EUNUCHS, HOMOS, CHRISTIANS, MUSLIMS, DEATH PENALTY

 Closing the Circle

Some time ago I posted on a contrast between China and the West - the role of eunuchs.  I suggested that Chinese emperors and leading bureaucrats were interested in protecting the government from pillage, even by those employed by the government.  That they feared "family values" were a threat to an employee thinking first of doing what was best for his employee, the government, the empire.  I recall seeing an old movie about a British government employee in one of its colonies in Africa.  He hires a young Black African.  Next week, the lad brings in a relative, asking the Brit to also hire this cousin.  And the following wee another relative.  It was a comedy, but I suspect there was considerable nepotism in large empires.

    I suggest that the way the Chinese empire sought to cut out such "family values," was by cutting off the balls of the employee.  He would work for government, and not have any children to pester him for more favors and would be more distant to relatives.  It is interesting that perhaps the most important Admiral in the Chinese navy, Admiral He, was a eunuch.  He led a fleet of some 30,000 sailors who sailed from China to East Africa with stops along the way.  This in the 1430s, before Portugal and Spain sent out their expeditions.  The first one of Columbus with 3 ships and about 100 sailors.  Eunuchs were an important part of Chinese government until the early 1900s and the last emperor.  

In addition to work as bureaucrats, eunuchs were also employed to guard the harems.  The number of women could vary, but some emperors had a different woman for each night of the year.  To prevent full males from getting to them, eunuchs had that job.

Harems were not limited to China.  With the expansion of Islam, and into nations at the cross roads of trade between the Orient and distant Europe and wherever.  True, a wealthy Muslim might have 4 wives, but if he were wealthy, he might want greater variety.  Harems, though not as large as an emperoros.  The East Africa slave trade had developed, and some of the strong men would be castrated to guard the harems of the Middle East.

My premise, one reason European kings had not harems was Christianity permitted them only one wife.  Now, of course, with wealth and power, they could have more women, but a large harem would bring condemnation.  Better a few extra girl friends on the side, small enough to keep an eye on with out bars.  So Europe did not need eunuchs for harems.

But what about "family values" encouraging bureaucrats to steal from the nation?  Were not eunuchs the best way to solve that problem.  Perhaps, but NOT in Europe.  Why?  With the fall of the Roman Empire there were various nations in Europe, and most were Christian, working with the church.  The church provided the most literate people who could help the government.  The best were probably priests.  Better yet, they would have no children of their on, no overly close relatives, they could devote their lives to the church and its ally, the Christian nation.

CLOSING THE CIRCLE

With the victory of Constantine over the Pagans in a civil war, Christianity was on the road to becoming the official religion of the empire.  One major change, Google AI gave 2 answers for the first anti-homosexual laws of the new regime: Constantine in 320, or Constantine II, somewhat later.  I do not know precisely how they defined it, or even if it was defined in the new laws.  However, the punishment was death.  This was an enormous change for the Greco-Roman world, which was generally quite tolerant on the issue of homos.  Even the statues of gods and goddesses was often naked, to make the appeal to humans in various ways.  The Christians were out to change things.  In the 500s, Emperor Justinian sought to collect and organize Roman law so it could be used and passed on to new Christian countries.  There was a slight change, homosexuals were to be tortured before being executed.  Justinian ordered the building of the beautiful Hagia Sophia in the then Roman capital of Constantinople.  (It is still a terrific building, changed into a mosque in the 1400s. into a museum after WWI, and a mosque again under Turkey's Pres. Erdogan.)

The Roman Empire, once Christian, stopped subsidies to pagan temples.  No one learnt to write or read Egyptian hieroglyphics, and for nigh 2 millennia, no one could tell what was written.  Justinian's code made it clear, Jews and pagans were 2nd class citizens.  Homos to be killed.  Now if you were a young guy growing up, and you are suddenly aware that you are homo, what are you to do?  To earn a living?  To not be denounced? ?  There was one profession where you did not have to marry a woman - indeed, they did not want you to do so.  You would learn to read, be around other men, be respected.  I suspect the death penalty for homos, in reality made many of them slaves inside the church as priests.  Some probably advanced quite high in the organization.  I certainly would not be surprised to hear about gay popes along the way.

