much to blame Christians and blamed Theophilus) to Bishop Gregory (who was particularly anti-Moslem, blamed Omar) all had an axe to grind and consequently must be seen as biased.


http://www.ehistory.com/world/articles/ArticleView.cfm?AID=9

originally posted by Fraggle Rocker
Many of the peoples in that area, such as the Georgians, seem to be the sole remnants of truly ancient ethnic groups with origins far back into the Stone Age (long before the diaspora of the highly successful Indo-European tribes from the same region ca. 10,000 BCE) who have no discernable relation to each other or to any other living populations. originally posted by Allahs Mathematics
Interesting thing U bring in here . Do u have some links or info on this 10.000 BC thing , because IF the Indo Europeans came from that region (Caucasus) from that time , then why do we know absolutely nothing about the Euro history before the Greeks? Have they been unable to create anything , or werent they there?They didn’t have cars, or even horses, in those days. Migrations were painfully slow. I’m not up on my climate history but it’s possible that some part of the westward migration may have been across glaciers. My principle source for the dating of the migration is linguistics. For the languages to have diverged as much as they already had by the era of Latin and Sanskrit generally requires ten thousand years. But it doesn't say anything about the speed of geographical divergence. Two separate peoples could evolve on opposite sides of a mountain range, less than a thousand miles apart.

Look how long it took us to figure out the migrations to the New World, which were easier to analyze because there were no older species of humans such as Neanderthals in the Americas to leave their own archeological evidence. It was less than 25 years ago that the three-wave theory coalesced – Amerind, Na-dene and Eskimo-Aleut – and there’s still a lot of controversy over the the dates and details of the Na-dene trek.

Europe is harder to deal with because there were Neanderthal tribes already living there when the first Homo sapiens arrived. And the Indo-Europeans were not the first Homo sapiens to set foot in Europe. The Basque people are clearly the last survivors of a much earlier colonization. Last I heard the Etruscans may also fall into that category, unless that debate has finally been put to rest.

The first Indo-European tribes that we know of to inhabit Europe were Celtic. The Bohumil after whom Bohemia was named even after it was peopled by Slavs; the Gauls of what is now southern France; the people whose name is long forgotten but who brought bagpipes to Iberia; and of course the Britons and Gaels of the British Isles. These are just the people we know about because the Greeks and/or Romans, with their written language, left us records of their encounters with them.

You have to remember that even though civilization sprang up at four points in Asia and North Africa as far back as six or eight thousand years B.C.E., it spread slowly and was often beaten back by bad luck or barbarians. The first waves of Indo-European migrants that spread out in every direction from the Caucasus were Mesolithic people, not even Neolithic, i.e., nomadic hunter-gatherers or pastoral nomads, rather than builders of permanent fishing, herding, or farming villages. They didn’t leave much “history” for us to find. People with no written language don’t leave a lot of clues for us to figure out who they were and how they lived, and people who don’t stay in one place for more than a few months don’t leave behind statues and aqueducts.

We know a lot about the ancient history of the Mideast, Egypt, India and China, because they had cities and written languages. Until cities started popping up in Europe, its history was limited to the oral legends that were passed on by its Celtic and Germanic tribes to the Greek and Roman scribes.
Originally posted by Fraggle Rocker
I had originally reviewed at least a dozen respectable university websites, and they all agreed that it was done by the army of Caliph Omar of Baghdad in the early years of Islam.originally posted by Hannibal
Can I have a link to these respectable university websites? Funny thing is, the burning of the library has always been a widely disputed topic among historians.I just did a Google search that yielded more than a thousand hits, and picked ten or twelve with names I recognized. Sorry, I didn’t keep a log because they all said the same thing. I defer to your greater expertise and obviously superior ability to recognize a respectable university.

Europe is harder to deal with because there were Neanderthal tribes already living there when the first Homo sapiens arrived. And the Indo-Europeans were not the first Homo sapiens to set foot in Europe. The Basque people are clearly the last survivors of a much earlier colonization. Last I heard the Etruscans may also fall into that category, unless that debate has finally been put to rest.


Can u provide any links of where one could find that indeed there were Neanderthal in Euro , I always understood that the Neatherthall was of Africa . Do you also suggest that the Basque people are of other then the homosapian that became indo european , of what are they then ?


European migrants that spread out in every direction from the Caucasus


But the argument I know for the Indo Euro's to come from the Caucasus is ridiciouless , do you know of one that isnt ?

Here's an article from Scientific American that summarizes many of the recent linguistic studies.

http://www.geocities.com/Paris/LeftBank/6507/chronicle120.html

My casual identification of the Caucasus as the homeland of the original Indo-Europeans was imprecise. The article identifies a much larger area called "Transcaucasian," which spreads from eastern Anatolia, around the Black Sea, to the Caucasus.

It also appears that the people whom we by convention call Indo-Europeans actually spent quite a few millennia moving around within Asia before any of them finally entered either Europe or the Indian subcontinent, sometime between 3,000 and 1,000 B.C.E. (I think the date is better established than that but I haven't dug deep enough into the research.) It seems to me that the long-extinct Tocharian tribe was living clear over in western China before its relatives reached the lands for which they were eventually named.

You might want to track down some of these sources and draw your own conclusions. As the authors admit, the linguistic research has yet to be correlated with other disciplines, most notably DNA mapping.

One fascinating possibility is that the Indo-Europeans will be linked to other ethnic groups. In the past hundred years or so Finnish, Hungarian, Turkish, Mongolian, and Manchurian have been grouped into one language family, and it is often suggested that Japanese and Korean will ultimately join them. It's possible that the Indo-Europeans will similarly be found to have kin.

Has to be FDR, the world cried when he died, and that don't happen unless you've done something to deserve it.