Holy Cross Drops Knight Mascot Due to ‘Violence of the Crusades’
I didn’t realize that only Christians committed violent acts during the Crusades…
The College of Holy Cross, a Catholic school, has decided to drop its knight mascot and change the name of the school paper because it links them to the horrible violence that occurred during the Crusades. Because, you know, only the Christians did horrible things during the Crusades.
Campus Reform noted that last year a student-led forum fought to change the name of the paper because it has “the same title is also used by a newspaper published by the KKK.”
So the students and 48 faculty members sent a letter-to-the-editor demanding a change because it also promotes “Islamophobia.” They “argued that the 2016 election necessitated a change in both the paper’s name and the college’s mascot—also the Crusader.”
Those that defended the mascot reminded everyone the historical significance on the Crusades and that today many people overlook the fact that the Christians and Muslims BOTH “committed atrocities.”
Last month, the paper’s editors decided to change the name, but said they based their decision “on the association with the violence of the Crusades” and not the KKK.
The Board of Trustees looked over their work and decided to keep the name Crusader, “acknowledging that while the Crusades were ‘among the darkest periods in Church history,’ the college considers its students and staff ‘Crusaders for human rights, social justice, and care for the environment; for respect for different perspectives, cultures, traditions, and identities; and for service in the world, especially to the underserved and vulnerable.'”
This is a CATHOLIC school obviously led by people who do not know WHY Christians engaged in the Crusades. Maybe they do and they’re just giving into social justice warriors and political correctness.
Something tells me it’s the latter.
Quick History Lesson
HOW. DO. I. HISTORY!?
Look, as a Catholic, I won’t deny the bloodiness of the Crusades. Did it get out of hand? Absolutely. Did the Catholics commit atrocities? Absolutely.
But let’s not forget that the Muslims did THE EXACT SAME THING. They are not innocent. After all, it was their invasion that began the Crusades, which took place between 1096 and 1291.
Oh, wait. I cannot say that because who cares about history? It’s all about the feelings. Yeah…I don’t care.
How did it start? Well, the first Crusade happened because the Byzantium Empire lost a lot of land due to the invasions of the Seljuk Turks (emphasis mine):
In 1095, Alexius sent envoys to Pope Urban II asking for mercenary troops from the West to help confront the Turkish threat. Though relations between Christians in the East and West had long been fractious, Alexius’s request came at a time when the situation was improving.
In November 1095, at the Council of Clermont in southern France, the Pope called on Western Christians to take up arms to aid the Byzantines and recapture the Holy Land from Muslim control. This marked the beginning of the Crusades.
Pope Urban’s plea was met with a tremendous response, both among the military elite as well as ordinary citizens. Those who joined the armed pilgrimage wore a cross as a symbol of the Church.
The Crusades set the stage for several religious knightly military orders, including the Knights Templar, the Teutonic Knights, and the Hospitallers. These groups defended the Holy Land and protected pilgrims traveling to and from the region.
It seems nowadays that we are taught that the Muslims were the innocents in the Crusades when it reality, like I noted above, they had barbaric armies.
I minored in history in college, concentrating in Middle Ages and Renaissance, and in many of those classes we discussed the crusades and one battle really stuck out to me…The Fall of Acre in 1291. The fall of Acre eventually led to the loss of the Crusaders’ hold on Jerusalem.
Anyway, long story short, the Muslims, led by al-Ashraf Khalil, began a siege on the important city in early April 1291. His armies moved towards the towers by May, which caused people to run into the sea to avoid murder by the invaders.
Those who couldn’t leave…well, Khalil’s army either killed or sold them to slavery.
I encourage everyone to read up on the eight crusades, stories of how the Christians defended the Holy Land.
DONATE
Donations tax deductible
to the full extent allowed by law.
Comments
The best books I read on the subject were Dungeon, Fire and Sword and Born in Blood by John J Robinson.
Very good reading
Current wisdom would have it that ‘five centuries of peaceful co-existence’ between Muslims and Christians were brought to an end by ‘political events and an imperial-papal power play,’ that was to lead to a centuries-long series of so-called “holy-wars” that pitted Christendom against Islam, and left an enduring legacy of misunderstanding and mistrust.’
from THE CRUSADES IN CONTEXT, By Dr. Paul Stenhouse © 2007
http://answering-islam.org/Authors/Stenhouse/crusades.01.htm
“At the beginning of the fifth century, two hundred years before Muhammad appeared, there were seven-hundred Catholic bishops in Africa. Two hundred of them attended the Council of Carthage in 535 AD. By the middle of the 900s there were forty left. By 1050, as a result of ‘peaceful coexistence,’ there were only five left. In 1076 there were two. We learn this from a letter that Pope Gregory VII, ‘Hildebrand,’ wrote to Cyriacus, Archbishop of Carthage in June 1076. As three bishops are needed for the valid consecration of another bishop Gregory asked him to send a suitable priest to Rome who could be consecrated assistant bishop, so that he [Cyriacus] and Servandus, bishop of Buzea in Mauritania, and the new bishop could consecrate other bishops for the African Catholics.”
The Crusades were defensive all the way. Basically the West said, “Enough’s enough,” and made the effort to stop the aggression of Muslims. As most know today, Islam’s a very violent, very aggressive religion/cult, following the example of Big Mo himself and the instruction he laid down in his book. In fact in Islam Big Mo is called the Perfect Man, al-Insān al-Kāmil: “the person who has reached perfection.” Meaning, if Mo did it, then we too should do it. Explaining why today Muslims engage in child marriage, multiple wives, slavery, and lots of other unsavory 7th C. practices.
There’s no getting away from it. Islam is one ugly religion. As Sam Harris noted to Bill Maher, “Islam’s the mother lode of bad ideas.” Harris walked back that comment slightly, probably after getting death threats for speaking the truth about Islam, which provides further proof of the violence and aggressiveness of Islam.
“The Crusades were defensive all the way.”
As a history nerd and wannabe amateur medievalist who has been roasting Millhouse’s attempts to portray every Crusader as a Nazi (literally), I have to be the first to stand up and disagree. They were not “defensive all the way.”
Even if we accept- as I do- that the initial spark of it was defensive; the desperate pleadings of the none-to-saintly Eastern Roman Emperor to the none-too-saintly Pope to defend his land and people from Seljuk Jihads.
For one: not all the Crusades were against Muslims.
in addition to the dozen or so games installed on my hard drive about the Crusades everyone thinks about- the wars in “Outremer” over the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem and Pilgrim rights- I have two that deal with the “Northern Crusades.” The Teutonic Order’s campaigns against the (initially) Pagan peoples of the Baltic and the Orthodox Christian Rus statelets like Pskov and Novgoord.
And sure while we could say that Prussian, Lithuanian, etc. raids on Polish, German, and other settlements Initially made them defensive that shed as time went on. Until eventually Lithuania converted, and the Teutonic Order found itself waging war against both its’ newly Christianized oldest enemy Lithuania and the government that brought them to the Baltic in the first place- Poland- in order to spread ethnic German settlement. All while claiming that not only had the Lithuanians not converted, but that the Poles had somehow converted and become secret pagans.
