Posse Incitatus

Reimporting salvation

The Posse was interested to see this post at Austin Bay's blog on how the center of gravity for the Anglican Church is closer to Nigeria than Canterbury.

Over at the Belmont Club, there is additional commentary on how far the Church of England has fallen into folly.

The Posse has noted before how the "mainline" Protestant churchs are becoming ever more agnostic in their believes and ever more hedonistic in their practices.  If the commenters at the Belmont Club are correct, and ordained Anglican ministers are now leading Druidic ceremonies, one could argue that the circle is now complete: it will be the Third World that civilizes the First World.

This is the great hope for Christianity.  It is ironic that the Christian faith could survive every challenge: persecution, slavery, disease, war and famine but prosperity would be the one tihng that would shake its very foundations.

Happily, not all in the West have embraced the short-term pleasures of moral relativism and wholesale repudiation of scripture.  The Faithful that remain will, in the end, have the last laugh as the childless hipsters pass fearfully into the darkness beyond.

Variations between right and left

The Posse has been posting less frequently of late because of our work schedule.  Unable to post on the job, we have to wait until we get home, have dinner, put the Junior Posse Members to bed, at which time we'd just assume curl up with a glass of bourbon and a decent movie.

It stands in marked contrast we suppose to the leftist who essentially live online, and whose entire existence is political.

The flicker of hope

The Posse has been busy of late and frankly the news from Washington has been too gloomy to write about.  Republicans in disarray and defeatist Democrats in ascendance are not topics we care to address in our limited free time.

But it may be that the Surge will work.  That removing the shackles that have bound our forces will produce the results we have waited for.  There are flickers of hope everywhere, it seems.

Also, the pathetic attempts of the Democrats to lose the war but not leave their fingerprints on defeat may just produce the backlash of anger that we as a country need.

The hour of decision is near.  Will we say or run?  Will we triumph or surrender?

The Democrats want to have it both ways, claiming they support the troops whilst working behind the scenes to ensure their defeat.

If the Bush adminstration does one thing in the next two years, it should be to publicly, loudly and call them out on this.  Demand that Congress either cut off funds - and abandon our allies and the cause for which so many have died - or shut the hell up and get on with business.

Don't drag Rudy down

The Posse has gone on record as supporting Rudy Guiliani as our current favorite presidential candidate and the latest bricks that have been thrown at him only reinforce our view.

Best of the Web offers an amusing example of how leftists don't truly understand the nature of manhood, or how people who are comfortable in their masculinity can dress in drag and laugh themselves silly at the spectacle of it.

We recall a similar incident during our misspent college years when a good section of the Spartan Trumpet section dressed in drag in an extremely humorous send-up of MSU's dance team.  It was silly and hilarious - about a solid half-hour of pure rediculous laughter.

What this episode illustrates is that even members of the Religious Right have a sense of humor.  Essentially, the caricature of social conservatives as dour, humorless scolds is based on prejudice and ignorance.

Sadly, even Republicans who ought to know better have fallen into this trap.  We recall an issue of National Review that asked if Rudy would "Play in Peoria" - implying that his stint in drag would someone cause irreversable alienation with the party base.

We found ourselves thinking of classic films and television, like Milton Berle dressed as LIttle Bo Peep or Billy Wilder's Some Like It Hot.  These were made back when values were a lot more important, yet they did not kick off bloody waves of homophobia.

They were (properly) looked at as funny, nothing more.

Rudy may yet piss us off, but so far, he's shown a heck of a lot more guts than any of the contenders out there.

The slaves never had it so good

In the comments section to our post on Janissaries, reader Kahraman offers this fascinating rebuttal:

The crusaders (catholics) conquered and plundered Constantinopel in the 13th century, killed off most of the inhabitants, and burnt the ayasofia and stole the gold crosses, destroyed the orthodox church.

This is a classic example of a non-sequitor.  The subject is whether Islam has a history of forced conversions, not whether the Crusades happened.  Any serious student of history knows about the Fourth Crusade (we did a paper on it in college).

These crosses can still be seen, they're in Rome and Venice.

The Ottomans were related by blood with the orthodox dynasty which used to be Emperor in Constantinople. They used their army to claim the throne in the 15th century, in true byzantine fashion. After the conquest, they rebuilt the place, including the orthodox church.

Actually the "true Byzantine fashion" would have involved dizzying political maneuvers, like the ones that caused the Fourth Crusade to miscarry in the first place.

And it is quite common for conquerors to rebuild the places they have taken. 

The mamelukes in Egypt were mostly Turkish and Persian. Slavery in a muslim context is very different than that in the west. Slaves were often the kings, queens and rulers of muslim countries. The mamelukes slaves themselves ruled Egypt for 800 years.

Slavery in any context is slavery.  The West abolished it.  Islam didn't.

To the vienna comment. The Ottoman women, both orthodox and muslim were all raped and killed after the catholics won.That sobieski is blaming the victims for his own raping killing pillaging soldiers.

This seems a bit like the Soviet version of the Katyn massacre.

The purpose of the original post was not to point fingers of guilt but rather to make an obvious point:  Islam has a very militaristic bent.  Muhammed was a skilled warrior and accomplished conqueror.  Jesus was neither.

Thus to claim that Christianity is uniquely militant while Islam is uniquely peaceful is to make a mockery of the truth.  What makes tihs worse is that Muslim historians and scholars clearly know better.  The Turkish leader who said Islam never spread violently was assuming that his audience was too stupid to know better.

As Mark Steyn has pointed out, the great thing about multiculturalism is that it is fundamentally based on ignorance.  No research or understanding required.  Crusades = bad, Christianity = bad and one can basically go from there.

One also is bound to accept whatever version of history the non-Western (victim) group wishes to make up.  If it is that primitive societies are inherent peaceful, so be it.  If it is that Islam is non-violent and has no history of military conquest as a way of spreading itself, that works as well.

A final point about Islam's violent conversion.  It is true that Islam, unlike Christianity, tended to tolerate miniority religions to a greater extent (see Spain, the Reconquista).  However, the purpose for this tolerance was financial: the dhimmis were an important financial resource.  If everyone became Muslim, the Caliphate would go broke. 

Republicans on the brink

Are they taking stupid pills or what? 

They have clearly alienated their base, which is strange given that primary jockying should be well underway.  Indeed the Posse is more puzzled than usual over the GOP's antics.  Defeatism abroad and big government at home are not the tickets to a renewed Republican majority.

The Posse came to the GOP because we were fed up with what the Democrats had to offer in the 1990s.  However, we will switch back if given sufficent reason.  Thus far, the only thing going for the GOP is that it is less defeatist and statist than the Dems.  Hardly a strong selling point.

We believe the problem here is shell-shock.  The GOP looks at the polls and the losses in Congress and thinks:  "The Dems are right, the war is pissing people off, we need to get against it, too."

Of course this is a massive misreading of the November vote.  The GOP took a bath not because the American public suddenly adopted the worldview of Howard Dean but because GOP congressional scandals, missteps, lousy leadership and out and out stupidity pissed people off.

A strong conservative can do well, but not if everyone in his party has their knives out for him.

At this point, there are no real front-runners among the conservatives and this is what is killing us.  A strong conservative candidate who starts climbing the polls will force the others to imitate him.

Until that happens, they will keep chugging the Kool Aid.