And while this was happening in Christian Europe, something similar was occurring among the Muslims.  Not immediately, but they too learnt how to "enslave' a homo community.  Around the age of 14 young Christian boys had to show up for examination by their Muslim overlords.  Over time, rules said the authorities could not take the only son of a family; the one they would take would have to be healthy, intelligent, handsome, etc.  They were to be slaves of the sultan, called Janissaries, though this is usually the term for those selected into the Ottoman army.  The others would be bureaucrats for the state, or perhaps boy friends of important men, or...They would be quickly broken in, taken on the back of a soldier's horse, given a new name, forced to become Muslim, told they could never marry or have a family.  Many of these may never have been homo to begin with, just like some criminals in jails for long terms may discover the joys of same sex (compared to no sex).  Interestingly, The Janissary troops gained the reputation as the best soldiers of the Ottoman Empire.

History is full of ironies, and this is surely one.  2 religions that despise homos officially, basically enslaved them if the homos wanted to live.  In both, the homos contributed to the growth of the organizations that enslaved them, and how many there were and how much contributed never permitted to surface.  Yet, I would contend both Abrahamic religions have provided the rationale for hatred of homos and individual beatings and murders of homosexuals for centuries, some called witchs, demons, or Sodomites or whatever, religions providing foundations for murder.

MY ANSWER TO TOMAS PUEYO'S QUESTION, - WHY DID ISLAM SPREAD SO FAST?

 Hugh Murray,  With the victory of Constantine, Rome turned its back on its religious and to some extent, its cultural past, - the opposition to the joys of the Coliseum, for example.  In the 500s, with the codification of Roman Law under Justinian, it is clear that pagans and Jews were to be 2nd class citizens of the new empire.  Homosexuality, which was prevalent in the Greek and even Roman worlds, brought with it in addition to the death penalty imposed around 320 with Constantine.  Under Justinian, there would still be the death penalty, but torture would precede that to make it worse.  There was no immediate end of all Roman culture, and the Library of Alexandria continued to inspire thought freely, but the trend was away from free inquiry, into religious issues, the beginning of the closed mindedness we associate with the Middle Ages.  When the Roman Empire (or if you prefer Byzantine) defeated the Seleucids the victors  took away their statue of the long haired Adonis, to show the old faith of the Mid-East was conquered..  When Islam came on the scene, That empire was no longer what it had been, and the Roman Empire no longer what it had been.  Suddenly, there was now one new group crashing onto the scene with a new culture and a new religion.  The clash of Islam was a war of one new religious group with 2 tired. spent empires.

  Jews were already 2nd class citizens in Christian Europe, so they might adopt more easily to the 2nd class status of Islam.  And while Christians and Muslims continued to war against each other  in the Med. Sea, Jews who had relatives in both Christian Europe and now also in Islam's N Africa could become what Pirenne called them, Jew and merchant were interchangable words by the time of Charlemagne.

     Islam conquered because the traditional values of Greco-Rome, and possible of the Mid East, had been overthrown already by another new religion.  So the struggle became a battle between the 2 newbies.

 Jews were already 2nd class citizens in Christian Europe,, so they might adopt more easily to the 2nd class status of Islam.  Christians in North Africa had been top dog; would they not decide to accept 2nd class citizenship under Islam?  Could they?  Wars continued between Islam and Christendom, especially in the Med Sea, each side enslaving the captives.  And while Christians and Muslims continued to war against each other, Jews who had relatives in both Christian Europe and now also in Islam's N Africa could be come merchants, a risky business as pirates, and war ships might confiscate their packages.  But in time, barred from owning land and doing many things, Jews became merchants.