Yeah, not a great story.
Then you also have the extremely brutal campaigns against Heretics like the Ablgensians in Southern France and the Hussites in Central Europe (the latter of whom are notable because the Catholic Church now accepts that *they were right*).
And in at least one notable case, a crusade against an observant Catholic monarch who merely disagreed with the Pope’s patron. The Aragonese Crusade, which *nobody* looks on well.
And secondly, there’s also the fact that even in warfare against the Muslims, Christians could launch unprovoked aggression too. Both against civilians (like the Rhine Jews who got slaughtered by the “Peoples’ Crusade”), and neutral polities. (Richard the Lionheart basically invaded Cyprus because it was a convenient port for his overall invasions. And did so by perfidy).
I hope it is evident that I am no Islamist apologist or someone who condemns all crusaders using the blackest possible terms, acting as if they were literal Proto-Nazis (which is laughable). But as a history nerd who DOES think these examples are relevant to our present day, I am obliged to object and do my effort to straighten out the record.
Unlike Social Justice Adventures (e.g. ending separation through opening abortion fields, forcing mass starvation while maintaining pretenses, catastrophic anthropogenic immigration reform, redistributive change, retributive change), the Crusades did not start as elective conflicts. The Crusades were allied Christian forces from the West who joined with survivors in the East to confront an invasive Muslim force. Unfortunately, as people develop their secular appetite, their taste for base desires becomes liberalized (i.e. divergent) and progressive (i.e. monotonic), which are good reasons to curb our appetite for violence and sex (especially with a “taboo” appeal).
Knights, if true to their vows, were gentlemen in the most true sense. Of course, that could be an was perverted at times. But a good knight was a fine person to know, especially in the day.
How perfectly obtuse. Well done old boy!
Although seldom taught in current history courses, it was well known through the centuries that knights errant spend their nights erring. Rags, you should be well aware of this.
there is a difference between raping and pillaging and “erring”.
The Crusades were a direct response to the Muslim invasion of Christian lands.
If these dumb fucks actually had balls they would be capitalising the name of their mascot!! Fucking liberals!!
Hard for me to join the outrage. No Catholic college conforms to the Church’s mission anymore. Parochial schools are heading that way. And so what’s left are SJW administrators. And social justice thinking has rarely followed classical reasoning and scientific methods.
Fortunately, there are a few exceptions.
While the Muslims may have at least appeared to justify their wars with faith, religion/morality, and tradition, most wars are fought for secular causes including sex, drugs, and feelings (i.e. base appetites, transcendental highs, selfie affirmations), and leftist causes or to consolidate capital and control. At least the Crusades began as self-defense measures, even if they inevitably progressed (and failed) under a liberal regime.
The Crusade is the Macguffin. Ward Churchill was only wrong because he was twenty years ahead of the times. A visionary. Poor fellow.
Check box to select party affiliation.
[ ] Traitor Mr Bradley Manning.
[ ] Senator Chelsea Manning.
We are seeing more and more History distorted, changed to conform to “modern sensibilities”, without looking to understand the times, and ignoring key aspects because those don’t fit the self flagellation of white peoples. Islam was born and raised in blood. An offshoot of the Moon god worshipers who, under Mohammad. It has always been a violence based political, social and religious belief.
We have seen what Muslims have done in many areas, defacing and destroying artifacts of other religions. They usurped the Jewish history and ancient writings and twisted them to be their own, while calling the Jewish usurpers of the true faith.
Islam has been an invading force for a long time. Sure, the Crusades were violent, and with reason. Innocent pilgrims and traders were continuously attacked for being in the area, rarely were any left alive, and the Knights Templar was formed in part to be a buttress against these attacks on lightly armored people. In war men do violent acts, it’s what they are supposed to do, despite the hippies believing you can just wear flowers in your hair and sign kum-by-yah with those intent on killing you.
It is no different than the alternative history about America’s founding and the indigenous people, painting all tribes are peaceful, nature loving, original hippies, with peace and love abounding from every pore.
When we ignore history, or change it as the left is now hell bent on doing, we lose the tough and costly lessons of it as well. The “intellectuals” always believe that because they are so enlightened, and they being so brilliant, that history won’t repeat the same stupid mistakes of the past. Just like they believe Socialism and Communism will work this time, because the people were too stupid compared to the leaders of today, and this time it will work.
What history should teach us is that human nature remains very much the same as it was in ancient times, similar vices and drives as well. When you see how history has repeated in very similar lines throughout recorded time, it becomes evident that it is behaviors under pressures which cause various events and wars. No society is immune to downfall, and it is usually as a society ages, where power is more assumed than actual, where immigrant forces are employed more and more to protect and work while the lazy citizens give up their sovereignty to sit on their butts and let others do the heavy lifting.
Bigotry prevails, but of course, only conservatives can be bigots.
Christians have committed all these sins, and more. It is a waste of time arguing over who is more sinful, analogous to arguing how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. The disagreement generates much friction and heat, but little insight. Accept that Christians have sinned at times, sometimes greatly, acknowledge the events, then move on.
I’ve yet to see anyone point out that one reason Mohammed’s legions found such easy pickings were that a very large number of North African Christians were being persecuted as heretics by the powers that be. They found Islam to be less objectionable.
Before anyone wets their pants in indignation, please step back and consider how poorly those North African Christians must have been treated to find Islam a valid choice…
“Christians have committed all these sins, and more.”
Of course, and you raise a very good point. Lest we get too full of ourselves.
” It is a waste of time arguing over who is more sinful, analogous to arguing how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.”
I cannot agree.
For a couple very good reasons. But to sum it up: what angels can and cannot do in regards to the polka and the head of a pin is the purview of divine knowledge and divine knowledge alone, at least if you believe it. And even if it were not, the effective use of that knowledge in this world would be scant.
Not so with sin. We are all sinners, but not ever sinner has committed all the same sins. And most importantly, not evenr sinner is a repentant one.
In the Bible, when confronted with evidence of adultery and murder, Nathan did not say to David “you have sinned greatly! You have killed Uriah the Hittite with the sword of the Ammonites! But I should not evaluate, because I am also a sinner.”
No, sorry, that doesn’t work.
Even though everybody sins, it’s important to evaluate how they sin. It’s also important to evaluate the creeds they espouse, and whether or not their sins were a contravention of the creed they held, or a fulfillment of it.
Christians have committed every sin in the book and more, but while plenty of Christian slavers stole people by the thousands upon thousands along the West Coast of Africa that did not mean that the Bible made slavery one of its’ great canonical enticements for the faithful.
And that is an important insight to realize.
We should not use it as a shield against self-evaluation, but as a waystone during it. We must not think too highly of ourselves, but we must Also not self-flagellate beyond reason because that is just another form of vanity.
“Accept that Christians have sinned at times, sometimes greatly, acknowledge the events, then move on.”
