COLLECTIVE MADNESS


“Soft despotism is a term coined by Alexis de Tocqueville describing the state into which a country overrun by "a network of small complicated rules" might degrade. Soft despotism is different from despotism (also called 'hard despotism') in the sense that it is not obvious to the people."

Tuesday, September 19, 2006

"How many divisions does the Pope have?


.....once sneered Joseph Stalin. His successors found out with John Paul II, just enough. Could it be that Pope, Benedict XVI is thinking large?

A very interesting article from The Independent in full:

Vatican experts say Pope 'unrepentant'
By Peter Popham in Rome
Published: 19 September 2006

"As protests against the Pope continued to rumble around the Muslim world yesterday, Catholics began asking themselves if this highly intelligent man can really have been so crass as to have ignited the passions of millions of Muslims without realising that he was doing it.
If the alternative version is more credible - that he knew exactly what he was doing - then the next question arises: why? The gloomy conclusion of some Vatican experts is that there was no inconsistency in the Pope's choice of the words "inhuman and evil" - quoted from the Byzantine emperor Manuel II Palaeologus - to characterise Islam. Such a negative view, they say, is consistent with all his words and actions with regard to Islam.
Their claims make for a tragic contrast with the decades devoted by John Paul II to the challenge of bringing Islam, Judaism and Christianity closer together after many centuries of hatred and bloodshed. Now all that hard work, rowing against the tide of history, seems to be at risk.
Marco Politi, Vatican expert at La Repubblica newspaper, wrote: "The debacle into which the Holy See has fallen after [the Pope's speech at the University of ] Regensburg ... is much more than an accident of communication. The unhappy anti-Mohamed quotation, followed by the violent reaction of the Islamic world and the bitter indignation of moderate European Muslims, has brought violently to the light the rupture completed by the Pope with the strategy conducted for more than two decades with success by John Paul II."
Politi said John Paul II went out of his way to find points in common between the three revealed religions: "From Casablanca to Cairo, from Sudan to Syria, in every corner of the world in which there was a significant population of Muslims, John Paul II preached the common faith in the one God of the sons of Abraham, their common prayer and the common duty of Jews, Christians and Muslims in favour of peace and justice," he wrote. "It wasn't merely rhetoric. It was the wish to put together, in the name of spiritual brotherhood, a shared platform from which to repudiate religious violence, religiously motivated terrorism and any other manipulation of the name of God to justify sanguinary projects."
But his successor indicated from the start that he would not continue down the same road, Politi said. "At his inaugural mass as Pope, Benedict XVI cut out any reference to a fraternal relationship" with Islam. The Pope is also, according to Politi, "tormented with worry born from the messages of violence woven into the Koran, and doubtful of the ability of Islamic religious leaders to get to grips with the problems of secularism." But if the Regensburg address was his way of airing those doubts, it has had the effect of multiplying them. "Now," Mr Politi concludes, "the Vatican must try to rebuild its strategy towards Islam from scratch."
Writing in La Stampa, the political scientist Gian Enrico Rusconi said the Pope's apology on Sunday "was an act such as has not been recorded in the modern history of the papacy. It was an unheard-of gesture. But at the same time the discourse at Regensburg and its consequences indicate an irreversible break, not only in relations between Islam and the Catholic Church, but also in the public image of the Pope in the West."

12 comments:

  1. Islamic funadamentalists have had Christians in their "sights" and under their thumbs for years. Christians have suffered as much as anyone at the hands of the Islamists. If the last Pope was too ecumenical, maybe this Pope will take a stand against the lunacy.

    There seems to be a dearth of men who are willing to stand up and be counted.

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  2. "The jihadists know nothing but intimidation and domination. They believe us to be weak. They believe religions practiced freely within our borders are inferior to theirs. If they have their way, all of those who practice any religion but theirs will be killed or severely discriminated against. They also believe their god has told them to take over the world. That's what they say in their sermons and media. That is what they demonstrate by their actions. Why do so many believe otherwise?

    It's easy for the elites to talk warm and fuzzy, as if being nice to killers can persuade them to be nice to us. That's because most of the elites have escape routes or bunkers in which they can hide during a future attack. The rest of us are on our own. We should not have to pay for their naivete." Cal Thomas

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  3. "Last Friday night, I went for a jog to relieve some stress after I found out my department denied my application for full professor. There’s something about being turned down by a diverse committee made up entirely of Democrats that causes a young Republican to search his soul for answers. And, thanks to Muhammad and Abdul, I found them.

    I really wasn’t looking for these two proponents of the religion of peace but – all praise to Allah! - they sure found me. Of course, when I saw them riding up on their bicycles, I immediately assumed they were Mormons and picked up the pace. But, as they got nearer, I noticed they were too dark and brawny to be from Utah. So I slowed down to chat for awhile.

