podpolia

Despite Bush’s much maligned tax cuts, tax receipts are at a new high. ‘Voodoo economics‘ seem to work… now, does Karl Rove have his pins and little Hillary Clinton doll ready for the 2008 elections yet?

The latest scandal in the Muslim world is a speech delivered by the Pope recently. In this speech, the Pope had the temerity to quote Manuel II Paleologos, one of the last emperors of the Byzantine empire. The quote was, more specifically, from an account written by the emperor of a conversation between himself and a Persian scholar on Christianity and Islam, and the differences between them. In this speech, Manuel criticized Mohammed’s innovations as “…evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.” He then went on to discuss with the Persian the logical basis of Christianity and the relationships between faith, the soul, and reason, saying, “To convince a reasonable soul, one does not need a strong arm, or weapons of any kind, or any other means of threatening a person with death….”
The Pope’s speech continued this examination of the logical groundings of Christianity and Islam, and urged closer examinations of both so that a greater cultural understanding could be achieved. But this part of the speech wasn’t publicized — the part about Mohammed was. The Holy Father is now in hot water.
There is an aspect of this whole incident that I find interesting, but I haven’t seen commented on anywhere else yet — what could make good old Manuel II Paleologos say such mean things about Islam? Let’s look at some of the details…

-Manuel Paleologos most likely had this conversation with the Persian scholar in 1391 while being held as a hostage by the (Muslim) Ottoman Sultan, while his father was still emperor.
-Also during this period of captivity, he was forced to help out the Islamic Ottoman Empire with their attack on the last Byzantine city in Asia Minor — Philadelphia. The city was defeated, and the Byzantines driven out of the Asian part of what is now Turkey.
-After becoming emperor, Manuel likely wrote his account of the conversation during the eight year siege of his capital city, Constantinople. The Ottomans were finally distracted by an attack on their rear by Tamerlane, and gave up the siege.
-Manuel II Paleologos lived to see the Byzantine empire become tributaries to the Ottomans in 1424, the year before his death.
-In an event undoubtedly dimly foreseen by Manuel, the Ottoman empire finally captured Constantinople, finally destroying the almost 1000 year-old Byzantine state.

I would say that this guy is someone who knew what he was talking about when he complained about Islamic militarism and forced conversions. I think it is also safe to say that many of the voices that are currently raised in protest do not know any of this, or even what the Pope actually said. Or much of anything about Christianity. Of the two sides, I would say that the Pope seems the more rational and reasonable.

If you’re interested in seeing just what all the fuss is about, there are video clips at Redstate from the miniseries. The page format isn’t very good — all 6 clips embedded in one page — but even if you only manage to get the first one to work like I did, you can see why Clinton and the Democrats in general are angry about it.

During my research lately, I stumbled across an editorial in the New York Times dated January 5, 1883. It discusses a recent election controversy in the state of Connecticut. I found it interesting, so here’s the first part of the article:

“SOME SUPRISED DEMOCRATS.
Now that GOV. WALLER, of Connecticut, has peacefully taken office and the Democrats of that State and their political brethren elsewhere have recovered from their ridiculous panic, it is possible to discuss the affair of the ballots without danger of being accused of sedition, treason, and privy conspiracy. Some of the ballots cast for the Democratic candidate for Governor of Connecticut were clearly and palpably illegal. A decision to this effect was given by the highest judicial officer in the State, the matter having been brought before his court in a suit to determine the legality of a municipal election in which the so-called black ballots were used. [Instead of being white ballots with black printing as required by law, these were black ballots with white printing. This was at a time when each party made its own ballots. -Ed.] The Democrats, inflamed to the highest degree of madness by this opinion, charged that the raising of the question (and presumably Chief-Justice PARK’s decision) was a part of a conspiracy to “steal the State,” and that the Republican candidate for Governor, Lieut.-GOV. W. H. BULKELEY, was deep in the aforesaid conspiracy. It did not seem to occur to any of these exacerbated persons that the decision was that of a high and honorable court, and that the Republican candidate for Governor had no more power over the case that he has over the tides of the ocean.
When Lieut.-GOV. BULKELEY was asked by a reporter “what he should do about it,” meaning the dispute over the doubtful ballots, he declined to disclose his intentions. This confirmed the panic-stricken Democrats in their belief in the existence of a deep-laid plot to revolutionize Connecticut. It was also charged that the Republicans had used illegal ballots in the late election, as if the alleged irregularity of the Republican ballots could be made to offset the pronounced illegality of those cast by Democrats. Finally, Lieut-GOV. BULKELEY wrote a letter in which he manfully said that, if the black ballots were thrown out and the election of Mr. WALLER were declared invalid, he, as the Republican candidate, would refuse to accept the office of Governor. The Democrats, considerably taken aback by this unexpected declaration, found fault with Mr. BULKELEY’s and then began to exult over what they called the failure of courage shown by the Republicans. This was saying, in effect, “If we had been in the Republican position, we would have made the best use of our opportunity and have gotten away with the Governorship.”"

This all has a very familiar ring to it — allegations of fraud, the allegation and counter-allegation of irregularities, and even claims of an election stolen by judicial conspiracy. I wonder why this all sounds like I’ve heard it before?