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Helps a lot, thanks. I see what you mean about the noise level of derivative works, but some of the transcriptions from the Hanover collection appear to be prime specimens of colonial American English, like this one: http://history.hanover.edu/texts/nyhah.html

I can offer links to bibliographies concerning the persecution of witches in the medieval period. But the focus of my work is on popular articles that influence today's neopagan and witch communities, so my reading is almost exclusively of derivative works.

Here goes:
* Hanover.edu bibliography of both primary sources and recent scholars
* Kings.edu bibliography on the subject
* Jenny Gibbons, "Recent Developments in the Study of The Great European Witch Hunt", originally in __Pomegranate__, 1998 issue 5, since on many web sites

Hope this helps.

The more that power and national wealth are centralized in the hands of the national government the greater the incentive and opportunity for corruption, patronage, and undue insider influence to occur.

[citation needed]

In fact, many of the wealthy families of Europe have maintained their fortunes, at least in part by, successfully manipulating these national governments through patronage and corrupt bargains with government officials and elected representatives.

And If you start a sentence with "in fact", [citationS needed]. Do you really mean to say that you believe your Bush family today isn't at least as nepotist as "our (hidden, because I can't say I can think of too many offhand) old elites? I'm curious, what do you call buying a representative's allegiance through "campaign contributions"? Because I suspect that if you were to correlate donations with voting behavior, you'd be pretty shocked and appalled. And yet, the fact that that happens has nothing to do with "big government", just with people creating rules that are to their own advantage rather than to another's, and nobody caring enough to protest as long as they keep it hidden from view.
In any case, "The libertarians amongst us" are a bunch of twits who use banal stereotypes in order to support their own beliefs, fearing to actually look for sources for their idiotic claims about "Europe" or "communism" because all they're interested in is pushing their own agenda, and for that you need fear of government. You rail against this "socialism" shit, yet you're afraid to look for confirmation from sources other than Glenn Beck's writing (because fuck knows he's the poster child of academic rigour in his research). If you want to see what deregulation did for the American consumer, go read Elizabeth Warren's "The Two-Income Trap". If you deregulate banks, they're not suddenly going to be nice to you, as though the 2500 year old usury laws/taboo was utter nonsense. They're going to try to suck you dry for all you're worth, and even if they don't succeed with you, they will succeed with your friends and neighbors. Only they won't talk about it because they feel it is their personal failing that they couldn't get better rates from the bank. Yet "libertarians" suck it all up and say "this is a risk of the free market. What the fuck is free about it? The relative bargaining power of the bank vis-a-vis the lone consumer is enormous. Of course there's going to be abuse of power there, resulting in terrible deals for the consumer. Remember that slogan "everyone is equal under the law"? You need regulation to enforce that. The open market won't create it. Why would they? There is no incentive whatever to do so, as there is nobody who can check their power except the government.

Those who believe that they will "punish the wealthy" need only look to Europe to see that the wealthy will largely keep their wealth while the middle class chafes under high unemployment, high prices for consumer goods and high taxes.

Have you not been watching the news in your country? How, pray tell, do you maintain this idiotic notion that the USA doesn't suffer from high prices? Try talking to anyone who's needed to go in for some sort of medical treatment, and see if they didn't go bankrupt afterwards because of lost income, or somesuch. as for high unemployment, again, [citation needed]. You kept the entire automobile industry alive through huge tariffs and subsidies, not least of which through actually subsidizing gas prices so that manufacturers didn't feel the need to try for better mileage. That industry's dead now, and you've got at least 10-15% unemployed atm. Think they'll be going away soon?

1. Yes and they have been screaming for it back ever since. So now what is mass in Latin or English? And let us not forget that if you wanted a not Latin religious service you could get one as far back as the 16th Century How exactly do you thing they converted the Germanic and other tribes?

2. a. And for the most part their was, the press in a lot of ways broke the Church's back not by making the bible more wide spread, but by making it easier to get knowledge without going into a monastery. It brought about the Renaissance very quickly. But the assumption that you have made was that it was the Church keeping "The People" down. I ask you though, was it that, or the lack of a way to get knowledge out ala the press? I think the Internet is a similar revolution in politics. Were 17th Century Americans oppressed, or did they lack an easy means to get knowledge?

2. b.Puh-lease. If you honestly thing the Royalty of the time gave much more than lip service to the Holy See pick up a book about The Holy Roman Empire Here is a clue: It Wasn't. Wasn't Holy, Roman, or an Empire. If you were royal the best way to make sure your kingdom (duchy, whatever) didn't split - even in your lifetime - was to pack up the other sons to a place that made them be poor for life. Was their cooperation? Yes at times their was, but not on the scale that you think their was.

3. Fixed what? Find me a republican that gets put on the DNC, or a Google employee free to go work for Microsoft's Search division, or a Cardinal asked to sit in with the druids. Did they pull from their supporters? Sure, but find me a group that doesn't.

>>Except the US did not catalyze the rise of the Nazis (while, thanks to Pat Buchanan-types, the US sure sat back and watched them grow!)


You might want to read some REAL history, intead of the redneck propaganda they tout in your public schools:

http://history.hanover.edu/hhr/99/hhr99_2.html
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/anti-s emitism/ford1.html
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holoca ust/IBM.html
http://aolsvc.bookreporter.aol.com/reviews/0609607 995.asp
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Ford#Henry_Ford _and_Nazism

http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=23193426
http://www.answers.com/topic/appeasement

OK, the poms are more to blame for the last two, but they had already become a puppet regime of the Americans by then and Chamberlain could not have signed the Munich pact without the discreet endorsement of your government.

