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Why do I get the feeling that this release had "From the Desk of Howard Dean" stamped on the original?
LEt's go back to the Presidential debates when Democratic nominee John Kerry accused GWB of planning just that, to re-institute conscription?
Bush answered firmly and directly that the draft would not be back under his watch.
When the moderator turned the same question on Kerry, He gave one of his typical "But Monkey" answers: "I do not favour a draft, BUT...."
Conscription is not only unnecessary, but undesireable. First and foremost, Conscripts make lousy soldiers. If I was in the trenches, I'd feel alot safer with guys who were there voluntarily, and thus know what they're doing, why they are there, and beleive in what they're doing.
The All Volunteer Force (AVF) is the best fighting force in the world today. It is committed, well trained men and women trained to operated highly sophisticated equipment. Even infantrymen are using highly tech weapons now, thus ensuring that more of them will come home alive.
If the US is going to put more money into the armed forces to meet global threats like Iran, North Korea, and yes, China, they should sink the money into paying their current bunch better, and not risk losing them to private enterprise. It would cost alot less than funding a conscript army.
Also investing in weapons systems whose existence would send the message to China , Iran and co. that they'd be further ahead doing business than battle.
Neal Ford |
Homepage |
06.28.05 - 7:04 am | #
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http://defconamerica.org/
Convert the Prods to Catholicism and save America!
The country of George Wasserstoin, Abe Lyncohen, Franklin Roachenfeld
must be converted to Fatima to save the world from destruction!
Jewry faced increasing persecution from its entrance into England in 1066 until the expulsion of 1290. Henry I (1100-1135) granted Jews a charter of liberties.
In 1144, the first blood libel charge of ritual murder was brought against the Jews of Norwich. During Passover, the Jews were accused of torturing a Christian child named William, using his blood for the Passover Seder, and eventually killing and burying him. In July 1189 King Henry II, a protector of the Jews, died. Richard I was crowned his heir and he refused to grant Jewish representative admission to Westminster Abbey. In 1217, the English Jews were forced to wear yellow badges in the form of two stone tablets identifying them as Jews. In 1275, Edward I issued the Jewish Affairs Bill, forbidding the Jews of England to loan money on interest. They were allowed to earn a living as tradesmen or farmers, but were ineligible for membership in tradesmen guilds or tenure as a farmer. The Jews became poor and the king could no longer collect taxes from them. In 1278, many were arrested and hanged for secretly continuing their money lending.
On July 18, 1290, Edward I expelled the Jews from England, making England the first European country to do so. On March 31, 1492 the Edict of Expulsion (also called the Alhambra Decree) was signed. Every Jew in Spain was forced to choose between conversion to Christianity or leaving the country forever without their possessions. 150,000 Jews left Spain, many first went to Portugal, and following expulsion to the Ottoman Empire. On July 31st (7th of Av), the last Jew left Spain according to some sources and August 2nd (9th of Av), according to others. Columbus sailed on August 3, 1492. He did insist, however, that all of his crew be on board August 2nd, which was the not only the day all Jews had to leave Spain but also the 9th of AV. This was the start of 350 years of Jewish exile The first person to readmit Jews into England was Oliver Cromwell, who came to power in 1649. Cromwell was influenced by Rabbi Menasseh ben Israel of Amsterdam who functioned as a Jewish ambassador to the gentiles. The rabbi moved to London in September 1655 and on October 31 submitted a seven-point petition to the Council of State calling for the return of Jews to England. In 1656, Cromwell. In 1654, the first Jews, Sephardic Refugees from Brazil, to settle in North America arrived in the Dutch port of New Amsterdam. The colony's governor, Peter Stuyvesant, sought to deport them but was overruled by the Dutch West India Company. While the tiny community of Spanish Portuguese Jews did not thrive at first, one of its leaders, Asser Levy, had real estate dealings as far north as the Albany area by 1658. Other Jews immigrated to England from Holland, Spain and Portugal and opened a synagogue in 1657. In 1837, Queen Victoria knighted Moses Montefiore. In 1841, Isaac Lyon Goldsmid was made baronet, the first Jew to receive a hereditary title. The first Jewish Lord Mayor of London, Sir David Salomons took office in 1855. In 1858 came the emancipation of the Jews and a change in the Christian oath required of all members of Parliament. On July 26, 1858, the Jewish Baron, Lionel de Rothschild, took his seat in the House of Commons after an 11-year debate over whether he could take the required oath. In 1874, Benjamin Disraeli became the first (and only) Jewish Prime Minister.
