Comment by tho2i334324 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by tho2i334324 | Hacker News Reader

> Palmer and his team had already recognized the need for better defense technology to deter a greaey't power conflict and to maintain American hegemony.

I wonder if religious "saints" (nearly all of them were terror-mongering scum) of old had such confidence. Funnily, you'll even find "post-religious" liberals and Protestants defending their supposed enemies if they were killing/raping and plundering the "heathens" (forget Xtian-saints, they'll defend Islamic rampages and skull-mountain-building exercises the likes of which would have made both Genghis & Mohammed proud.)

"St. Xavier had already recognized on the need to start a inquisition against the heathens of Goa to maintain the hegemony of Christ so that the evil heathendom could not flourish any more in the piece of land Christ had promised."

Oh yes, we're so proud running 1000x foreign bases and dropping bombs on innocent civilians around the world for "freedom" - we definitely need to preserve our "hegemony".

Serious question - are Americans really this stupid ? I can remember 5-6 wars in the past 2 decades that all turned out to be regime-change ops because they wouldn't play ball to US diktats. Atleast British colonization of the world was honest (and those that were colonized were British subjects), without all this 3-d chess propaganda non-sense.

Stupid, perhaps. But the idiots have brought us Pax Americana - an unprecedented peace across the world, with technological innovation never seen before, and America has been a river to humanity: through research, development, and open market access to the world.

Ideally there are no hegemons and we live in a multipolar peace, but if there must be hegemonies then you can't do much better than this.

But there isn't peace across the world? At all? Stop spitting Cool-Aid everywhere

Yes, the much desired weakening of America is having its effect. With the US no longer able to enforce, and actions like Operation Prosperity Guardian failing you have what you desire: the end of hegemony. Let's see now if you like it.

> an unprecedented peace across the world

Like in Iraq, Libya, Syria, Afghanistan? Also Sudan, Ethiopia and scores of other countries?

St. Xavier is quite closer to modern Saints than to any "Saint" of old, and a lot of saints are Martyrs that suffered under empires that are much closer to America than anything. This is a stupid comparison please go tip your Fedora somewhere else or try to be at least intelligent about it. Most saints were not warmongerers lmao.

Additionally your comment ignores the whole context of what was ging on in Goa at a time but even the most scolding protestants do not see m to qualify St.Xavier to Genghis lmao.

For context:

The 26 Martyrs of Japan (Japanese: 日本二十六聖人, Hepburn: Nihon Nijūroku Seijin) were a group of Catholics who were executed by crucifixion on 5 February 1597, in Nagasaki, Japan. Their martyrdom is especially significant in the history of the Catholic Church in Japan.

A promising beginning to Catholic missions in Japan – with perhaps as many as 300,000 Catholics by the end of the 16th century – met complications from competition between the missionary groups, political difficulty between Portugal and Spain and factions within the government of Japan. Christianity was suppressed and it was during this time that the twenty-six martyrs were executed. By 1630, Catholicism had been driven underground. When Christian missionaries returned to Japan 250 years later, they found a community of "hidden Catholics" that had survived underground.

St. Xavier was likely just seeing the writing in the wall with that comment and probably wanted to avoid something akin to what happened. Similarly perhaps maybe you have a bad concept of the inquisition based on years of (ironically enough) anglo imperial propaganda.

As a matter of fact the inquisition and similar catholic structures were preferred by people as they were more fair than the usual local court.

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