     Islam conquered because the traditional values of Greco-Rome, and possible of the Mid East, had been overthrown already by another new religion.  So the struggle became a battle between the 2 newbies.  The Muslims also used camels, as they had in Arabia.  The Roman Empire's North Africa planned to defend itself through the sea, but the Muslims invaded Egypt and moved westward using camels, more adept to the sandy African expanse.  So Islam conquered to Morocco, then most of Spain and Portugal.  The land of St. Augustine was now the land of Allah. 

Much of the long post by Pueyo concerns rain etc., is interesting, but sometimes it is hard to believe the the tv weather man for one week, much less for over 600 years.  Interesting with a grain of salt.

His point about change in sexual population under Islam - a man can have 4 wives, so 25% of the men had no woman!  He says, this makes them more warlike, determined to capture a wife.  All those men without women!?  Greek armies, lovers.  Alexander may have fu**ed the wife of Darius, and his own wife, but his great love was his fellow warrior.  The Sacred Band of Thebes, a group of male lovers, etc.  Even the Roman general Julius Caesar was teased by his troops.  Much later a Prot. leader in France declared Paris is worth a mass, became Roman Catholic, and yhen king of France.  Caesar became quite friendly with the king of Pergamen?  Perhaps Caesar reasoned, a kingdom is worth my ass.  When the king died, he willed his kingdom to the Roman Republic.  Of course Caesar also had a wife, fu**ed Cleopatra, etc. Many swung both ways, and slaves had no choice.

     Even if Mohammad declared death for homos, in time, things changed in Islam.  The Janissaries', sons of Christians, taken around age 14 to become slaves of the Sultan, and some of them would eventually form the best fighting units in Islam.  They had new names, could not marry or have a family, forced to convert to Islam, so I suspect it was a gay group.  The Christians had the death penalty for homos until the French Revolution, when Justinian's legal work was revised, and in France Jews, homos, and Protestants won equal rights.  And where Napoleon's army swept in, so did his liberation of the oppressed.  Was it only under Islam that the army was a source of liberation?  Could armies be gay?  Well, a King of France decided it was also true of Knights Templar, and he therefore sought to confiscate all their properties as a consequence.  Proof- the Templar symbol of a knight riding a horse, but a young man riding the same horse at his back.  Whether the charges were true or false, several kings used the charges to confiscate Templar properties.  Others also say, twas the beginning of the Masons.

The original article by Tomas Pueyo raised the question of why Islam spread so quickly. 0n Substack, a source I seldom use.  Unfortunately, I began the read about it 1am; I am a poor typist, and with poor eyesight.  His article stressing geography was quite interesting, with maps; his discussion of the 2 major areas of long-lasting warfare rang true, and his discussion of the quick conquest of North Africa by Islam convincing.  It perked my interest, and I wanted to add other reasons, like internal weaknesses, especially of the Christian West. His article stresses climate, rain, etc.  I take the local tv weather forecast with a grain of salt, and that is only for a week; he covers weather for several hundred years.  His name appears only once, and I constantly had trouble on my computer going back and forth trying to get it right while Substack kept interrupting for my name, etc.  I am 87 and must urinate every hour or so, and had no time for the irritations.  Bottom line, he wrote an excellent article and I urge all to take a look.  My stress on the internal problems of Christian was written in an hour, top of my head, but I think it basically correct.  He raised an important question, perhaps more important as Islam and modified Christianity face another confrontation today.  Hope it inspires us to think about the earlier conflicts.  I also hope I finally got his name right.  I apologize for many more mistakes of spelling, typing than usual, but I was in a hurry to get this out.  We have only had 1,500 years of clashes now.   Hugh

