Threat of war spurs U.S. soul-searching Mix of politics, religion is strong, Kaptur warns

toledoblade.com ^ | 01 MAR 03 | David Yonke

[DK Zimmerman]

By DAVID YONKE BLADE RELIGION EDITOR

Before launching a military strike against Iraq, Americans should consider their own history to remember how powerful the mix of religion and politics can be, U.S. Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D., Toledo) said.

"If you think back to our founding as a country, we are a country of revolution," Miss Kaptur said in an interview this week.

She and the Rev. Jim Bacik, pastor of Toledo?s Corpus Christi University Parish, will speak at a workshop Friday for local Catholic leaders titled "Preaching and Teaching Peace in the Face of War."

When America "cast off monarchical Britain" in 1776, it involved the help of many religious people who had fled repression in other countries, the 11-term Toledo congressman said. Among the nontraditional American revolutionaries were the Green Mountain Boys, a patriot militia organized in 1770 in Bennington, Vt., to confront British forces, she said.

"One could say that Osama bin Laden and these non-nation-state fighters with religious purpose are very similar to those kind of atypical revolutionaries that helped to cast off the British crown," Miss Kaptur said.

[DK Zimmerman]

Well, both bin Laden and the Green Mountain Boys have killed people. By that standard though, Hitler is nothing worse than your local cop.

[BIGZ]

GOD help US !

[DK Zimmerman]

My bad, only searched on Kaptur and skimmed too briefly to note someone else caught this over 30 minutes ahead of me.

[Billthedrill]

It's an interesting attempt at establishing moral equivalency, possible only if you're crashingly ignorant about the Founders and achingly ignorant about bin Laden. Over and above the fact that nobody in the Colonies thought it a jolly idea to crash an explosives-laden frigate into Buckingham palace and take out 3000 innocent people just for the publicity, there is also the problem that the objectives of the respective parties in question are diametrically opposed - the Founders were after political independence, OBL and the turban boys after total political subjugation. It's rather a different thing, you know.

[eleni121]

Kaptur: Another pro abortion catholic- negligible and abhorrent.

[XJarhead]

Well, both bin Laden and the Green Mountain Boys have killed people.

The GMB's didn't even do that until they were fighting in the war.

This militia could be called up to protect, by force if necessary, the ownership of the land in the New Hampshire Grants. Ethan Allen was its first, and by all accounts very charismatic Colonel-Commandant. Some of the methods of coercion used by the Green Mountain Boys are questionable at best, violence and intimidation often occurring as they defended their lands against the hated "Yorkers". However, this group of Yankee Vigilantes was very instrumental in resisting New York's claims to land in what is now Vermont. It is worth noting that the Green Mountain Boys took no lives.

http://www.ethanallenhomestead.org/HISTORY/greenmountainboys.htm