L. Neil Smith's THE LIBERTARIAN ENTERPRISE
Number 892, October 2, 2016
its unceasing, vicious, hypocritical
attempts to undermine individual liberty.
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Please excuse my bad English—I am “upgrading“ my knowledge reading TLE since some months!
Dear L. Neil Smith,
I like your digresses. And I agree to you very much. But I am a german, and so I found a small error.
The late and last german emperor Wilhelm II is the grandson of the long-reigning British Queen Victoria. His mother is her daughter Victoria, his father is the german emperor Friedrich. After Friedrich’s father Wilhelm I died in 1888, the new monarch reigned only 99 days. Then he died on cancer. Germans call the year 1888 the “Dreikaiserjahr“. Friedrich was a progressive-thinking man in all kinds, his son Wilhelm only was progressive in technics, but political he was a very conservative man. Wilhelm II had chosen the wrong allies (e. g. the so called “Donaumonarchie“ Austria-Hungaria, real beginner of the war after Princip killed their Archduke) and annoyed Great Britain. He leaded Germany in a cruel war which was made a worldwide by US-President Wilson, too. Wilhelm had a crippled hand, he said that his mother was guilty and hated her. His authorities created for building greater war ships than Great Britain had a new tax on champain. (This tax was cancelled after the war and reinstalled by the Hitlerists, and it exists till today. The ships are wrecked and forgotten but we german tax payers have to pay “Sektsteuer“ , in german language of the authorities “Schaumweinsteuer“! The german tax payers day is somewhere in the middle of July. Now I digress.) Otherwise i’m enjoyed to learn to know truths german mass medias don’n tell. Those I know are unbalanced and prefer this … eh … Hillery.
Dear Sean Gabb,
You wrote a very good article on Islamophobia. As a German, I know a further example of intolerance in the name of Jesus Christ. This is the war we call “Dreißigjähriger Krieg“ from 1618 till 1648. The Pope and the Emperor of “Heiliges Römisches Reich“ had ordered that all non-catholics had to return to the catholic manner of believing in god. The Pope was till 1870 a kind of king in a state in the middle of nowadays Italy, too. They sent out troups of brutal landsknechts, and they were allowed to murder, burn, rape in the name of god all these who didn’t want to return. They destroyed whole towns and lutheran church records. The Landsknechts were a plague, and they brought the plague with them. But the brutal General Holk, who is infamous till today, died himself on plague. At first he fighted for the lutheran kings, then against them. As warrior to be a renegade was normal in this war. Great parts of the population in Bohemia were forced to be once more catholics, and those who didn’t like to do so were murdered, burned, raped, their possessions were confiscated, they had to pay extra high taxes or had to leave their country. Many of them founded new towns in the lutheran states of Germany. One of the towns they left was Joachimsthal in Bohemia after which is named the US-Dollar—the nickname of the inhabitants was “Dooler“ …
Another fact is that in the centuries of the knights men and women had always to wear their kind of headgear so that no one could see the hair even of men, but in light colours (yellow was not allowed), and to put it down was not polite. I asked a friend acting as knight (in accordance to regulations with a blunt sword) why they did so, and he smiled in a special manner I know, so I asked him partly using a citate: “They were not alone unter their headgears: Fleas, lice, and gnats?“ He said: “Yes. It was not in case of religion. Fleas, lice and gnats have the wanderlust“, so headgears were not justified by a religion in a fanatic manner as today.
Killing in the name of God and Jesus also took place in the “Reconquista“ of (former) islamic states in Spain from sixth to fifteenth century—the pope and the priests allowed the soldiers to kill, and the catholics also killed jews. But victims could fight against their enemies because they were allowed to possess weapons, and they used them.
Harald Mischnick
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One thing that a would-be learner of Latin (or any other language) should also keep in mind is that translations of comic books or children's literature (yes, translations of modern children's literature into Latin do exist; Winnie Ille Pu, Magus Mirabilis in Oz and Quomodo Invidiosulus Nomine Grinchus Christi Natalem Abrogaverit: How the Grinch Stole Christmas in Latin, or Harrius Potter et Philosophi Lapis, among others) can be a big help.
I picked up a lot of German vocabulary from the German-language Asterix albums that my high school German teacher had about the classroom. A Latin version of the Asterix series exists, but is unfortunately very out of print and hard to find.
The advantage of this method is that the original text was often meant for a beginning reader, and if you know the original, you can often figure out new words from context, just as a beginning reader might.
Eric Oppen
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Sean writes, “Hell, people are free to the believe that the earth is flat and that the moon is full of moldy cheese for all I care. I become concerned when bad ideas are put into practice.”
What does that mean? It means imposition via the legislature or some other means. Clearly, that is the evil thing. Why get sidetracked over arguments about what ideas are valid or not? Absent coercion, it doesn't matter.
It’s every bit as evil for the legislature to shove evolution down the throats of creationists, as it is for the legislature to shove creationism down the throats of atheists.
I can’t let Sean off the hook because this is supposedly what the world is like now—particularly for his example of schools. Clearly, the thing to do is to get your kids out of the schools; no legislative action is needed! We don’t have to put up with what the legislature cooks up for our kids.
Paul Bonneau
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Sent from ProtonMail, encrypted email based in Switzerland.
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