Agreed indeed.
“I’ve yet to see anyone point out that one reason Mohammed’s legions found such easy pickings were that a very large number of North African Christians were being persecuted as heretics by the powers that be. They found Islam to be less objectionable.
Before anyone wets their pants in indignation, please step back and consider how poorly those North African Christians must have been treated to find Islam a valid choice…”
Well said indeed. And as a former Roman re-enactor I could probably give a long arse ramble about how epically screwed up Roman (both East and Western) imperial religious policy was. Heck, there’s a reason why one of the on and off wars that the Eastern Romans/Byzantines had to deal with were persistent Samaritan and Jewish uprisings as a result of imperial occupation. While North Africa had been at ends with both patriarchs and popes for centuries.
Casey, all sides sin but no comparison. Islamic law calls for the very unequal treatment of Christians & Jews under Islamic hegemony. Historically for centuries the treatment, depending on time & place, was generally awful and often extremely monstrous. Quran 9:29 says pagans & atheists would have to convert or die, but Christians & Jews would have the option to pay a protection “tax” – the Jizya – as dhimmis “and feel subdued” while they are allowed to continue practicing their religion under severe restrictions. This required Jiyza (pay or else) was oppressively high and a major source of income for the Muslim overlords. In North Africa, sometimes the Jizya was their wives & children! (Ref. pg 108, 4th paragraph, Dover edition “The Decline of Eastern Christianity under Islam” by Bat Ye’or.)
“The Syrian chronicle completed in 774 by an author known as Pseudo-Dionysius reported that during the preceding decades the jizya was beyond the capacity of many to pay. It had to be extracted by beatings, extortion, torture, rape and killings, and this caused multitudes to flee destitute from town to town after they had sold everything they owned to pay it.”
– Durie, Mark. The Third Choice: Islam, Dhimmitude and Freedom, which is about the historical treatment under Muslims of the dhimmis. See also books on dhimmitude by Bat Yeor.
See the active map comparison of Dr. Bill Warner
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_To-cV94Bo
Let’s see…the “Holy Cross” signifies the crucifixion of Jesus…crucifixion was a common and brutal practice of the Romans in that time…therefore, “Holy Cross” itself signals horrible violence and brutality far exceeding the Knight. Conclusion: the entire college must be closed down permanently.
“The College of Holy Cross, a Catholic school, has decided to drop its knight mascot and change the name of the school paper because it links them to the horrible violence that occurred during the Crusades.” Yes, wars are violent. Who knew?
But if you’re going to protest the violence in these wars, wouldn’t you have to insist on unlimited pacifism- no war ever, for any reason?
” promotes “Islamophobia.” Oh. Now, we’re offered the real reason.
It’s been said that a belief that someone’s out to do you harm doesn’t necessarily mean you’re paranoid; after all, perhaps someone really is trying to do you harm- probably will, if you don’t defend yourself.
Perhaps medieval Christians had some rational reasons to fear the continued armed expansion of Islam into lands which had been Christian for centuries? Or must one dismiss such arguments as “Islamophobia”? Have these students considered that their school almost certainly would/could not exist, had the Jihad over-run medieval Europe?
Does anyone think anymore, or has emoting totally replaced the exercise of sweet reason?
Too bad they didn’t take some time to review and consider how such “accommodations” are working out for various nations in Europe. Generally, I think they would find that the more they surrender of their own heritage, religious in this case, all the more will be asked, even demanded, of them. They will have compromised their life away. They will have succumbed to lies.
Sad, that. For, as Catholics, their saviour is Christ Jesus, the one who said, “you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.” I find nothing freeing about denying one’s heritage, warts and all.
Not all knights were Crusaders. Why are they conflating the terms, or conflating the kKK “knights” with their institution’s mascot? Could they be trying to stave off a lawsuit, to preemptively end an attack on the institution?!
Nah. PC loons, SJW administrators. Those 48 are the real problem, because they agitate, divide, and persist regardless of reason or logic until they get their way (a la Alinsky’s teachings).
The collapse of the university/college system is coming, if these idiocies continue.
“Why are they conflating the terms, or conflating the kKK “knights” with their institution’s mascot?”
Because these people are part of the same crowd that finds the name “General Hooker” offensive to women.
More or less my take on it.
Maybe it’s because I’ve always been a nerd, but “Knight” doesn’t even make me think of the Crusades. Instead, it conjures up images of Camelot, especially Lancelot and Galahad.
Suggestions for a new mascot? The Banana Slug is already taken by UC-Santa Cruz, but how about something non-threatening and victimized like The Earthworms? The Field Mice? The Hamsters?
Naw, they’ll pick something abstract and neutral, like The Purple Wave or The Friends of the Violet. Teamy McTeamface, anyone?
The Dhimmis
Gerbils. Gerbils are good. You could name the school paper “The Felchers.”
What? Too soon?
Isn’t the name Holy Cross already a micro-aggression? They should go whole hog. The Holy Crap Weasels has a nice ring to it.
Patriots is also problematic.
You think I’m kidding? Just you wait.
Oh my bad, please excuse my use of “you” in such a challenging manner. I didn’t mean to make anyone uncomfortable…
The dishonest Left is all-too-happy to whitewash 1,400 years of Islamic belligerence, atrocities, genocides and conquests, committed since the ideology’s inception, against non-Muslim peoples and lands, in the name of attempting to rehabilitate that intrinsically supremacist and totalitarian ideology to fit contemporary values.
Indeed, the fact that non-Muslims in southeast Asia and throughout the Middle East are still suffering persecution and death at the hands of belligerent Muslims would suggest that, on the Islamic side, at least, the Crusades never really ended, consistent with the Koran’s dictates to wage persistent wars to kill or subjugate the non-believing “infidels.”
The Pussification of America.
Oh Yeah, and surely, history occasionally repeats itself.
Unfortunately, no college or university has a mascot named “Muzzy” so we could see if this hyper-sensitivity cuts both ways.
Heh. You should see the Legions of Perpetual Outrage around Kansas, where you can’t throw a rock without hitting a county, school, city, mascot, or sports team named after one Native American tribe or another.
To my undying shame as a member of the Holy Cross Class of 1968…..
Back when it was a men’s college and had some integrity.
I never understood why the Crusaders sacked Constantinople, their co-religionists and allies. Constantinople had been under threat from Islam for centuries and never really recovered from the Crusader attack before eventually falling to Islam (and what the Muslims did after breaking the gates was truly gruesome). Those Crusaders foolishly doomed that region to the darkness of Islam and, without a threat at their backs, allowed the Muslims to conquer the Balkans and make a push for central Europe. I wonder if the Crusaders ever really understood the disaster they created.
Um, don’t forget whose blog this is. Justifying the Crusaders by pointing at Moslem atrocities is exactly the same as justifying the Nazis by pointing at Soviet atrocities. Stalin being a monster doesn’t make Hitler any less of one, or vice versa. The Crusaders were monsters, evil vicious people, and regardless of any “political correctness” or “social justice” nonsense it was always wrong to honor them in this way.