An important point about the latest clash between the West and Islam.  There In the last 1,400 years since Muhammad, there have been some major changes in Christentum.  2 very important ones, the American Revolution providing a great deal of freedom for citizens without regard to their religions.  Also, the French Revolution, with its revision of the Justinian law code that had imposed legal restrictions on religious minorities and worse on homos.  There are probably several other equally important changes in the Christian West making in a freer place to live, work, and create.  Meanwhile, I know of no such reforms in Islam.  "Death to America, death to Israel," the terror attack destroying 2 of the then tallest buildings in the world, the World Trade Center in NYC, (where I worked some years ago) and other threats and terror attacks in the US.  To me the choice is clear - I stand with Trump and the West.  I do not mean all Muslims are terrorists, but enough are, enough are unwilling to accept the basics of freedom for all in the West.  So they cannot enjoy the same freedoms, as I see it.  Long live America and its Allies.  Hugh Murray

SIXTH FLOOR MUSEUM IN DALLAS INTERVIEW WITH HUGH MURRAY A DECADE AGO

 Yesterday Tony Flood, my friend and a fellow Aptheker research assistant decades ago on various projects re W E B Du Bois, stumbled upon an interview with me that The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza conducted ten years ago. This blog's terms of service may not permit t me to provide the internet address here, but you can find it easily enough by searching <hugh murray jfk>.  The full interview is about 1  1/2 hours, no visual, just audio.  You also get to hear my voice, which is NOT a selling point.  The topic is the JFK assassination, or my tangential connection to those events.  My book will have more detailed material, and on other aspects of growing up in New Orleans many decades ago.----HUGH MURRAY

LEIPZIG, NEW ORLEANS, MINNEAPOLIS AND THROWING A ROCK

 This js my conclusion of the possibilities of bloodshed during protests.  I noted it took the Chinese authorities a month before they decided to crack down on Tiananmen, and they brought in troops from another province to do so.  I noted at a Black college in New Orleans, when a line of armed police was met by a line of Black students, that if a student had thrown a rock and hit a cop, blood, shooting first on campus, and possibly beyond might have occurred.

     Now I stress my support of ICE, the group trying to enforce the law in rounding up invaders who now reside in the US.  I would argue that the young man killed by ICE had provoked them, the equivalent of throwing a rock.  He was there to obstruct them from doing their duty in rounding up illegal aliens.  He had used violence against ICE and their vehicle, and they retaliated with force killing him.  HE WAS NOT A PEACEFUL PROTESTOR.  He was there to cause trouble, trained in tactics to provoke.  When you see the savagery of the mobs of Minneapolis, not just their vocal taunts, but throwing things aimed at the lawmen.  This is NOT peaceful protest.  The laws on the books for years should be enforced.  Billionaires like George Soros fund "non-governmental" organizations, which, in effect, train people to throw rocks, cause trouble, destroy law and order, loot stores, and if not revolution, promote chaos.  I also think the government should crack down on NGOs whose purpose is to create chaos in out country.

Hugh Murray

FROM RT - DISTURBING STORY ABOUT SCIENTISTS IN THE USA

 

High-profile US scientist deaths mark ‘disturbing pattern’ – media

Nine top American researchers and administrators in key fields have died or gone missing in the past three years

Published 8 Apr, 2026 21:31 | Updated 8 Apr, 2026 22:35

FILE PHOTO. ©  Yi-Chin Lee / Houston Chronicle via Getty Images

Nine deaths and disappearances of high-profile US scientists in the last three years has set a “disturbing pattern,” according to US intelligence sources cited by the Daily Mail.

In the latest incident, the body of missing cancer research scientist Jason Thomas was discovered in a Massachusetts lake last month. The month prior, retired Air Force General William McCasland, who reportedly worked on the US nuclear program, went missing, while astrophysicist Carl Grillmair was gunned down on his porch in California.

“You can say these are all suspicious, and these are scientists who have worked in critical technology,” the Daily Mail cited former FBI Assistant Director Chris Swecker as saying.