    Their pitch to me was different from the one I got as a Baptist. Rather than asking me what I planned to do with Jesus, they suddenly pointed their pistols at my head and demanded that I drop to my knees. Fearing a scene reminiscent of the one in Deliverance, I quickly gave my life to Allah. I’ve been a Muslim for nearly three days now. A happier and more peaceful man I’ve never been." Mike Adams

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  4. Until our time, Western man did not apologize for the Crusades. Gen. Eisenhower even titled his war memoir "Crusade in Europe."
    For centuries, European Christians fought the Islamic world. In 1492, Muslims were forcibly expelled from Spain by Ferdinand and Isabella. In the early 16th century, Suleiman the Magnificent invaded the Balkans, defeated the Hungarians at Bohacs and besieged Vienna. The Balkan wars of Suleiman bear little resemblance to the Christian crusades of Dr. Billy Graham. In 1571, the fleets of the Ottoman Turks were destroyed at Lepanto by a fleet organized by Pius V
    In the West, a militant secularism has seized state power and the de-Christianization of America is well advanced. In the East, we had best recognize that the rage, militancy and intolerance so often on display are the unmistakable marks of a rising, not a dying, faith.


    Pat Buchanan

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  5. Marco the MuzzieF.....
    Another "Expert" exhorting us to further Submission and Dhimmitude.
    This Pope ain't no dope.
    All the Commies infiltrating the US Catholic Church ain't gonna like it, either, according to Doug Urbanski.
    Paul's peaceful rhetoric did not pacify the muzzies, but now the "experts" have a new cause to blame the CONTINUING Violence!
    ---
    Where Synagogues Burn, So Will Churches

    What came out of Gaza, out of Iraq, out of Afghanistan is a movement to bring Islam to rule the earth. So intolerant is this religion that a picture is enough to incite murder, an errant word enough to justify rioting and the burning of holy sites. The Christian world and the Jewish world shy away from these truths because they are as abhorrent to the world we wish to believe exists as is ethnic profiling. We don't like the idea that it is possible to determine the threat someone poses based on his or her ethnic appearance. It is racist. It is wrong.

    Though no 67-year-old Jewish grandmothers have hijacked plans or blown up buildings, to be fair, we must search and stop them as we would a young Muslim man. And if, in the time we take to search that grandmother, Abdullah or Mohammed succeeds in passing security unfettered and does blow something up, goes the reasoning, at least we have our humanity. At least we didn't single out one ethnic group. We may have 30 funerals to attend, but we have our humanity.

    To have an Islamic leader compare the Pope to Hitler and Stalin may help shed light on the ongoing propaganda war to paint Muslims as victims rather than aggressors. But the truth is in the flames that burned the churches, the bullets that were shot in the air, and the firebombs thrown in Gaza.

    Last year, the world was silent to the atrocity of synagogues being burned. Just one year later, the lesson returns. Where synagogues burn, so too do churches.
    But this concept is taking a beating as little "mistakes" trigger violent reactions in the Muslim world. No matter how we try to understand and excuse, the bottom line is simply that we in the Western world don't act that way. We don't riot when insulted; we don't burn when inflamed.

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  6. Violence Rules the Idiots and Fools

    But time and reality are the enemies of the Idiots and the Fools. Human nature will reveal the Blooming Idiots and the Fools for what they are. A survey recently published in the Israeli media showed that almost two out of every three Israelis believe that Israel should encourage Arabs to leave the country. Israelis are no longer willing to be fooled into accepting endless violence, incitement and attacks.

    If you want to live in our country, you must accept the democratic nation we have created. If the Arabs cannot cease the incitement, the attacks, the endless hatred, then they should leave and go to any one of twenty-two Arab nations willing to offer them the repressive, male-dominated, non-democratic and violent government they seem to prefer.

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  7. Lost in the Mayhem and handwringing is the Pope's Central theme, that Moral Equivalency is the biggest threat of our time.

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  8. Allen had this great link in the previous thread:
    The Pope Must Die
    ---
    Much of the Western World has become the Equivalent of the Radical Chic, and the result is a Worldwide Mau-Mauing of The Flak Catchers.
    When will the worm turn?
    Will it?
    Or will we die like the worms we have become.

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  9. Colin Powell is a clear and present Danger!
    Along with his legions of DC Dhimmis preaching to us about

    "BECOMING OUR ENEMY"

    Gag Me.

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  10. One little line was all he said,
    To turn Mohammed on his head.

    The Pope is a genius!

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  11. Here’s something to think about: the first day of Rosh Hashanah, Ramadan and the Autumnal Equinox is 23 September.

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  12. This can't succeed as a matter of fact, that is exactly what I believe.

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