"eric davis" <ericdavisj600@hotmail.com> wrote in message

'St. Augustine tells the story of a pirate captured by Alexander the

who asked him "how he dares molest the sea." "How dare you molest the

world?" the pirate replied:"Because I do it with a little ship only, I

called a thief; you, doing it with a great navy, are called an Emperor."

- Pirates and Emperors, Old and New.

Eric, I do not copy strait out of a book and claim I'm showing my
knowledge of history. When I post history here, I am doing it from
memory. Not a quote from a book. Do you understand the difference?

Humm, you know little of history Eric or you would not have posted a
mistaken view of Augustine's story.

Alexander the Great was warrior who made a payback campaign to the
middle east for all the great harm the Persian Empire ( Arabs) had
enacted on the Helens ( People of Greece). The Pirates who " how he
dares molest the sea." can been seen as the Arab terrorist Pirates of
the 17-19 Century off the N. Africa coast who had enacted a policy to
sink any ship, and/or loot it if they did not pay passage upon the
sea. It was not their sea. In fact it was no-ones sea. This of course
was a policy by the Arab pirates on any size, any country, and any
family owned ship. This meant that a family ship that held no
allegiance to any country still had to pay a fee just like America's
navy, France's navy and England's navy who could not beat the Pirates.
Eric, that meant the pirates had their own Empire! The passers had to
pay the Pirates. The solution was to pay-off the Pirates to pass in
the Mediterranean waters which were international waters. The
Mediterranean was the pirates empire. So Augustine analogy was a
reflective of a singly event or theme and not reality as a whole. As
well, Alexander spread democracy and western city concepts that the
Arabs adopted which made their civilization so much better ( They even
Honor Alexander as a prophet in the Qu'ran) That's how much they
thought of the man. The Pirates, who refuse to work legitimate jobs
prefer thievery with its lazy-faire lifestyle ( That of a pirate) are
viewed in history as such - thieves. Either Augustine was making fun
of the stupidity or pathetic plight of the pirate or pointing out that
pirates are whiners in history because they could not make in the
Emperors Navy.



Note: Eventually England, Brittan and America ganged up on the Arab
pirates because after decades the three began to refused to pay the
passage fee to a sea that was not theirs and the Arab pirates began to
siege ships and hostage the men and kill and torture them with threats
of greater ransom money.

"How dare you molest the whole world?"

Well the people who he conquered seemed to worship him in the holiest
book of the Muslims. Now that is opposite to Augustine's thesis. So I
guess Augustine got this point wrong (If he was not pointing out the
analogy I discussed above), which made you repeat it, because you knew
not what history was and how people view the great Alexander in the
areas he conquered.

Now Eric, I just wrote this from memory sitting here at this computer.
This is what I call knowing histoy. This is what happens when you go
to school; something you have voiced in the past as being somewhat a
bad thing.

eric.
P.S. Learn some History,

I have. ;)

Now Eric, I just wrote this from memory sitting here at this computer.
This is what I call knowing histoy. This is what happens when you go
to school; something you have voiced in the past as being somewhat a
bad thing.