The Salem witch trials were judgments of mock justice, arrogance, and ignorance. The pastors of Puritan Massachusetts were intent on proving their Christian faith and displaying their clerical authority, but were afraid of the witches about to be burned. As Hawthorne wrote in The Scarlet Letter it was a matter of presumption and fearful preemption.
Absolute proof was not necessary when the Devil was about. Only the suggestion of possession was enough. It was a priori reasoning, and the tests of faith to which the accused were subjected were foregone conclusions. There were indeed objective tests for witchery among which were bound submersion, Cartesian ‘Doctrine of Effluvia’, spectral evidence, and ‘Witch’s Teat’ but few women so accused could pass all of them.
Accusation meant conviction, and by burning witches at the stake the community was rid of devilish possession and hysterical wives all at once. Suspected devil worshipers were stripped of their undergarments, hog-tied at their hands and feet, then tossed into a lake or pond to see if they would sink or float.
It was a necessary tribunal, for the Puritans of New England never saw themselves as arbitrary, capricious judges of morality; but bound by Scripture and Biblical Law. Rather than burn known witches summarily, the deacons of Salem felt obliged to hear evidence and only then pass judgment. Of course they as well as the community knew who was possessed and who wasn’t; but the trials were testimony to Puritan sanctimony and Christian justice.
The atmosphere at the apogee of the witch trials was hysterical, viral, and all-consuming. There was a frenzy of accusations, false testimony, impossible trials, and inevitable convictions. Women were roasted alive while the townspeople watched God’s justice administered and the crucibles of the Devil destroyed.
Progressives are convinced that Trump is evil. Not only do sexism, racism, and homophobia alone qualify him as immoral and dangerous; but no one person, let alone the President of the United States, could possibly be afflicted by all three at once; and therefore some unknown but compelling force must have lent a helping hand.
These progressives are therefore bent on applying the spectral test, the touch test, and especially the witch cake test. In this voodoo-inspired test, the ingredients were rye meal… and urine from the girls said to be afflicted by the witch’s evil incantations. The test had dogs eat this cake, after which the alleged witch should scream out in pain – for in the process of her cursing the victims, she sent invisible particles of herself (the embodiment of pure evil, that is), which would show up in the urine.
Donald Trump is exactly right in calling the current inquiries a witch hunt, for the investigations, far from secular, have taken on a religious tone. Since progressives have branded the President as evil, then removing him from office and burning him at the political stake is the only possible outcome. Whether he is hanged, guillotined, shot, electrocuted, or immolated is irrelevant. He must be punished no less severely than the witches of Salem.
It there any truth to the allegations? Who knows and in fact who cares? A witch hunt has nothing to do with the truth, the facts, or even good or evil. It is, purely and simply, the act of exclusion, expulsion, and elimination of an enemy deemed unholy.
No President has been the subject of so many irrational fears and allegations. The progressive Left created this monster, and once he became President, they had to justify their actions and burn him at the stake. Nothing else would suffice. If they truly believe what they have said about him, then they have no other recourse than to light the fire.
There are many theories that try to explain the short but brutal expression of Christian excess in Salem and by extension the secular witch hunts to follow.
The ordeal originated in the home of Salem's Reverend Samuel Parris. Parris had a slave from the Caribbean named Tituba. Several of the town's teenage girls began to gather in the kitchen with Tituba early in 1692. As winter turned to spring the townspeople were aghast at the behaviors exhibited by Tituba's young followers. They were believed to have danced a black magic dance in the nearby woods. Several of the girls would fall to the floor and scream hysterically. Soon this behavior began to spread across Salem. Ministers from nearby communities came to Salem to lend their sage advice. The talk turned to identifying the parties responsible for this mess
The combination of Christian Devil mythology and African sorcery must have been hard to resist.
If human nature is added to this mix, resistance is well nigh impossible. It is normal, natural, and expected for members of any society to suspect and expel The Other in order to preserve territorial integrity, the sanctity of social and religious norms, and to reinforce the stability of community, status, and assignment.
Furthermore, it is as normal, natural, and expected for human beings to jump to conclusions, to react emotionally instead of logically, to value personal judgment over rational fact. There are far fewer rational, objective thinkers in any society than emotionally reactive ones.
Many more believe that while there may be no such thing as an incarnate or independent malevolent force or Devil, evil does indeed exist and is not just the absence of good. ISIS has been portrayed as evil because of its beheadings, mutilations, and indiscriminate massacre of civilians. Individuals like Bernie Madoff not only acted immorally when he bilked thousands out of billions, but had to be evil because of enormity of his sin.
Many progressives have called Donald Trump evil because the sum of his beliefs cannot be explained away on any rational basis. While one might take each of his political positions separately and analyze them objectively and in course, it is hard to ignore that when taken together they represent a man who is profoundly racist, sexist, and homophobic.
His policies and programs, these progressives say, are tantamount to a degrading, humiliating denial of basic human, God-given rights. Anyone who would act in such an anti-social, anti-humanistic, and anti-Christian way cannot be described in any but the most damning ways.
Media mogul Barry Diller had some harsh words about Donald Trump.
There's nobody that I've ever known, ever, that's risen to the presidency that was actually of evil character," he told CNBC's "Squawk on the Street." Anybody who attacks people in the manner that he attacks people … that's evil."
None of this is surprising. If it happened to Joan of Arc; if it happened during the Spanish Inquisition; and if it happened in Salem, Massachusetts, it can happen now.
The idea of a Christian Devil has not disappeared; nor has the idea of evil incarnate or even the presence of an indistinct, generalized evil; not even of evil as a a moral concept. The Devil and Evil are very much alive. Given all this demonology one would do well to pay attention to the old Irish saying, “"May you be in heaven a full half-hour before the devil knows you're dead".
Is Donald Trump guilty of illegally storing secret documents in his Mar-el-Lago home? Or sharing them with unauthorized others? The answer – or at least subjective conclusions – will come after he is subjected to trial. However, legal guilt or innocence in the case is not the point, nor is it in any of the other indictments against the former president. The Wall Street Journal described Trump’s indictment as a “sad day for the country, with political ramifications that are unpredictable and probably destructive”
Gary Abernathy in the Washington Post writes:
When the federal indictment against former president Donald Trump was unsealed, I scoured news reports looking for the bombshell that I believed had to be there — perhaps allegations of trading classified documents to a foreign power or leveraging secrets for business gains. Short of that, I was convinced charges would not have been filed.
I was wrong. The 37 charges in the indictment were mostly based on information already in the public record. As The Post reported, “the bulk of the charges” — 31 — “relate to willful retention of national defense information,” technically a violation of the Espionage Act. The law was created in 1917 “to crack down on wartime activities considered dangerous or disloyal, including attempts to acquire defense-related information with the intent to harm the United States,” as the government’s Intelligence Community website describes it. Except nowhere do the charges indicate that Trump is suspected of hoarding documents to betray the country.
Other charges amount to various ways of saying he withheld or concealed — or schemed to conceal — documents or records. These are just creative ways to charge Trump with numerous crimes over one central action. In a country where many experts agree that too many documents are classified in the first place, bringing felony charges against a former president for possessing some is overkill.
Bringing charges related to the possession of classified documents against a current or former president for anything short of colluding with our enemies or selling them on the black market is unnecessary, unwise and destructive to democracy.
If the country needed any more evidence that the political Left is simply out to get this man in a purposeful, vengeful attempt to remove this evil cancer once and for all, it is this secret documents indictment. The political tautology of the Left, “Trump is guilty because he is evil” obviates the need for discussion or debate. Now, for the same of appearances, let’s try him, convict him; and then burn him at the stake.
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