The Crusaders were people of their time, responding in kind to an invasion by monstrous, evil, vicious people. The interesting part is that the societies that gave rise to the Crusaders evolved into something better.
The Nazis and communists were people of their times too. Evil people of their time. So were the Crusaders. Celebrating them is wrong, regardless of what else is going on.
What a false and weak attempt at an analogy.
For one thing, Nazis and Communists were partially allied at one point due to aligned goals.
Crusaders and Muslims both participated in savagery. Neither were to the levels of Communists or Nazis (who had the benefit of modernization in this comparison to boot).
Lastly, when were all Knights involved in the Crusades? Knighthood was a staple of medieval life before, during, and after the Middle East crisis. Heck, there are still honorary “knightings” bestowed in the UK today.
Nazis and communists were never allied. For a short time they had a non-aggression pact. But what difference would that make anyway? The point is that you can’t justify either of them by pointing out how bad the other was. All you show is that they were both bad. So how can talking about how bad the Moslem forces were make the Crusaders any less bad?
Sorry, Milhouse, but here you’re full of shit.
The Soviets sent food to German troops, along with other material aid, when they invaded Poland and the Low Countries. This was not “non-aggression”. It was outright alliance.
Indeed, well said. Though they sent a lot more than just food and material support when the Reich invaded Poland.
And by “a lot more” I mean” army troops.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Lw%C3%B3w_(1939)
But the Reich and the Soviets were happy to continue along, coordinating not just massive economic transfers and intelligence coordination (against groups like the pesky dissidents), but also diplomatic leverage to try and get states like Romania and FInland to give up land and/or independence.
The Baltic Three of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania got hit particularly hard.
And to add insult to injury, the Soviets were still sending thousands of tons of goods like Rubber to the Axis hours before Hitler backstabbed his old frenemy.
The most one can say is that Hitler and Stalin never signed a treaty that outright called itself an alliance. But it’s obvious that their relationship was FAAAR beyond “Non-Aggression.”
It’s also worth n
“Justifying the Crusaders by pointing at Moslem atrocities is exactly the same as justifying the Nazis by pointing at Soviet atrocities. ”
Are you saying that all of the allied soldiers in WWII were murderers and barbarians? Because that what you seem to be saying.
No, of course not, how could you possibly derive that from anything I said? When did I say anything about the Allies?
The Crusaders came about due to Muslim aggression. Get informed.
And the Nazis came about due to the Versailles agreement and US aggression, or due to French aggression 200 years earlier, or whatever. I don’t care how they came about, they were evil vicious bloodthirsty murderers, and how dare you come into what is effectively a Jewish home and excuse them?
@Millhouse Mate, history is not your strong suit.
“And the Nazis came about due to the Versailles agreement and US aggression,”
Uh no. They did not.
We know this because the predecessor party to the NSDAP- the DAP- was formed in January 1919, months before the Versailles agreement. And while Hitler only joined after Versailles was signed he got involved literally a week after, and was already palling around radical politics like the brief Ruhr Bolshevik Soviet months before.
(And this is without talking about the nature of the Third OHL and how it already adopted many distinctly National Socialist characteristics that were a direct inspiration to Der Fuhrer and his fanboys, before it was defeated in WWI).
And likewise, there was no “US aggression.” There was simply US response to German aggression, as acknowledged by Kaiser Wilhelm II when he stated that the resumption of unrestricted submarine warfare would be the end of negotiations with the US.
“or due to French aggression 200 years earlier,”
Ok.
Point me to the Nazi Party that existed in 1814. Or at minimum National Socialists.
I’ll wait.
Note: it’s pretty easy to say that a given political party did not “come about” due to something when they weren’t around for over a century after.
“or whatever. I don’t care how they came about,”
That much is obvious.
But here’s the thing:
Just because you don’t care about how they came about Doesn’t mean how they came about is unimportant or irrelevant.
I personally don’t care a great deal about rock formation or how the Marianas Trench was formed. But that doesn’t mean I would testily “reach for my revolver” to dismiss the expertise of a geologist speaking about the role of either in Earth’s history.
“they were evil vicious bloodthirsty murderers,”
Yes, they were. And I do believe they would probably have come about even without a Communist state in Russia or attempts at putsches in Hungary, Germany, Italy, and elsewhere (though I CAN blame the local Communist Parties for being murderous, vicious monsters in their own right AND making Fascist ones more appealing to the desperate middleman).
But that doesn’t change the fact that they were different- often VERY different- from the Crusaders. Even when the latter could be (and often* were) murderous and evil in their own right. For one, the Crusades would not have happened without armed, non-Christian powers attacking the boundaries of Christian territories.
That doesn’t justify them, but it is a simple fact. Even internal “heresieS” like the Hussites that got crusades called on them were previously the purview of the local secular lord ( who would occasionally call in foreign aid) before the Byzantine request for help to the Pope launched the First Crusade.
In contrast, the first Fascist Party was established in 1915, while Lenin and co were still stewing in their Swiss exile or Siberian prisons. Fascism was not reliant on Communist expansion for its’ very existance in the same way Crusades were to Muslim or “Heathen”** expansion.
“and how dare you come into what is effectively a Jewish home and excuse them?”
I don’t know who elle is and for all I know they are an actual 1488 tard. But I get the impression they’re riffing on your overly sloppy “There is NO DIFFERENCE” shtick.
Because apparently we’re supposed to believe that Baldwin IV of Jerusalem set up death camps and conducted genocidal campaigns of extermination.
* Often does not Mean Always. I will freely admit that a vast number- and likely even the majority- of crusaders were murderous, evil douchebags. But not all of them Were, and we know that for a fact from some of them.
** Best term I could come up with for the sort of Baltic-Norse Pagan religion that existed before the Teutonic and Livonian orders started tearing into the region and forcing conversion and/or Germanification by swordpoint. After the heaths that old Norse and Baltic Pagans frequently conducted for their religious and spiritual rites as well as for community gathering.
Note: Derp on me, apologies for the double post everyone, but I accidentally entered my comment into the general reply rather than the specific one.
=============================================
Milhouse, I’ve generally respected the comments you’ve made on here even when I’ve disagreed with the sentiment. But while I am no knee-jerk apologist for the Crusades (in part because I remember not all of them were targeted against Muslim polities) or a Trump Fan, the stuff you’ve spewed here is REALLY MORONIC.
History does *NOT* seem to be your ken.
“Um, don’t forget whose blog this is.”
I don’t think anybody is about to.
” Justifying the Crusaders by pointing at Moslem atrocities is exactly the same as justifying the Nazis by pointing at Soviet atrocities.”
Agh, the intellectual fallacy with this….
Firstly, let’s start with one thing: MOST of the Crusades (not all of them, I know that damn well enough, but most, and particularly the most famous ones in “Outremer”) were defensive in nature. Either to roll back Turkish (mostly Seljuk) expansion in Eastern Rome, to occupy the “Holy Land”, or at minimum to protect pilgrims going to and from the important sites like Jerusalem. Or some combination of the two.