Foreign intelligence services belonging to both US allies and adversaries have targeted Americans in possession of top scientific secrets over the decades, he reportedly said. “It’s been happening since the Cold War… Especially when nuclear technology and missile technology were first coming to the forefront.”

Prior to his disappearance, McCasland led the Air Force Research Lab (AFRL), where he reportedly oversaw the funding of a jet engine project by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) materials chief Monica Reza, who also went missing last year, just months after assuming the position.

Grillmair’s work on the US NEOWISE and NEO Surveyor orbital telescope is also tied to the Air Force, as both are used by the US military to track foreign satellites and missile launches, the outlet reports.

Read more

 America heads back to the Moon. But there’s a big problem

Two other scientists at NASA’s JPL have reportedly died since 2023: Frank Maiwald and Michael Hicks. No foul play has been alleged in the latter two cases, and no cause of death has been made public, according to the Daily Mail.

Anthony Chavez and Melissa Casias, who both worked at the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), which has cooperated with the AFRL on nuclear research, were reported missing last summer. Both reportedly left their New Mexico homes on foot and left their cars, keys, wallets and phones before disappearing.

Another respected physicist Nuno Loureiro, who was reportedly working on breakthrough fusion energy research, was fatally shot in Massachusetts in December.

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It is possible that there are now so many scientists in the US that the murder, death, missing rate described in this story is simply comparable to that of the general population.  Still, it does make you wonder.  Hugh Murray.

From RT - CARLSON ON END OF AMERICAN EMPIRE

 

Iran war is ‘the end of American empire’ – Tucker Carlson

The US is unable to restore order in the Strait of Hormuz, casting doubt on its role as a global policeman, the conservative host has said

Published 3 Apr, 2026 13:26 | Updated 3 Apr, 2026 14:30

American journalist Tucker Carlson gestures during an interview with Russian President Vladimir Putin, on February 6, 2024. ©  Sputnik/Gavriil Grigorov

The Iran war has ushered in the “end of American Empire”, conservative host Tucker Carlson has argued, suggesting that US President Donald Trump’s call for allies to secure the Strait of Hormuz proved that Washington could no longer function as the world’s policeman.

Speaking on his podcast on Thursday, Carlson commented on Trump’s remarks in which the president threatened to bomb Iran into the “stone age” without providing an exact timeline for a ceasefire while urging other countries to “take the lead” in unblocking the Strait of Hormuz – a strategic chokepoint which accounts for around 20% of global oil trade.

Washington’s NATO allies, however, have been reluctant to step in following US-Israeli strikes on Iran.

Carlson argued that “the nation that forces the peace is the nation in charge,” adding that “the country that forces order on the Persian Gulf, that opens the Strait of Hormuz, is the nation that runs the world by definition.”

Read more

 Trump derides NATO over no-show in Iran war

For decades since WWII, the nation capable of maintaining order was assumed to be the US, but the Hormuz crisis has shown it’s no longer the case, the journalist continued. “We can’t open the Straits of Hormuz,” Carlson said. “The President of the United States said that last night – someone else do it. So we’re done.”

He argued that even if the US were to completely destroy Iran as a cohesive nation, the remaining warlords would have no difficulties in disrupting the maritime route by laying mines, using cheap drones, or even just by threatening to do so, meaning that the hostilities would have to end in a diplomatic settlement with Tehran sooner or later.

”What’s happening in Iran is the end of American empire as we understand it. And that’s sad. Empire’s dying. But it’s not the end of the United States,” he added.

Carlson acknowledged that the transition would bring “a lot of suffering and sadness,” but noted that it also carried the promise of a US that could turn its attention to the Western hemisphere, also rich in resources and vital for America’s stability, without the need to occupy “countries you’ve never been to.”

Carlson, generally supportive of Trump, has been a vocal critic of US-Israeli strikes on Iran, prompting the US president to claim that the journalist “has lost his way” and is not really part of the MAGA movement.

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