Puritanism, best expressed by William Ames and later by Richard Baxter, gained much popular support early in the 17th century. The government and the church hierarchy, however, especially under Archbishop William Laud, became increasingly repressive, causing many Puritans to emigrate. Those who remained formed a powerful element within the parliamentarian party that defeated Charles I in the English Civil War. After the war the Puritans remained dominant in England until 1660. Among these were the Pilgrims, who in 1620 founded Plymouth Colony. Ten years later, under the auspices of the Massachusetts Bay Company, the first major Puritan migration to New England took place. Richard Mather and John Cotton provided clerical leadership in the dominant Puritan colony planted on Massachusetts Bay. Thomas Hooker was an example of those who settled new areas farther west according to traditional Puritan standards. Stephen Prothero writes "Puritans... were a God-fearing rather than a Jesus-loving people, obsessed not with God痴 mercy but with His glory, not with the Son but with the Father.. Evangelicals, instead of defining Jesus in terms of God, increasingly came to define God in terms of Jesus. God was loving and merciful, they argued, and His character was most clearly manifest in Jesus."The common Christian ideology of Evangelicalism did not formally begin until about 1939 (Why was it not used for some 300 years?). At that time J. Elwin Wright of the New England Fellowship toured through the US seeking denominations to band together to press a national revival. (This would obviously obscure denominational lines and overthrow, in many ways, the proper authority of the church.) He invited representatives to meet at a National Conference for United Action among evangelicals at St. Louis in 1942. Four pastors were the primary speakers at this conference: Harold J. Okenga, pastor of Boston痴 Park Street Church, William W. Ayer, pastor of New York痴 Calvary Baptist Church, Robert G. Lee, pastor of Memphis?Bellevue Baptist Church and Stephen W. Paine, president of Houghton College. The four preached on various ecumenical topics and encouraged unity and a national movement toward spiritual renewal. Nowadays the term Puritan is used in a general sense to describe those who have rediscovered the biblical doctrines and practices of the Puritans and who seek to exemplify these in the reality of today's world. While he did not follow the Puritan practice of preaching systematically through the books of Scripture, C. H. Spurgeon is esteemed a Puritan-one born out of time. Nobody in our generation seems to be able to match J. I. Packer in the art of advocating and pronouncing with enthusiasm the advantages of learning from the Puritans. Dr. Packer wrote a foreword to the Puritan Conference papers when they were first printed for distribution to booksellers during 1959. What he said then of the 1958 Conference he has repeated almost word for word in the foreword of the recently published book, Introduction to Puritan Theology. In this volume the word 'Puritan' is employed in its broadest sense. The book includes the writings of archbishop Usher and bishop Jewell. The point of interest however is that Dr. Packer has not moved in his convictions from 1959 to 1977 as to the value of Puritan literature. Sizer traces the origins of Christian Zionism to Puritan postmillennial ideas of a general conversion of Jews to Christ, to which some added a belief in a Jewish State in Palestine, p. 28ff. It might have been helpful here to add the views of other Puritans such as Richard Baxter who opposed the concept. However, the main source of modern Christian Zionism was John Nelson Darby痴 Premillennial Dispensationalism, p. 50ff. Darby was (I知 sorry to say) an Irishman, who came up with a form of Biblical interpretation never professed previously. At the centre of this structure was the belief that the Church and Israel were two separate bodies with different destinies (in actual fact, the Greek word for 祖hurch?translates the Hebrew word qahal, meaning 祖ongregation? used in the Old Testament to describe the nation at worship, and thus a synonym for 選srael). He proposed that God dealt with Man in different stages which his later follower solidified into distinct 租ispensations? p. 110ff. Sizer notes that opponents of the concept such as the Middle East Council of Churches see the idea as 蘇eretical and cultic? whilst John Stott describes 舛hristian Zionism?as 礎iblically anathema? p. 22. Sizer traces the historical development of the idea, notably in America, p. 66ff, for example in the theology of the great US evangelist Moody and the Bible text annotator Scofield. Interestingly, he shows how it neatly dovetailed with anti-Semitism, especially in the theology of the writer Gaebelein, p. 77ff, which rather undermines smears by Christian Zionists that opponents of the concept are motivated by Judeophobia. His theological critique of Dispensationalist Zionism, p. 106ff, is masterly - notably of the way modern advocates such as Hal Lindsey manage to find America in the Bible! Yes, you read that right ?Lindsey thinks America is mentioned because of references to 層ings of a great eagle?in Revelation 12:14ff, Muslims will also be interested in two major points Sizer raises: the Islamophobia of Christian Zionists, and the determination of some to overthrow the Al-Aqsa complex to build a new Jewish Temple. Among Christian Zionist advocates is Pat Robertson, infamous for allegedly suggesting the assassination of the Venezuelan President. He described Islam 疎s a violent religion bent on world domination? p. 248. Robertson claimed that 奏he Koran makes it very clear, that if you see an infidel, you are to kill him? Well, if that痴 the case, I must rebuke the staff at Muslim Weekly for not shooting me the last time I visited the office! The former Southern Baptist leader Rev. Jerry Vines exclaimed that Muhammad was 疎 demon-possessed paedophile? After quoting several authors, Sizer observes that many Christian and Jewish Zionists hold that 奏he Muslim Dome of the Rock must be destroyed, the third Jewish temple built・, p. 173.
The separation of church and state,
Algis Petreikis |
06.01.06 - 2:24 pm | #
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