Man, you look up “dude who’s lunch money got taken everyday” in the dictionary and that guy’s picture comes up.

Disease was the first destroyer of American Indians, followed on with the policies for which Andrew Jackson is the apt poster child. But then, it is the enforced Western education in a context of apartheid is the ongoing coup de grâce:

http://ronaldthomaswest.com/2013/10/06/modern-indian-society-2/

^ It’s not like everything had been said and done since Geronimo’s surrender

Thank you.

Once someone trains his eye and ear to catch that rhetorical “we” in reference to the authority to which he’s subject, his mind can open. Try this in conversation with friends and family — it will take some time, but it works.

And is this photo not his best Alfred E. Neuman impression?

Mr D’souza looks none too bright

Why do we have to read through all that when you could have started with something like “D S is getting a lot of applause from those who like to bask in warm praise of America but he would have said something testably interesting if he had made some distinctions at the outset – most notably one between the private America of businesses, neighbourliness and civil society, and that of political, bureaucratic and judicial government”. Neighbourliness??? Well I just threw that in to be nice….

America, as it is turning out to be, is a serial apologizer with no counts as to strikes, forget ever being out.

It appears America thinks that being sorry is redemption enough!

Unprincipled, not by her constitution, but by her essentially ethno-centric culture, born of European heritage, the American experience for others reduces in quality, abjectly, the farther away one is on the series of concentric circles centered around the American Compact.

If this is untrue, then explain to me Vietnam; abandonment of Afghanistan after thrashing the Russians; the forever incarcerated once friendly Manuel Noriega; the breeding and incubation of a power that led to the Sabra and Shatila massacre; our condemnation of Hamas for its Islamic Jihad-orientation against the Israelis vs. our moral and material support for Likud and others who are remotely, if at all, viewed as purveyors of Jewish Jihad against the Palestinians and everyone else in the neighborhood; one friendly chemical weapons based war by Iraq against Iran; another brutal Iraq war on a supposed possession of WMD following a decade of national emaciation via ruthless imposition of embargo; a long hoped for, eagerly awaited war on Iran for being imminent possessor of WMD and the current bid to reject P5+ 1 deal because of future possession of WMD in 15 years – no red-herring ever stopped us when we are on a roll; the believer of the insanity of Salman Rushdie fatwa by the late Ayatollah Khomeini and the unbeliever of the banning of WMD fatwa by Ayatollah Khameini; the widespread use of lethal spent-nuclear fuel based bombs in the Middle East all the while condemning WMD there; the shooting down of Iranian passenger plane with 298 people on board; our right to own weapons for self-defense under the 2nd amendment even though no king is about to dispossess us of our freedom, whereas the same is looked down upon among the Palestinians and others actually dispossessed and constantly facing brutality and expansion; our denial of voting outcomes in Algeria and Palestine even though we encouraged democracy there; our support of neo-Stalinists in Central Asia, northern eastern Afghanistan and north eastern Iraq, and of course, Egypt, just because they are a better option than the oddball Muslims; and the voluntary abrogation of reporting duties by co-opted, embedded journalists as they joined convoys and colonels.

It’s a sample and a litany, but kindly explain. Those who suffer do not forget, even though we may be comforted by our self-correction.

Now, did we really self correct or did we simply make a tactical decision to disengage to cut the bleeding of money (life, maybe)? Because it is the latter, that’s why we are incorrigible. Our apology means hardly anything to those apologized to. Like a drunk, we are just one accident away from our next one. We’re unable to impose tough love on ourselves.

An immigrant to the USA (likes of D’Souza, I suppose) sees something better than what he sees where he was born. But this find is not completely an untarnished treasure. Just because there is a market for old-time America first for cashing in, an immigrant does no service to his new homeland by denying and supporting the inherent self-centeredness.

In America, we pat ourselves on the back as we drive by looking in the rearview mirror and seeing other less performing nations crashing or falling by the wayside. Should we not be driving by looking forward through the windshield considering the possibilities and the pitfalls?

lol at quoting a commanche whining about the fate of the choctaw. Our behavior towards the cherokee was unbecoming; but the rest had to go. The commanche in particular were bloody minded tortures and barbarians who make modern “terrorist” groups like ISIS seem civilized (well, given that they were paleo-lithic peoples given neolithic and modern technology, ISIS IS civilized compared to the commanche way of life and war).