Even the more openly aggressive or expansionist crusades (like the Northern one against the Old Prussians, Lithuanians, and assorted Balts) at least STARTED due to the very *real* threat of raiding along the frontier.
The closest thing you can get to the NSDAP is the Reich’s protests that it committed several invasions- like of Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Lithuania- to “Protect Ethnic Germans from Persecution.” And sometimes the persecution was real.
The problem was that they conducted several wars without even that fig leaf. And we know from the details of Der Fuhrer’s internal references that he planned to launch several wars anyway, acknowledging that complaining about ethnic German persecution was a fig leaf. Even in the most dismal and unjust crusades- like the crusades against Aragon and the Hussites- we don’t have any comparable evidence of perfidy, and in fact they were justified by said powers (supposedly) threatening the faithful. And even when (like in Aragon’s case) there was scant evidence of it, we can’t actually prove that the Pope was acting in bad faith like Toothbrush Stache was.
And SECONDLY: that argument works far less than you would like to think. Because while it will not JUSTIFY their crimes, it’s damn hard to argue that Fascism didn’t ARISE largely as a reaction to the post-WWI world and the all too real, obvious threat of Communism. In large part because it did, and no matter how dishonest or aggressive the Moose or Hitler were they didn’t have to imagine things like Lenin’s invasion of every country that bordered him without pretext and support for coups, in the same way the papacy didn’t have to imagine expansion by the Seljuks, Ayyubids, and so on.
They were a thing. And while it’s important not to JUSTIFY them on the basis of such, it’s important to UNDERSTAND them as a result of such.
“Stalin being a monster doesn’t make Hitler any less of one,”
No, it does not.
“or vice versa.”
If anything, Hitler being a monster makes Stalin MORE of one because he spent nearly a decade supporting Hitler’s military apparatus (as a continuation from the previous Bolshevik strategy of supporting Germany’s militarists in general).
“The Crusaders were monsters, evil vicious people, and regardless of any “political correctness” or “social justice” nonsense it was always wrong to honor them in this way.”
No, MANY of the Crusaders were monsters, evil vicious people. But not all of them.
Yeah it’s pretty farqing hard to say anything good about the likes of the von Juningens or Raymond de Chatillon. But to claim Baldwin IV or most of the Templar Grand Masters were “monsters”, or “evil, vicious people?”
For farq’s sake, even most of the people who FOUGHT THEM didn’t think of it that way!
I hate to tell you this or rain on your parade- which really does smack of extravagent virtue signalling at the expense of history- but Crusaders could be of all kinds. From the monstrous to the heroic.
“Nazis and communists were never allied. For a short time they had a non-aggression pact.”
Eh, define “Allied.”
They collaborated with each other diplomatically, economically, and most importantly militarily for nearly half a decade between 1939 (or 1938 depending on we count) and Barbarossa in the middle of ’41. The Soviet Union and Nazi Germany invaded several countries- mostly the old “Cordon Sanitaire” ones- and divided them up with full knowledge and allowance of each other.
They invaded Poland in a collaborative campaign, and- here’s the real acid test- they OPERATED AS ALLIES DURING THAT even in combat, right on down to the Germans passing over operational control of some sieges to the Soviets and having the troops fight shoulder to shoulder in battle.
At the end of which they were honored with an equal billing in the victory parade they had in Warsaw, Brest-Litovsk, and several others.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tfzJEXZWPfE
And NO, they Did NOT have a Non-Aggression Pact.
They had an AGGRESSION PACT in which they conspired to cooperate with each other to divide Central and Eastern Europe between the two, which they DISGUISED under the titling of a non-aggression pact. But comparisons between it and actual Non-Aggression Pacts like Kellog-Briand or the Nazi-Polish one show the difference.
Pretty much the only leg you have to stand on is that at no point did they ever officially sign a Public Treaty officially declaring a “Nazi-Soviet Alliance” like what we see with the German-Italian Pact of Steel or the Anglo-French Entente.
And you’d have a point here.
However,
A: This still fits the common sense description of an Alliance.
and
B: One could make the same caveat between-say- Norway and Britain, France, and Poland during the early stages of the German invasion of 1940 even though they were fighting the same enemies and cooperating. But you’d be hard pressed to find people who would not describe their conduct and relations as “allied.”
“There is no difference between the Crusaders and the Nazis.”
REALLY MILHOUSE? NO DIFFERENCE? DID YOU REALLY DECIDE TO GO FULL MAROOON?
Of COURSE there’s a difference between the Crusaders and the NSDAP.
AS YOU WOULD KNOW IF YOU STUDIED THE HISTORY WORTH A DANG.
And for cripe’s sake, one of the most obvious indications of it is the fact that the Teutonic Order- one of the most aggressive and ruthless of the Crusader Orders, one which indeed did gradually alter its’ religious motivations to favor Germanic expansion in the Baltic at the expense of other Catholic states, and which is often used as a lazy standin for the NSDAP- was PERSECUTED BY THE FARQING THIRD REICH! Members of the Teutonic Order were routinely SENT TO CAMPS TO DIE for their loyalty to the Catholic Church (for good or bad) and opposition to it.
Let’s go through a few things, shall we?
* Militantly (pun intended) Catholic Christian, at least on the surface.
v.
* Militantly anti-Abrahamic and (for lack of a better term) Neo-Nordic Pagan.
* Based on a VERY strict class structure.
vs.
* Revolutionary, anti-aristocratic, and anti-clerical.
“I only acknowledge one nobility—that of labor. ” -Der Fuhrer, by way of the Voelkischer Beobachter.
And if you had ANY FARQING IDEA what Medieval European concepts of society were like, you would understand how absolutely anthetical a statement like this is to the Triumvirate of classes they believed were natural.
* Did not plan the utter extermination of everyone on the basis of ethnic identity or even religion. (The most that can be said was support for religious conversions, or a few massacres of captives or civilians after a city was taken).
vs.
* The Farqing Holocaust designed to exterminate the Jews, Roma, Eastern Slavs, and so on.
Do I have to farqing continue?
“And there is no difference between defending the Crusaders and defending the Nazis.”
Yeah, because Baldwin IV of Jerusalem is totes no differnet from Adolf Shicklegruber.
Good God, I’m more critical of the Crusaders than most Conservatives tend to be- in large part because I remember the Crusades weren’t just targeted against Muslim powers but also against “Heretics” like the Cathars and Hussites, Catholic powers that threatened the independence of the Papacy (Holy Roman Emperors), and in one memorable case someone who alienated the Pope’s French patron (Aragon).
But even I have to tell you to Cut It The Heck Out here.
“Again, remember where you are. Remember whose guest you are here and have some respect.”
I deeply respect Professor Jacobson.
But I cannot respect historical illiteracy. Which is mostly what you’ve been peddling.
