Remembering ‘Black Tuesday’ (and the ‘Right of Return’)

Posted May 29, 2008, 9:11 p.m.

Today was the anniversary of one of the most vicious conquests in history—the fall of Constantinople (and the Byzantine Empire) to the Ottomans on May 29, 1453.

On this day in 1453, the conquerers were extraordinarily brutal. Historian Steven Runciman notes that the Muslim soldiers “slew everyone that they met in the streets, men, women, and children without discrimination. The blood ran in rivers down the steep streets from the heights of Petra toward the Golden Horn. But soon the lust for slaughter was assuaged. The soldiers realized that captives and precious objects would bring them greater profit.” (The Fall of Constantinople 1453, Cambridge University Press, 1965, p. 145.)

What’s incredible about this, if you ask me, is the Muslim double-standard. One of the central arguments of the Palestinian side of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict is that Palestinians who left (willingly, mostly) during the foundation of modern Israel should have a ‘right of return’ to come back to the property they abandoned in the 1950s. Okay; I’m willing to entertain that notion. But then the Christians descended from those who left the Byzantine Empire when it fell to Muslim invaders in 1453 have a ‘right of return’ too. Turnabout is fair play, right.

Read more about this history, and its modern context, via this informative entry at Jihad Watch.

Scott Bradford has been putting his opinions on his website since 1995—before most people knew what a website was. He has been a professional web developer in the public- and private-sector for over twenty years. He is an independent constitutional conservative who believes in human rights and limited government, and a Catholic Christian whose beliefs are summarized in the Nicene Creed. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Public Administration from George Mason University. He loves Pink Floyd and can play the bass guitar . . . sort-of. He’s a husband, pet lover, amateur radio operator, and classic AMC/Jeep enthusiast.

Quotes

Wealth is nothing more or less than a tool to do things with. It is like the fuel that runs the furnace or the belt that runs the wheel—only a means to an end.

If marriage is centrally an emotional union . . . it becomes much harder to show why the state should concern itself with marriage any more than with friendship. Why involve the state in what amounts to the legal regulation of tenderness?

Objective does not mean ‘known by all’ or ‘believed by all.’ Even if everyone believes a lie, a lie is still a lie.

If hell must be filled, at least let it be filled in the teeth of our exertions, and let not one go there unwarned and unprayed for.

Little children, let us not love in word or speech but in deed and in truth.

It’s easy to tell when another person is rationalizing (as opposed to being rational), but it is nearly impossible to know when you are doing it yourself.

A statesman is a politician who’s been dead for ten or fifteen years.

Throughout the history of anti-trust prosecutions, there has been an unresolved confusion between what is detrimental to competition and what is detrimental to competitors.

No legislative act, therefore, contrary to the Constitution, can be valid. To deny this, would be to affirm, that the deputy is greater than his principal; that the servant is above his master. . . .

The greatest service we can do to education today is to teach fewer subjects. No one has time to do more than a very few things well before he is twenty, and when we force a boy to be a mediocrity in a dozen subjects we destroy his standards, perhaps for life.

Everyone has the right to recognition everywhere as a person before the law.

Indiscriminate inclusion or indiscriminate exclusion are equally unthinking.

The fact that some geniuses were laughed at does not imply that all who are laughed at are geniuses. They laughed at Columbus [and] the Wright brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown.

To be deep in history is to cease to be a Protestant.

Because we are so scientific now—and so determinedly materialistic—it is very difficult for us even to understand that other ways of seeing can and do exist.

Think not that I have come to abolish the law and the prophets; I have come not to abolish them but to fulfil them. For truly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the law until all is accomplished.

All generalizations are false, including this one.

When men are uniform in their opinions, it affords evidence that they are sincere. When they are shifting, it gives reason to believe, they do not change from conviction.

Never explain: your friends don’t require it, and your enemies won’t believe you, anyway.

There is no belief, however foolish, that will not gather its faithful adherents who will defend it to the death.

Tangent Theme:	26.0.48
Tangent Plugin:	6.0.111

Go to Top	`tt`
Go to Bottom	`tb`
Search	`ts`
Main Content	`tc`
Open Gallery (if present)	`tg`
Open Flagpole	`tf`
Keyboard Shortcuts	`tk`
Site Information	`ti`

Main Menu

X

Site Information

Keyboard Shortcuts