But this doesn't mean Clinton's bombing orders were unjustified and Blix was searching for something he was pretty sure he wouldn't find anyway. Right?

If Saddam was bluffing (a point I'm not conceding at all) he spent the 14 months+ staring us and the feeble UN down, begging for us to call him. In the end, he was "all in."

ZERO evidence of WMD/WMD programs? Even a madman wouldn't bluff such a weak hand.

A madman might, raising the question: what kind of superpower would leave millions of people under the thumb of a madman?

Orrin, you really need to study the history of witchcraft. It was not anything like what you think.

Harry: Well, where do you suggest Orin begin studying? If he doesn't have the "right" beliefs about historical witchcraft, where should he acquire them?

Evidently his current sources aren't correct, according to your complaint, so could you kindly suggest some that are?

This may seem a bit much, but I've seen far too many cries, in cases of disagreement about a historical interpretation of "do research"... which sadly tend to boil down to "read the sources that support my case and agree with them". I do not, of course, accuse you of having such an attitude, necessarily. But if you don't, it would be very nice to suggest some sources for historically more accurate witchcraft information.

As Sigivald points out, rarely is a command to "do research" accompanied by citations of suggested sources Instead of "do research", a proper response might be "how did you arrive at that conclusion?" But "do research" is so much more pithy and condescending, and requires no work on anyone's part.

"Do research" is one of those phrases, like saying someone "doesn't get it", or "needs their conscienceness raised", which imply ignorance (or even stupidity) without having to come out and say it, or having to disprove the original statements. If someone just "got it" and "did the research" , they'd quickly have their "conscienceness raised" and realize the errors of their ways.

I didn't say "do research." I said "study."

Orrin already knows where to start, because I presented a list here earlier. You have to start with the Malleus Maleficarum, if we are just talking about medieval Christianity, which Orrin usually is.

Today he brought in the 11th (or 29th or something) commandment ("Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live"), which certainly complicates the issue.

It would be easier to confute his point about society's duty to bump off its enemies if he would stick to the premodern period. In that case, society invented the enemy, then proceeded to kill it.

The situation in OT times was different. The prophets of the Pentateuch did not invent witchcraft.

The Inquisition and the Dominicans did.

We could go on a long time about whether McCarthyism was a revisitation of the Inquistion (it was), but Lileks has explained that more elegantly than I can. Imaginary enemies.

Once you have mastered the Maleficarum, you need to read the gloss. There are plenty of sources on that. Michelet is the most amusing.

H.C. Lea is more thorough, but half his major work is in Latin and hard to find anyway.

Anyway, it's a thoroughly studied field and as Robert mentioned the other day, current Wiccan propaganda is unreliable.

Harry:

You deny witches and Communists existed?

No, but I deny that the Inquisition ever identified a real witch or that McCarthy ever identified a real commie.

We can only hope that at the Day of Judgment, the Lord Almighty does a better job of distinguishing between sheep and goats than his loudest minions have done down here.

Harry:

Sadly, men aren't Godlike. We do make mistakes. But folks like Hiss, the Rosenbergs, Hammett and Hellman, Dalton Trumbo, Harry Dexter White, etc. all were in fact communists.

OJ:

I clicked on the "obligatory" link. The second of the commentaries, from the verbiage appearing to have been written in the 1800's, concluded by saying words to the effect of "... we now know there have been no witches these last 1000 years."

A period during which plenty of non-witches had been killed.

If there was ever a phrase designed to identify the other, with explicit instruction to do that other in, then that has to be it.

Jeff:

We now know witchcraft doesn't work. There are and have been witches who don't realize that. Try searching for Wicca.

Similarly, we know that Communism and Islamicism don't work, but we needn't tolerate Communists and Islamicists trying to subvert the social order.

Harry:

McCarthy may not have personally "identified" a real Commie, but others certainly did. As for the witches, Christine Amanpour would have been caught if she tried to report on the Inquisition.

I must confess my ignorance of witchcraft--which extends to having utterly no idea how these purported witches undermined the social order.

http://theologytoday.ptsem.edu/jan1972/v28-4-bookreview2.htm

OJ:

Thanks for the link.

What I got out of it was that female dominated witchcraft was the societal norm until an alternate male-dominated fairy-tale came along in the 16th century. That, despite the usefulness of witchcraft to the people.

Which meant the Church wasn't adhering to the established societal norms of the time ...