And I say this as someone who actually agrees that Crusader nostalgia on the right has gone on for too long and too uncritically.
I’m sure there were some decent Nazis too. There were certainly decent people in the Wehrmacht. But when someone runs up a Nazi flag or names a team “the Someplace Nazis” they are adopting the worst of the Nazi crimes, not the nice ones who may or may not have existed.
Look, I don’t care how many decent crusaders there may have been. To me and to any Jew the first association “Crusader” instantly brings to mind is 1096, and there is nothing more to say.
“I’m sure there were some decent Nazis too.”
Yes, there were. John Rabe comes to mind.
But you’re trying (lazily) to compare Apples to Oranges.
National Socialism was by its’ VERY NATURE Genocidal, totalitarian, expansionist, and open to mass murder. This is not subject to dispute, it was outlined in great detail by Der Fuhrer himself.
So to the extent John Rabe was a decent- nay, Good- man because he rejected several of the key tenants of National Socialism. Especially the idea of violent slaughter against “inconvenient citizens.”
But while National Socialism was inherently genocidal, totalitarian, expansionist, and open to mass murder, the Crusader cause was not inherently *any* of those things. (in part because the logistics beyond a totalitarian state werne’t quite there).
It could certainly LEAN towards all of those things.
In fact I’m DAMN sure I could give you a good lecture on it.
But being a Crusader meant- at its’ heart- fighting on behalf of the Catholic Church and to defend the faithful. PERIOD.
Note that does not NECESSARILY include “expanding the lands of the Catholic Church.” (Many Crusades WERE to do that, make no msitake. Probably even most. But the Third Crusade was designed to hold onto the Crusader states and ensure safe pilgrimage, not to expand beyond).
Note that does not NECESSARILY include “slaughter all non-believers.” (The Knights Templar using Turcopoles alone proves that.
And in fact, this NEVER seems to have been the case. There were certainly cases where Crusader Knights DID try to slaughter all the Non-Christians in a given settlement, as happened during the first conquest of Jerusalem. Which is justifiably infamous.
But this was not because they were seeking to erase an entire faith. That was because siege stormings gave No Quarter to “the enemy.” )”
Note that does not NECESSARILY include “Slaughter all people of a certain nationality or ethnic race.” (In fact, the Teutonic Knights got CASTIGATED For doing this nonsense by the Pope, like when they conquered Danzig and basically slaughtered everyone).
So your attempts to conflate the two *FAIL AND FAIL MISERABLY.* Because Baldwin IV as much a Crusader as Adolf Hitler was a National Socialist. But Baldwin IV’s ideology- for all its’ problems- was nowhere near as bigoted, murderous, or aggressive.
” But when someone runs up a Nazi flag or names a team “the Someplace Nazis” they are adopting the worst of the Nazi crimes, not the nice ones who may or may not have existed. ”
That’s because the worst of the Nazi crimes were committed as a Direct, UNAVOIDABLE response of the ideology. Period. Full Stop. Do Not Pass Go, Do Not Collect Lebensraum, go directly to Nurnburg.
That’s not the case with Crusaders, at least in terms of the UNAVOIDABILITY.
You’re not going to get many people denying that the Rhine Pogroms that all but exterminated the local Jewish populations were conducted by Crusaders or at least wannabe Crusaders. But you will have people point out that they were REALLY not doing what the cause (Ie: going on crusade ABROAD to fight for the Church) was.
See the difference?
“Look, I don’t care how many decent crusaders there may have been.”
That much is painfully obvious.
But here’s the thing:
If you don’t care about the history, *don’t try and lecture me about it.*
To me and to any Jew the first association “Crusader” instantly brings to mind is 1096, and there is nothing more to say.
Oh bullshit Milhouse. The Crusaders were not monsters. You’re making the typical mistake of judging the past by the current-days standards.
Or would you like to talk about early Jewish history and all the “war crimes” they committed? Will you call them Monsters too?
There is no difference between the Crusaders and the Nazis. And there is no difference between defending the Crusaders and defending the Nazis. Again, remember where you are. Remember whose guest you are here and have some respect.
Oh. Now we have to be social justice aware of the sensibilities of the host and other commentators.
“Social justice” has nothing to do with it. When you come to a Jewish home, even if you secretly admire Hitler you should have the common decency to shut up about it.
Logically you are saying that the Allied forces were murdering barbarians. Deep thought, Milhouse. Deep thought.
Huh? The Nazis were evil, and the fact that they fought the evil communists doesn’t change that even one tiny bit. The Soviets were evil, and the fact that they fought the evil Nazis doesn’t change that one bit. The Crusaders were evil, and nothing you can say about their Moslem enemies can change that. Now tell me what you think the Allies have got to do with any of this.
Your premise relies on the Crusaders not being a defensive force against Muslim aggression. That’s not historical. Deal with it.
The crusaders were not defensive anything. Nobody attacked France. And I wouldn’t care if they were defensive, they were bloodthirsty monsters who deserved to be attacked.
“The crusaders were not defensive anything.”
Dubious at best.
Again, the First Crusade was a direct response to the appeal of the (Eastern) Roman/Byzantine Emperor for help against Seljuk expansion and persecution of local Christians. As well as reports of what would be safely called mass murder against religious minorities going to Jerusalem.
That doesn’t mean they were ALL Defensive- not at all- but the origins were.
“Nobody attacked France.”
Uhhhhhhh….
https://www.history.ubc.ca/sites/default/files/users/cbooker/docs/Ballan_Fraxinetum.pdf
(Though to be fair, this- along with the ravaging of Provance and Aquitaine as well as the famous Battle of Tours- well predates the first declared Crusade, so it might count).
As well as the long and sordid tradition of piracy against non-Muslim shipping in the Med, including ships under the protection of the French Monarchy.
But let’s ignore all that and assume your point for the sake of the argument.
Even if we assume that nobody attacked France, it would be VERY safe to say that plenty of people attacked and massacred subjects of the King of France and his Vassals. People from nobles down to the poor peasants who were bound to the King directly or indirectly by shared promises of loyalty, services, and protection.
Taken today, systematic attacks on people of a given nationality WOULD be viewed as a justifiable cassus belli by a nation, and massacre of people on the base of their faith would be outright genocide.
It’s NOT kosher to apply those concepts to the 11th century because they simply didn’t exist in any comparable way back then. But the fact is that servants of the French Crown- along with those of the English, the Greek Emperor, the Italian Communes, and so on- getting killed on the way to Jerusalem would be a challenge to the promise of service and protection that were the only justification for Kings being Kings. And so they pushed retaliation.
“And I wouldn’t care if they were defensive,”
Again, why are you trying to argue points if you don’t care?
Especially when it’s clear you are NOT A Medievalist, not that great a historian, and are woefully unequipped to discuss the matter?
“they were bloodthirsty monsters who deserved to be attacked.”
A: Again, many of them were, but not all of them.
