HAVE we learned nothing from the salem witch hunt and trials in america .?

Question

NO one can conger up the devil or perform any ritual to bring about a curse on anyone else but it was this fear several hundred years ago that had some people hanged burned and drowned all in an effort to thwart evil from among us .
TODAY those witches have become terrorists and the very methods we are using today were used in the past . WHEn we discovered our errors in the past we corrected them .
Special attention is given to our laws because such abuse of power ended so tragiclly in the past .
However today we face the same abuses of the past in the name of terrorism we can do anything to root it out .THE same was true of the witches which we all know did not pose a threat except to believers .We are on a terroist hunt today and it bothers me the leanghts to which good people are willing to go in an effort to root them out .
MANY people have been released from custody who had nothing to do with terror in this country only after 6 months or a few years by efforts of family. INNOCENT

Answer 1

Right you are. All we have learned to do is to go underground and morph into a modern day version of the witch hunters. Look at the case of the Saltonstall's and tell me those witch hunters do not still have a role in what happens in our time.

Answer 2

Politics of Mass Hysteria = Witch Hunts = Abuse Of Power
Witches were generally tolerated as healers until the 1400's. When rumors of Jewish, Muslim conspiracies started a religious panic, the English were whipped into a panic that resulted in burning, torture, or hanging. Some were drowned trying to prove they were not witches.
When the Black Plague swept Europe, the Churches did nothing or as some did, actually preached that it was a punishment from God because evil was existed, Ah ha, kill the witches who have caused this plague . God is dipleased, "we suffered a witch to live"

Today we are subject to rumor and threats which result in the panic that has permitted the Government to exceed the powers of our Constitution and International Law. The Administration does not foster security, just the opposite! Uses God a lot, too!

See, in my line of work you got to keep repeating things over and over and over again for the truth to sink in, to kind of catapult the propaganda." --George W. Bush, Greece, N.Y., May 24, 2005

If they tell people something long enough pretty soon people believe it.

Answer 3

How do you know I can't... and by the way hows that sudden headache treating you?

* Evil grin...


America learned nothing from the witch trials, because it was the people in power performing the witchcraft via the sacrificing of innocent people to throw everyone else off the scent to hide the fact that witchcraft was the excuse of the day to illiminate the people in their perfect utopian society who didn't behave exactly as they wanted them to. Funny considering how they left England to escape people exactly like themselves!

I think that people who dislike a rule and leave to start their own are generally only doing it to be free to start a rule of their own. In the end... it turned out that the US is far more corrupt than England ever was under the monarchy. THe Queen's only problem is she taxes too much.

How were the witch trails and their reasons for being, any different from today? The magestrate is just called the CIA now a days...

Answer 4

The Salem witch trials were fueled by a lot of things, but no matter how you look at them, there's nothing to compare these women to terrorists.

This was a Puritan society, ruled by the Bible and patriarchal culture. While the slave, Titubah,supposedly put a "spell" on a couple of highly suggestible teenage girls in the community, the other "witches" caught up in the ensuing hysteria were often single or widowed women who would inherit property from their fathers or husbands in the absence of male heirs.

This didn't fly with the town fathers. The whole witch trial thing became a convenient one-size-fits-all tool to control women who didn't seem to understand their place in society--whether black servants, independent women, or anyone else who dared to push the boundaries set by men and religion.

If anything, the Puritan town fathers were the terrorists, not unlike the Taliban.

Answer 5

Americans seem very slow (or unwilling) to learn from history.
The only effective way to deal with this so-called 'terrorism' is to look at and address the causes. (I often think about what causes a young person to strap explosives around their bodies and blow themselves and many innocent people up. Or blow up a plane. Many people blame the 'radical Imams' for this phenomenon, but believe me, there must be fertile ground in which to plant this seed. No happy and contented youngster will take this drastic path willingly.)
As for your analogy comparing the infamous 'witch-hunts' with terrorism, I don't think these two thing are similar, but you make a good point. Both methods of fighting these 'evils' are proving ineffectual. Just like 'Prohibition' can be compared to the 'War on Drugs' today. While the demand is there, the illegal drug trade will flourish, and the vast amounts of money earned by 'terrorist organisations/drug cartels' in Colombia, Mexico and Afghanistan will continue to be used against the world's law enforcement bodies, and innocent people.
I think it's time the world starts looking at the 'logical' solutions to problems, instead of using threats, violence and blackmail to solve problems. Otherwise, we are facing more chaos and killings.

Answer 6

People who were accused of being witches were not a threat, yet they were treated harshly and eventually killed in some horrible fashion. Terrorist do pose a threat. Unfortunately, some innocent people do get accused of being terrorist or having terrorist connections, but they are not treated harshly (as far as I know) and are not killed in some horrible fashion. Most of them are fed, allowed to exercise, and are allowed to worship as they please. Eventually, they are released or I expect they will be released upon evidence of their innocence. With what is going on today, we have to be very careful because so many innocent lives are at stake. The world trade centers are one example and you know there are more people out there who are planning or wishing the same thing for innocent Americans.

Answer 7

notice that in your question you say that people are being released from custody because they are innocent.. thats a pretty big change from the witch trials that you cite...

i think there are alot of key differences between today's war and the salem witch trials.. first, since witches arent real, the harm they were accused of didnt happen... do terrorists cause actual harm, or did we imagine that too?

i dont agree with the way things are being handled, but i also dont know what i would do in that situation...

its certainly not that i dont see the valid points in your argument, its just that your example and some of your logic is totally faulty

Answer 8

You cannot be serious. The Salem witch hunts resulted from lack of knowledge regarding witches. We know today that terrorists exist, so I dont see where the comparison is coming in.

Witches - not real
Terrorists - very real

Answer 9

No

The majority of all humanity does not know that, when visiting radicalized religious extremists. You should not eat moldy Rye bread.

And I am not even mentioning any specific religion. So I should be free from the typical Yahoo Answers raciest reporting for using Holy words not intended for infidels and Westerners to use.

Go big Red Go

Answer 10

you are connecting dots were there are non, i can see what you think you are saying, but there is a CLEAR difference between people who may or may not have worshiped the devil and people who may or may not be planing to blow up as many americans as possible. recent successes such as the stopping of the Omaha bomb plot in Canada, and the plane bomings in the UK are proof that our anti-terrorist programs are both neccisary and working. now if a hundred people are put in jail by mistake and summerily released a few months later and one terrorist planing to kill thousands is caught then i think it is worth it.