-----Original Message-----
From: Ed Heil <[log in to unmask]>


>Alas, "British Israelitism" tends to be the pastime of relatively
>harmless crackpots in the UK I understand (correct me if I'm wrong,
>but I get the idea that it's on the level of the "Flat Earth
>Society"); but its theories have been taken up in the US by violent,
>militant racist freaks, under the banner of the "Christian Identity
>Movement," a denomination whose ministers fill the ranks of the
>gun-toting white-supremacist nutcase militias which occasionally rear
>their heads on the American landscape.
>
America has always been a sects-crazed :-) land, and there are several sects
(though I'm not keeping count) of varying longevity that adhere to this
theory, but most of them very small, I think.  As for militias, most of them
are egalitarian or libertarian, not often white supremacist. (I have also
heard this opinion expressed by a white separatist, but I don't think he was
a white supremacist.) The real nuts rarely belong to militias; they lack
discipline.  Besides, would you want to be in a militia if your
comrades-in-arms were nuts?  In the part of America where I grew up, I don't
think we had any militias, but everyone was a "gun-toter," or at least all
the males.  I received my first shotgun as a Christmas present, two months
after my ninth birthday.  Shooting and hunting is a great hobby that allows
boys and young men (and old timers!) to channel their aggressive instincts
in harmless ways, and maybe even put a little extra meat on the table.  (It
also keeps the crime rate down.) At least, that was my experience.  I pity
these children who grow up entirely within cities and suburbs.  They don't
know what they're missing.  ~alypius