One of the worst was my knowledge of the crusades, where I must admit to being as tragically uninformed as the president. I had previously thought the only thing I had in common was Obama was bipedalism.
For starters, get yourself over to Sense of Events to read "Not Every Christian is Perfect"; a link to this. "Not every Christian is perfect. Jesus was. Not every Muslim is a terrorist. Muhammad was."
The crusades were completely defensive, reactionary response to CENTURIES of a Muslim onslaught by jihadists. The purpose of the crusades were to free Christians. The purpose of jihad (Islam’s march) was to conquer and kill the kaffir (non-muslims).
There is absolutely no moral equivalence between the two.
Excellent point. A bit of curiosity beyond the main point:
ReplyDeleteHow did they drive the Moors out of Spain? By the map, not with Crusades. Was it basically a Spanish military or cultural action?
I'd love to be able to answer that, but being a Public Skool grad, I'm afraid to even speculate. I'm not even sure they did drive them out.
ReplyDeleteHollywood, and some public school indoctrination, would have us believe that some (most?) of the Crusades were fought for plunder and conquest (the old "imperialism" label of which the Left is so fond). As if there was anything in that part of the world that would enrich a king or knight by "sacking" Jerusalem.
ReplyDeleteConsidering how expensive it must have been to move large numbers of men, horses, and equipment from England and Europe to Jerusalem, it is easy to see how some (even without the Left's agenda - and the agenda of Obama, whose nose is buried so deeply up the cleft of mohammed's buttocks), believe the "plunder" misconception.
It was a routine, even (perhaps) universal, method of moving armies long distances by stealing (by "royal perogative", threat of force,or actual force) from the towns and villages and farmers along the route to feed and supply the army. More fighters and foot soldiers were gathered along as well.
People today - especially "ye of little faith", the mundane, amoral, self-centered, scoffing hordes of the Left - have difficulty understanding that Christian faith was indeed strong enough to motivate millions of people to travel that distance and die in defense of their faith, as well as to free fellow Christians (and Jews, etc.) from slavery in the muslim controlled Middle East.
On the subject of the stories of massacres of thousands of muslim women and children along with muslim men, as mentioned in the Russell Crowe version of Robin Hood, as well as the Nicholas Cage "Season of the Witch", stop for a moment and consider this: how often have we seen visual proof of how muslim children are taught to consider the killing of all infidels - especially Jews - with no consideration of gender or age. Pf children posing with AK-47s, with faux explosive "suicide bomber" belts wrapped around them.
Do we have any reason to believe the women and children of that era were not as heavily indoctrinated in killing Christians and Jews as they are now? Having seen the likely massacres, the slaughters, perpetrated by the muslim hordes as they swept through Western _and _Eastern Europe, the Christians of that time understood that their only defense from having to repeat the battles again and again, year after year, was to prune islam - ROOT, as well as branch.
Something we may have to face, if we ever decide to fight for the survival of Western civilization once again, as Europe did back then.
I think wars are fought for plunder and conquest -- of the domestic population. A lot of that defense-industrial complex loot stays with the nobles who collect it. Meanwhile, the aggressive and able-bodied domestic men are killed on the battlefield in endless victoryless 1984-type territorial shoving matches, after which they are no longer present to compete with the mediocre elites and then displace them. The war on terrorism will be unending, because otherwise the tax rate on middle class lives and money is too low. Sacking Jerusalem makes a king richer by proportion, because the population gets poorer. That a rich middle class allows middle class researchers to invent antibiotics which royals might benefit from is a very long-term consideration, and out of royal sight.
ReplyDelete