Again, you can’t even argue against my points regarding Baldwin IV or the Knights Templar.
and
B: Let’s pretend they were. And that every single crusader of Every Single Stripe Whatsoever was a bloodthirsty monster. And heck, let’s pretend that Baldwin IV- who was lauded for his mercy, military prowess, and wisdom by Christian, Muslim *AND* Jewish sources- is the equivalent of Adolf Freaking Hitler.
Ok.
How would this justify attacks that would murder, enslave, and displace the POOR SODS UNDERNEATH THEM?
This is basically like arguing that the Soviet people deserved to get attacked by the Axis and subject to every demented, violent urge of Toothbrush Stache purely because Stalin and the Bolsheviks were vile monsters.
PS. Fen was using your own argument.
Hippies in 1960: What if you had a war and nobody showed up? Kumbaya!
Islam and Communism: We will show you, comrade.
This is true insanity, especially for this college since the whole reason for the Crusades was to liberate the Holy Sepulchre Church – site of the original ‘Holy Cross’. For the two decades following the Ottoman conquest of Jerusalem in 1077, Christian pilgrims were largely denied pilgrimage rights to this holy church. This is what sparked the first Crusade in 1095. The objective was to reconquer Jerusalem and the Holy Lands, and to allow Christians the access to their religious sites that was denied by the (recent) Ottoman invaders.
Unlike Ottoman invasions, however, the objective of the Crusaders was not to embark in a true religious war. There was never a call to force the Muslims to convert to Christianity. Had this only been the case in merciless Ottoman invasions. Where I live in Italy, beautiful medieval towers dot the coastline – they were built to warn about Ottoman and Saracen invasions. Might be useful for some of those who cringed at the Knights’ supposedly violent past to visit the cathedral of Otranto in southern Italy – site of the Ottoman siege of 1480. The 800 Catholic townspeople who survived the battle were given the opportunity to convert to Islam and survive. Down to the last man, woman and child, they refused and were slaughtered. You can still see their bones today – in cases lining the cathedral walls.
So yes, like in every battle situation, both sides exhibited violence, but this scary narrative of the Ottomans as peaceful victims of the merciless Christian Crusaders is simply laughable. Almost every European region has a brutal story to tell about these “peaceful” Ottomans. On the other hand, if college kids are looking for examples of brutal, bloodthirsty Christians, the Thirty Years’ War might be a better fit. Sadly, however, doesn’t fit the narrative since it’s Christian on Christian violence. Can we bring back real history, please?
Milhouse, I’ve generally respected the comments you’ve made on here even when I’ve disagreed with the sentiment. But while I am no knee-jerk apologist for the Crusades (in part because I remember not all of them were targeted against Muslim polities) or a Trump Fan, the stuff you’ve spewed here is REALLY MORONIC.
History does *NOT* seem to be your ken.
“Um, don’t forget whose blog this is.”
I don’t think anybody is about to.
” Justifying the Crusaders by pointing at Moslem atrocities is exactly the same as justifying the Nazis by pointing at Soviet atrocities.”
Agh, the intellectual fallacy with this….
Firstly, let’s start with one thing: MOST of the Crusades (not all of them, I know that damn well enough, but most, and particularly the most famous ones in “Outremer”) were defensive in nature. Either to roll back Turkish (mostly Seljuk) expansion in Eastern Rome, to occupy the “Holy Land”, or at minimum to protect pilgrims going to and from the important sites like Jerusalem. Or some combination of the two.
Even the more openly aggressive or expansionist crusades (like the Northern one against the Old Prussians, Lithuanians, and assorted Balts) at least STARTED due to the very *real* threat of raiding along the frontier.
The closest thing you can get to the NSDAP is the Reich’s protests that it committed several invasions- like of Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Lithuania- to “Protect Ethnic Germans from Persecution.” And sometimes the persecution was real.
The problem was that they conducted several wars without even that fig leaf. And we know from the details of Der Fuhrer’s internal references that he planned to launch several wars anyway, acknowledging that complaining about ethnic German persecution was a fig leaf. Even in the most dismal and unjust crusades- like the crusades against Aragon and the Hussites- we don’t have any comparable evidence of perfidy, and in fact they were justified by said powers (supposedly) threatening the faithful. And even when (like in Aragon’s case) there was scant evidence of it, we can’t actually prove that the Pope was acting in bad faith like Toothbrush Stache was.
And SECONDLY: that argument works far less than you would like to think. Because while it will not JUSTIFY their crimes, it’s damn hard to argue that Fascism didn’t ARISE largely as a reaction to the post-WWI world and the all too real, obvious threat of Communism. In large part because it did, and no matter how dishonest or aggressive the Moose or Hitler were they didn’t have to imagine things like Lenin’s invasion of every country that bordered him without pretext and support for coups, in the same way the papacy didn’t have to imagine expansion by the Seljuks, Ayyubids, and so on.
They were a thing. And while it’s important not to JUSTIFY them on the basis of such, it’s important to UNDERSTAND them as a result of such.
“Stalin being a monster doesn’t make Hitler any less of one,”
No, it does not.
“or vice versa.”
If anything, Hitler being a monster makes Stalin MORE of one because he spent nearly a decade supporting Hitler’s military apparatus (as a continuation from the previous Bolshevik strategy of supporting Germany’s militarists in general).
“The Crusaders were monsters, evil vicious people, and regardless of any “political correctness” or “social justice” nonsense it was always wrong to honor them in this way.”
No, MANY of the Crusaders were monsters, evil vicious people. But not all of them.
Yeah it’s pretty farqing hard to say anything good about the likes of the von Juningens or Raymond de Chatillon. But to claim Baldwin IV or most of the Templar Grand Masters were “monsters”, or “evil, vicious people?”
For farq’s sake, even most of the people who FOUGHT THEM didn’t think of it that way!
I hate to tell you this or rain on your parade- which really does smack of extravagent virtue signalling at the expense of history- but Crusaders could be of all kinds. From the monstrous to the heroic.
“Nazis and communists were never allied. For a short time they had a non-aggression pact.”
Eh, define “Allied.”
They collaborated with each other diplomatically, economically, and most importantly militarily for nearly half a decade between 1939 (or 1938 depending on we count) and Barbarossa in the middle of ’41. The Soviet Union and Nazi Germany invaded several countries- mostly the old “Cordon Sanitaire” ones- and divided them up with full knowledge and allowance of each other.
They invaded Poland in a collaborative campaign, and- here’s the real acid test- they OPERATED AS ALLIES DURING THAT even in combat, right on down to the Germans passing over operational control of some sieges to the Soviets and having the troops fight shoulder to shoulder in battle.
At the end of which they were honored with an equal billing in the victory parade they had in Warsaw, Brest-Litovsk, and several others.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tfzJEXZWPfE
And NO, they Did NOT have a Non-Aggression Pact.
They had an AGGRESSION PACT in which they conspired to cooperate with each other to divide Central and Eastern Europe between the two, which they DISGUISED under the titling of a non-aggression pact. But comparisons between it and actual Non-Aggression Pacts like Kellog-Briand or the Nazi-Polish one show the difference.