Bear in mind that British appeasement of Germeny ended when the Labour party came to power, the same people you hate as "commies".


>>>While the US did engender the Mujahadeen rebels in Afghanistan, it did not engender Al-Quada

Use spellchecker, it's Al Qaeda or Al-Qa'ida (using the standard phenomes characteristic to the Semitic family of languages).

Know your enemy before trying to defeat them.

And yes, Americans did engender Al-Qaeda. They existed back then too, and were it not for stinger missiles supplied by your country to their leaders, the Russians would have crushed Afghanistan like a bug. Were it not for that western-sympathising idiot Gorbachev and his obsession with weakenening Soviet power with all that Perestroika nonsense, Iran would be a puppet government under Soviet control, Afghanistan would be broken, there'd be no 9/11 today, and all nuclear technology would be in the hands of countries run by stable SANE people, intead of mad mullahs who will paint moons and stars on warheads and USE THEM!!!

also happens to forbid the government from promoting atheism.

Ain't that a relief

When the government promotes monotheism it is religious opression of Native American beliefs. The constituion forbids it.

Oppression? what is stopping the Native Americans from still practicing their religion? They are not being prevented from doing any such thing. THey are not being persecuted for their polytheistic beliefs so where exactly does the oppression come in again?

"not one of the first six Presidents of the United States was an orthodox Christian."-- Encyclopedia Brittanica

Nitpick: Not all of the Founding Fathers were made up of the first 6 Presidents of the US as there were more than 6 Founding Fathers for one thing. I'm sure there are some Presidents who aren't Christian although I'm sure there are very few.

How about George Washington? Oops, not Christian.

Yes he was. The phrase "under God," so much a part of our nation's tradition and so familiar as part of Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, was used by George Washington when he learned that the United Colonies had declared themselves an independent nation.

John Adams maybe? Nope.

Not really but he did believe in having religion. He recognized the abuses, large and small, that religious belief lends itself to, but he also believed that religion could be a force for good in individual lives and in society at large. His extensive reading (especially in the classics), led him to believe that this view applied not only to Christianity, but to all religions.

Perhaps Benjamin Franklin? No.

You aren't quite right. I had been religiously educated as a Presbyterian; and tho' some of the dogmas of that persuasion, such as the eternal decrees of God, election, reprobation, etc., appeared to me unintelligible, others doubtful, and I early absented myself from the public assemblies of the sect, Sunday being my studying day, I never was without some religious principles. I never doubted, for instance, the existence of the Deity; that he made the world, and govern'd it by his Providence; that the most acceptable service of God was the doing good to man; that our souls are immortal; and that all crime will be punished, and virtue rewarded, either here or hereafter.

Maybe you meant Thomas Jefferson? Sorry.

sorry, u are wrong "To the corruptions of Christianity, I am indeed opposed; but not to the genuine precepts of Jesus himself. I am a Christian, in the only sense in which he wished any one to be; sincerely attached to his doctrines, in preference to all others; ascribing to himself every human excellence, and believing he never claimed any other."

Or James Madison? Nope.

Does not say either way but as you can see Madison says what you people can't seem to figure out in the phrase you often quote from the Constitution. He does not want you to lose your rights just because of your religion. It does not mean that the gov't can't have or make religious references. As chairman of the House conference committee on the Bill of Rights, Madison's original draft was among the most ambitious: "the civil rights of none shall be abridged on account of religious belief or worship...nor shall the full and equal rights of conscience be in any manner, or on any pretext, infringed...." Though somewhat less expansive in its protections, the final version--"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof" --clearly bears the Madison stamp.

To the extent that making and enforcing laws is "social engineering," you're right. The whole concept of private property is social engineering (see Locke's Two Treatises of Government for a detailed explanation). Most of us approve the sort of social engineering that gives us government, laws, and property. Under this system, "instilling fear" into lawbreakers is exactly what lawsuits and criminal prosecutions are about. It's called deterrence. This is one of the principal purposes of the law.

Now that English is used for Mass...

It would just figure. Some guy starts a flamewar by comparing MCSE with Vatican II and everyone misses the most important point - Martin Luther beat Vatican II to Mass in the vernacular by about 400 years.

Sorry to nit, but I didn't spend five years as a Lutheran kid at a Catholic school just to let that one pass.

I would have hoped you also saw the result of NOT using force when it should have been...like keeping Hitler from rearming after WWI.

Of course, Hitler didn't do it alone. He had help. Lots of help.

Hindsight may be 20/20, but this is a lesson the American aristocracy can't seem to learn - realpolitik is a great way to create trouble down the road.* I fear Dubya and his grand viziers are going down this road again to take care of problems left by previous administrations, although one current Administration member was directly involved in creating the current problem.

It is hypocrises such as this that cast great doubt upon the current intentions of the US government, and why so many people distrust the rhetoric coming out of Washington these days.

* More frightening is that a few powerful American industrialists and entrepeneurs sympathized with Hitler - Hearst and Ford among them. That goes beyond realpolitik, which I don't think had been coined at that point; powerful people made money off Hitler's aggression and slaughter of Jews, Romani, communists, homosexuals, etc., and still benefit from it today.

By the way, just what in the hell is a "natural right"?

Get an education. If you grew in the U.S.A. you need to go back to grade school and enroll in a Social Studies class.

Can someone please inform the more ignorant of us what a "natural right" is and give some concrete examples so we know that you're not just blowing smoke up our asses?

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

Sorry for the flame but you really are ignorant. The entire Bill of Rights (BoR) is based on the idea of natural rights. The BoR takes the idea of natural rights and codifies for practical use in a society.

See also:

• The Rights of the Colonists, Samuel Adams
• natural rights,The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition.2001.