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John Cowan wrote: > Technically, the Spanish Inquisition never burned anybody; > the secular Spanish government did that at the Inquisition's > recommendation. No moral difference, of course. Or the Spanish Inquisition was able to prevent the Spanish government from burning some people, by 'finding' that the government's charge of heresy was unfounded. (Note that heresy was a political crime in states where the regime used established religion to legitimize itself.) I read an interesting statistic which claimed that the US now has a greater per capita execution rate of criminals that Spain did over the period of the Spanish Inquisition. Perhaps we should invoke Gov. Clinton or Gov. Bush as names to be feared for executing, and the American death rows as horrible forms of torture. An interesting article (Time?, Newsweek?, Slashdot?) this year commented that few Americans realize how barbaric capital punishment is to most people from countries which got rid of it a generation ago: it undermines a lot of the respect which US otherwise deserves. Rick Jelliffe
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