[Vision2020] An Open Letter

[Phil Nisbet]

"When they came for the communists, I was silent, because I was not a 
communist;
When they came for the socialists, I was silent, because I was not a 
socialist;
When they came for the trade unionists, I did not protest, because I was not 
a trade unionist;
When they came for the Jews, I did not protest, because I was not a Jew;
When they came for me, there was no one left to protest on my behalf."

  Martin Niemoeller (1892-1984)


Then I see a group of people deciding on the basis of religion that certain 
people should not be allowed to hold office.  I see those same people 
deciding to target the businesses of their opponents.  I see them cry that 
their opposition should be driven from the community as unworthy of living 
in the presence of the rest of us.

All I have to do is change the words CCer and kirker to Jew and you get a 
nice speach suitable for Adolph Hitler.

So please tell me that your "Protocals of the Elders of CC" is not heading 
into print.

"When they came for the CCers, I was silent, because I was not a CCer; . . .


And Andreas, if you change your last statement to National Socialist from 
democratic, what sort of statement do you get?

The reality is that a small group of followers of one sect of Xtians is not 
going to line anybody against the wall by governmental decree, but the kinds 
of actions that are brewing among certain other elements of our society here 
are very likely to.

And Wayne's, "Tolerance can end when ideas are expressed and argued for, for 
if those ideas do not survive critical examination they ought not be 
tolerated, especially if Draconian." is a flat statement of National 
Socialist ideals.  Under that sort of dictum it becomes totally permisable 
to lack toleration of those who disagree with you, the very first step to 
open the gas chambers.

Under Wayne's thoughts, it is possibly pretty easily to target others.  The 
Mormons believe that white guys were here on this continent as some sort of 
lost ten tribes prior to Columbus getting here, a demonstrably strange idea, 
so lets not tolerate them.  The Moslems believe that Mohamed's horse leaped 
him to heaven from the Dome of the Rock, pretty bizarre by anybodies 
standards and should therefore not be tolerated.  All Christians and Moslems 
believe that they are the sole holders of the truth of G-d and that any who 
do not follow their particular brand of faith are destined to burn in the 
eternal fires of damnation, which seems pretty Draconian to me. so heck, not 
one of them should be tolerated.  The Buddahist think that their main 
squeeze hung out under the canopy of a nine headed snake, so lets not 
tolerate them either.  And then you have the neo-Pagans who claim that the 
ball of nickel-iron spinning through the void is actually something that 
should be worshipped. . .

So not one of these people should be allowed to have businesses in Moscow 
and not one of them allowed to serve in Government.  Hey they are all cults 
to somebody, from the naked dancing wiccans on Moscow Mountain to the 
minister of the Episcopal Church.

"Never again" has deep meaning to me.  In 1975, thirty years after the close 
of the the second world war, on Yom HaShoah, I was at the reopening of the 
Rashi Synagogue in Worms Germany.  From the 1300's until the 1940's, the 
Yeshiva there had been a triving center of Jewish learning and the place of 
worship for a large community.  Because certain Germans decided that the 
ideas of that community did not survive their idea of critical examination, 
they lined up the Jews of Worms by the rail tracks at the old cemetary, with 
its over 600 years of headstones and sent them East.

In those silent halls of stone, where not one person who had lived in that 
community prior to the war was still there to witness, we rededicated and 
consecrated that place to their memory

So you want the CCers?  You will have to come through this Jew to get them.  
If they want you on similar grounds, I would do no less.

Never again.

Phil Nisbet

>From: Andreas Schou <ophite at gmail.com>
>Reply-To: Andreas Schou <ophite at gmail.com>
>To: Phil Nisbet <pcnisbet1 at hotmail.com>
>CC: vision2020 at moscow.com
>Subject: Re: [Vision2020] An Open Letter
>Date: Sat, 11 Jun 2005 17:12:57 -0700
>
>Another great quote, straight from the horse's mouth, is:
>
>"Reforming the State is not about forcing people to be Christians. But
>it is about forcing people to outwardly conform to a Christian
>standard and about protecting the Christian religion. Historically,
>the civil magistrate has enforced laws against blasphemy, apostasy,
>heresy, swearing, and working on the Sabbath. The difficulty is not in
>defining or punishing these crimes; the difficulty is finding the
>strength and wisdom to do so."
>
>That's right. Are you a Muslim? A Jew? A Hindu? Agnostic? How about a
>Quaker or Methodist? How about a Reformed Christian who doesn't
>believe in pedobaptism -- a belief which Doug has repeatedly referred
>to as "heretical?" In Doug's America, you're first against the wall.
>What is crazy is not that people object to this: what is crazy is that
>we, which is to say, Moscow and Latah County, are electing people who
>subscribe to this set of beliefs to public office. What is crazy is
>that we're taking their openly hypocritical cries for tolerance
>seriously.
>
>Tolerance is a virtue. I take appeals to my tolerance seriously, and
>apprecate people who bring my lack of tolerance to my attention.
>Infinite tolerance, however -- whether it's tolerating the mugger
>who's got a pistol under your nose or agreeing to buy coffee whose
>profits are devoted to preaching your own execution -- is crazy. No
>matter how idealistic you are, eventually, some reducio ad absurdiam
>will make you turn pragmatic. For me, this is that point.
>
>Those who refuse to abide by core democratic principles -- among them,
>the general consent that you will not execute your political opponents
>once you attain office -- should not participate in it at all, and be
>prevented from doing so if at all possible by those voters that
>actually care about its nhealth.
>
>-- ACS

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