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Spanish Inquisition
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Spanish Inquisition
Between the thirteenth and seventeenth centuries, non-Catholics in the kingdom of Spain faced a lot of prosecution, and they were forced to accept Catholicism or leave Spain. The actions were taken by the rulers of Spain at the time, Isabella I of Castile and Ferdinand II of Aragon, in collaboration with the Pope came to be referred to as the Spanish Inquisition. The Inquisition officially began in 1478. The Spanish Inquisition was a form of religious discrimination meant to safeguard the Catholic religion in the Spanish Empire. The Inquisition was formally abolished in the year 1834 by Isabella II (Rawlings 15). Throughout the period, more than 150000 were tried, and roughly 3% of the total number was executed.
The main religion of the Spanish empire was Catholicism, although the empire also had significant populations of Jews and Muslims. The Spanish had also conquered other lands as it expanded its territory into the Americas as well as Naples, Canary Islands and the Netherlands. Before the Inquisition, non-Christians all over Europe had suffered from prosecution for their religious beliefs. The Spanish Inquisition was created to root out heresy especially among newly converted Catholics. An example of this is the French bishop Pope Lucius III who organized the persecution of Catharists as alleged heretics were referred to (Kamen 21).
The Inquisitions were led by inquisitors appointed by the monarchs. The inquisitors visited different cities in the kingdom, with the offer that self-confessed heretics would receive a lighter punishment such as whipping or pilgrimage. They were forced to testify to their alleged crimes, and most of the time, there was no evidence presented against them. Some of the reasons why people would accuse others of heresy included revenge, jealousy, economic reasons, among others. The ruling class used the Inquisition to abuse their power; for example, Count Alphonese of Toulouse would confiscate the land and property of the accused, while his predecessor Count Raymond VII burned the accused even after they confessed (Rawlings 41).
The fifteenth century was the most intense for the Inquisition when the newly converted Catholics, named Conversos, were suspected of bringing corruption into the Church. For many years, Jews had to suffer from anti-Semitism and to avoid this they converted into Catholicism and gained the title Conversos. However, Ferdinand and Isabella still did not trust these converses and continued to prosecute them. They were accused of secretly practising their former religion while outwardly pretending to be Catholic. The Christian community also mistrusted the conversos and wanted the ruling class to take a harsh stand against them. In the year 1481, conversos were forced to live in camps apart from the Christians, and hundreds of them were burned at the stake despite their confession.
As the Spanish expanded their kingdom into the Americas, the Inquisition followed. In the year 1556, Phillip II took the throne, and this increased the rate of prosecution of the Conversos. In 1574, the Inquisition in Mexico led to the burning of Lutherans at the stake, and similar incidents happened against the Protestants in Peru. Between 1609 and 1615, a new king, Phillip III, forced Muslims to leave Spain including those who had earlier converted into Catholicism (Rawlings 58). The Spanish Inquisition came to an end after Napoleon conquered the country in 1808 and abolished the practice, which formally ended in 1834 under Isabella II.
The Spanish Inquisition can be compared to the Holocaust in Germany in which millions of Jews were killed for their religious beliefs. The systematic persecution of the Jews began in 1933 when Adolf Hitler became the German Vice-Chancellor. Adolf belonged to the Nazi party, which believed that Germans were superior to other races. The Jews were considered to be inferior and a threat to the Germans and the Nazis decided to completely obliterate the Jews as a solution to the Jewish Question. Before the Holocaust, Europe had a significant population Jewish population of over nine million, but afterwards, less than a third of these remained.
Along with the Jews, other groups of people deemed inferior such as the disabled, homosexuals, and soviet war prisoners were executed. The Jewish prosecution began with a boycott of Jewish businesses in 1933, ending in the destruction and ransacking five years later in the Kristallnacht (Crowe 31). As World War II began, the Germans took the opportunity to declare Jews a threat to Germany and send them to concentration camps in Germany and Poland including Chelmno, Auschwitz, Sobibor and Belzec . The main methods that the Germans used in the executions were gas chambers, mass shootings, gas vans and starvation. Overall, the German Nazis killed more than eleven million people between 1933 and 1945 (Crowe 53).
In conclusion, history has seen the systematic persecution of several groups of people on different grounds, including religion and politics. The Spanish Inquisition was sanctioned by the ruling political and religious class in Spain, with the main aim of ensuring the purity of the Catholic religion in the empire. Muslims and Jews were forced to convert to Catholicism or leave the empire. Even after this, they were still accused of heresy and contaminating the Church, and many of them were tried and executed. The Holocaust follows a similar trend, beginning with segregation of the Jews and other groups of people labelled as inferior by the Nazis. The Nazis then destroyed property owned by the Jews and sent them into concentration camps across Germany and Poland. By the end of 1945, the Nazis killed more than 11 million people.
Works Cited
Crowe, David M. The Holocaust: Roots, History, and Aftermath. Routledge, 2018.
Kamen, Henry. The Spanish Inquisition: a historical revision. Yale University Press, 2014.
Rawlings, Helen. The Spanish Inquisition. John Wiley & Sons, 2008.
Should We Tax the Rich More
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Should We Tax the Rich More?