Pretty much the only leg you have to stand on is that at no point did they ever officially sign a Public Treaty officially declaring a “Nazi-Soviet Alliance” like what we see with the German-Italian Pact of Steel or the Anglo-French Entente.
And you’d have a point here.
However,
A: This still fits the common sense description of an Alliance.
and
B: One could make the same caveat between-say- Norway and Britain, France, and Poland during the early stages of the German invasion of 1940 even though they were fighting the same enemies and cooperating. But you’d be hard pressed to find people who would not describe their conduct and relations as “allied.”
“There is no difference between the Crusaders and the Nazis.”
REALLY MILHOUSE? NO DIFFERENCE? DID YOU REALLY DECIDE TO GO FULL MAROOON?
Of COURSE there’s a difference between the Crusaders and the NSDAP.
AS YOU WOULD KNOW IF YOU STUDIED THE HISTORY WORTH A DANG.
And for cripe’s sake, one of the most obvious indications of it is the fact that the Teutonic Order- one of the most aggressive and ruthless of the Crusader Orders, one which indeed did gradually alter its’ religious motivations to favor Germanic expansion in the Baltic at the expense of other Catholic states, and which is often used as a lazy standin for the NSDAP- was PERSECUTED BY THE FARQING THIRD REICH! Members of the Teutonic Order were routinely SENT TO CAMPS TO DIE for their loyalty to the Catholic Church (for good or bad) and opposition to it.
Let’s go through a few things, shall we?
* Militantly (pun intended) Catholic Christian, at least on the surface.
v.
* Militantly anti-Abrahamic and (for lack of a better term) Neo-Nordic Pagan.
* Based on a VERY strict class structure.
vs.
* Revolutionary, anti-aristocratic, and anti-clerical.
“I only acknowledge one nobility—that of labor. ” -Der Fuhrer, by way of the Voelkischer Beobachter.
And if you had ANY FARQING IDEA what Medieval European concepts of society were like, you would understand how absolutely anthetical a statement like this is to the Triumvirate of classes they believed were natural.
* Did not plan the utter extermination of everyone on the basis of ethnic identity or even religion. (The most that can be said was support for religious conversions, or a few massacres of captives or civilians after a city was taken).
vs.
* The Farqing Holocaust designed to exterminate the Jews, Roma, Eastern Slavs, and so on.
Do I have to farqing continue?
“And there is no difference between defending the Crusaders and defending the Nazis.”
Yeah, because Baldwin IV of Jerusalem is totes no differnet from Adolf Shicklegruber.
Good God, I’m more critical of the Crusaders than most Conservatives tend to be- in large part because I remember the Crusades weren’t just targeted against Muslim powers but also against “Heretics” like the Cathars and Hussites, Catholic powers that threatened the independence of the Papacy (Holy Roman Emperors), and in one memorable case someone who alienated the Pope’s French patron (Aragon).
But even I have to tell you to Cut It The Heck Out here.
“Again, remember where you are. Remember whose guest you are here and have some respect.”
I deeply respect Professor Jacobson.
But I cannot respect historical illiteracy. Which is mostly what you’ve been peddling.
And I say this as someone who actually agrees that Crusader nostalgia on the right has gone on for too long and too uncritically.
Look, none of your five-page history essays make the slightest difference. I have no interest in reading about their noble intentions, because it doesn’t matter, any more than it would matter if the Nazis had noble intentions. The bottom line is the same; their victims were just as dead.
I understand that this is a case of one man’s terrorist being another’s freedom fighter, and one man’s genocidal maniac being another’s national liberator. We have the exact same thing with Ukranians who idolize Bogdan f***ing Chmielnitsky, for ****’s sake. They put up statues of him and name kids after him as if he was George Washington. To them he is. But to any Jew he is Adolf Hitler Mark 0, and no amount of historical essay-writing can change that. And to any Jew, “Crusader” is effectively a synonym for “Nazi”, and nothing can change that either.
“Look, none of your five-page history essays make the slightest difference. ”
Correct.
But neither do your condescending dismissals.
However, the FACTS do make all the difference in the world. And they undergird my argument.
“I have no interest in-”
I have zero interest in reading what you don’t have an interest in.
Beause apparently you’ve resorted to the Reducto ad Milhouse: If you’re not interested in it, It Isn’t Relevant Or Important. Or may as well not exist..
Sorry, but Real Life Doesn’t work Like That.
You may not be interested in the differences between the Crusaders and the Nazis, *but they exist.* You may not be interested in the difference between the inherently genocidal character of Nazism or that of the Crusades, *But they exist.*
And yes, it DOES matter if they had noble intentions, especially intentions a non-deranged, non-racist, non-genocidal nutter would view as noble. Not because they always worked out, but because those intentions did not amount to “Exterminate everybody who isn’t us.”
“We have the exact same thing with Ukranians who idolize Bogdan f***ing Chmielnitsky, for ****’s sake.”
Yeah, indeed, and I make no apologies for him.
The only reason I make any apologies whatsoever for his heir Bandera was that
A: He was not as committed to the “murder all Jews” thing as Khmelnitsky or the Nazis were; instead preferring “oppertunistic” genocide.
and
B: as Awful as the OUN-B was, and as absolutely awful as the UPA was- and I could lecture on them- they came up against the backdrop of both the Soviet Union and Bandera’s former Nazi allies trying to outright enslave or exterminate all Ukrainians Starting by executing the sane Ukrainian leadership.
In that context even a genocidal, racist Fascist can be the lesser of evils.
“They put up statues of him and name kids after him as if he was George Washington. To them he is. But to any Jew he is Adolf Hitler Mark 0, and no amount of historical essay-writing can change that.”
And not without good reason.
But again, Khmelnitsky’s pogroms were an inescapable part of his ideology. Not so with the Crusaders.
“And to any Jew, “Crusader” is effectively a synonym for “Nazi”, and nothing can change that either.”
The Jews that wrote of Baldwin IV in his court disprove this.
As did those who took shelter with Pope Alexander II.
And THAT is actually something nothing will change.
I hope it’s Really Damn Clear I’m quite aware of Crusader atrocities, including against Jews. I’m not some kind of uncritical shill about them.
But the same sense of history that makes me Object to whitewashing them means I’m not going to stand for attempts to claim they were Literally Nazis.
See the active map comparison of Dr. Bill Warner
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_To-cV94Bo
Crusades were minor violence compared to the centuries of “Religion of peace” conquest.
There should be more respect for Christian symbols. Why? Because for most of its 1400 year history Islam’s warriors tried to conquer & subjugate all of Europe and destroy Western Civilization, and it nearly succeeded but for a few key battles lost to Christian forces up to the Battle of Vienna in 1683.
In short, if you’re a free person in the West, whatever else you may think of Christianity it saved your a$$, which otherwise would be up in the air five times a day while you prayed in the direction of an absurd city that is in fact a provable fraud:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=inJ1mCIsz5A