The debate on taxing the rich more is a long-standing one with different points in support of the argument and others against it. Taxation is an essential part of the economy as it provides revenue for the government, which is then used to fund important projects in infrastructure, education, and healthcare, among others. Tax regimes are progressive, meaning the more a person earns, the more they are taxed. Taxes vary across states and localities. One main area of concern when it comes to taxation is the fact that the super-rich pay much lower taxes in proportion to their income and assets as compared to the middle and lower-income earners in the country. The current tax regimes have been a point of contention, with many arguing that the rich should be taxed more.
Warren Buffet is one of the wealthiest men in the world, and his admission that he was subject to a much lower tax rate as compared to that of his secretary sparked a fierce debate. The fact of the matter is that the wealthiest individuals in the population really do pay less tax than the average citizen. The New York Times article titled ‘The Rich Really Do Pay Lower Tax Rates than You’ explores this claim in depth. The article uses data from a 2018 study across different income groups that shows that the 400 of the most affluent Americans paid significantly lower tax rates compared to other income groups in the country. Such information is shocking, given the vast difference in income among the groups. The current tax rates are a world away from those of the 1960s when the very richest people were subject to a higher tax rate than the rest of the population (Leonhardt 1). The main reason for this is the plummet in taxes, such as corporate and estate taxes. In contrast, the poor and mid-income earners have had to pay higher taxes in payroll taxes, while they do not benefit much from a reduction in estate and corporate taxes.
Forbes author Howard Gleckman tackles this topic in the article titled ‘How Should We Tax the Rich?’ The article shares similar opinions with those of the New York Times article. Gleckman explains that tax regimes have become less progressive over the past few years, and says that the country should restructure its tax systems. He gives different areas where tax for the rich should be reconsidered. The rich have come up with ways to avoid taxes, and this is the reason why they pay lower taxes. One of the ways they do this is categorizing income as capital gains, which are subject to lower tax rates. He offers the main areas of consideration in taxing the rich, including reforms to the estate tax, introducing a wealth tax, taxing unrealized gains, and raising taxes on ordinary income and capital gains (Gleckman 1).
The efforts to tax the rich more have often been met with stumbling blocks. An excellent example of this is the 2014 tax cuts by President Trump, which favored the very wealthy. Such a step is a step back from efforts to ensure proportionate tax rates for various income groups. Although President Trump touted the tax cuts as beneficial for job creation and for the middle-class, it has since become clear that the cuts disproportionately lower rates for the very rich. A Bloomberg publication titled ‘A Year after the Middle Class Tax Cut, the Rich Are Winning’ explores the intricate 2017 tax cuts. The consensus is that the benefits of the tax cuts on the economy will fade over time, leaving the very rich as the only beneficiaries (Steverman et al. 1).
In conclusion, there have been numerous studies and findings that show the disproportionate tax rates among the various income groups in the country. Tax regimes are supposed to be progressive, with the wealthiest paying the highest tax rates. However, in the case of the United States, the very rich pay lower tax rates, begging the question, “Should We Tax the Rich More?”
Works Cited
Gleckman, Howard. “How Should We Tax the Rich?” Forbes. 11 September 2019. https://www.forbes.com/sites/howardgleckman/2019/09/11/how-should-we-tax-the-rich/#7caba3ac38bdLeonhardt, David. “The Rich Really Do Pay Lower Taxes Than You.” The New York Times. 6 October 2019. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/10/06/opinion/income-tax-rate-wealthy.htmlSteverman, Ben. et al. “A Year After the Middle Class Tax Cut, the Rich Are Winning.” Bloomberg. 18 December 2018. https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2018-tax-plan-consequences/
Short Essay Question Two
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Short Essay: Question Two
President Truman’s decisions to drop atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki during the Second World War faced some questions and criticism, although the president defended his decision. The reason why the president decided to drop the bombs is that the Japanese refused to surrender unconditionally, as demanded by the United States. The war had been raging for years, and the Japanese showed no signs of surrender to put an end to the war. Japan declared war on the United States and attacked US fleets at Pearl Harbor (Donohue 12). They were also interested in American-owned assets in the Pacific region, and this is why they angered the US.
The United States was keen to maintain its position as a World Super Power, and thus it could not take such threats and aggravations lying down. During the last days of the war, the Japanese showed signs of relenting, yet the United States still decided to drop atomic bombs. One reason for this was to punish Japan for its grandstanding and refusal to surrender and end the war. Another reason for the bombings was that the United States wanted to show the world that any attacks would be met with a fierce retaliation, such as the atomic bombs.
President Truman had several options, one of them being accepting the conditional surrender of Japan. Another option was to wait for the weakened Japanese troops to surrender with time, and also demonstrating the atomic bombs to Japanese leaders before the actual bombings (Walker 24). All these would have been a sign of weakness, according to the US. It is difficult to judge if President Truman was right in his decision. The main issue was that the bombs were too severe of retaliation, and it affected hundreds of thousands of civilians. The effects of the bombs are still felt today in Japan.
Works Cited
Donohue, Nathan. “Understanding the decision to drop the bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.” Center for Strategic & International Studies (2012).
Walker, J. Samuel. Prompt and utter destruction: Truman and the use of atomic bombs against Japan. UNC Press Books, 2016.