There was no fate for the plains indians in america outside of cultural obliteration (or genocide, that gay little neologism which would make no sense at all to any peoples before 1945). How much of it had to be conversion and how much slaughter, depended on the tribe. The western world didn’t offer just slaughter to the tribes, just the tribes were very resistant to giving up their ancestral (socially unacceptable) ways.

Within the United States, the dividing line between a thoughtful human being with a soul, and a statist, mindless tact supporter of evil for profit, is the manner in which this country treated, and still treats, the America’s First Peoples.

RE: Amerind deaths,

Well, here are the numbers:

United States, eradication of the American Indians (1775-1890) 350,000
Russel Thornton, American Indian Holocaust and Survival (1987)
Overall decline
From 600,000 (in 1800) to 250,000 (in 1890s)
Indian Wars, from a 1894 report by US Census, cited by Thornton. Includes men, woman and children killed, 1775-1890:
Individual conflicts:
Whites: 5,000
Indians: 8,500
Wars under the gov’t:
Whites: 14,000
Indians: 30-45,000
TOTAL:
Whites: 19,000
Indians: 38,500 to 53,500

http://necrometrics.com/wars19c.htm#AmerInd

So, of the 350,000 Amerind deaths, only approx 53,500 (using the higher figure) are due to violence

Is this the same Dinesh D’Souza’ who thought committed adultery while principal of a Christian parochial school?

https://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/dinesh-dsouza-a-charlatans-comeuppance/

Evidently, this “conservative” has not really read the Bible. Jesus once warned that to look at a woman with lust is nearly the same as sexual assault.

Ilana – Do you actually have data or evidence indicating that diseases brought by Europeans to the New World were not the principal cause of population decline among Amerindians?

He could have an interesting culture critic.

He turned into just another shrill partisan hack.

Dotters are energetic at self-promotion but have a tendency toward ridiculousness.

Andrew Jackson experienced hostile Indians during his youth on the frontier. The harrowing experiences of those pioneers has been swept under the rug. Think Muslim atrocities and you will get the idea. When Jackson had the power of an army under his control, (an army consisting of the people who lived in that area and had been putting up with Indian massacres over a period of a generation), he moved vigorously to put an end to the violence. He met violence with violence. This is how nation states are built, in case some of you don’t know it.

The vast majority of population reduction of the pre-Columbian American populations was due to inadvertent pathogen transfer. But there was a fair amount of intentional pathogen transfer, cultural erasure and plain old violence towards the Amerinds. Of course every tribe had blood on its hands as well. All sides are guilty of unnuanced discussion of the history of Anglo-Amerind relations. Of course nuanced thought requires a baseline of intelligence that is probably somewhat higher than the median IQ level of our population.

“America is benign in the way it exercises its power.” “America has made mistakes. But there is a difference between making a mistake and doing something inherently wicked.”

More unnuanced thought from a very mediocre intellect.

It’s true that the left overascribes evil motives to the objects of its hatred. The same is certainly true of the right as well. “America” is no more or less “benign” or “wicked” than any other historical power. This reality is anathema to ideologues of all stripes. The “Blame America First” crowd and the “America, Fuck Yeah!” crowd are both equally obnoxious and ignorant in their rhetoric.

But there was a fair amount of intentional pathogen transfer,

So far as I know, there’s only one documented instance of an attempt to intentionally infect Amerinds in mainland Anglo-America:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Fort_Pitt

And it’s far from clear that it actually worked.A smallpox epidemic was already in progress (that’s how the Anglos had access to cloth that might have been contaminated).Hence, it’s equally possible that smallpox was spread via natural means.

The “Blame America First” crowd and the “America, Fuck Yeah!” crowd are both equally obnoxious and ignorant in their rhetoric

That is one of the most astute observations I’ve ever seen at Unz Review. But I would go on to note the fungal ooze that constitutes much of the ‘intellectual left’ is harder to lampoon than, say, the ‘Team America World Police’ character types:

http://ronaldthomaswest.com/2014/10/09/liberals/

But it’s not for want of trying:

http://ronaldthomaswest.com/2015/04/01/merge/

Conservatives (especially neo-conservatives), on the other hand, are colorful and easy to mock:

http://ronaldthomaswest.com/2013/05/09/dick-cheneys-lucid-dream/

^

Funny how the American elite are able to recruit useful minorities like D’Souza to parrot it’s cause.

Check out the women he’s dated. Seems like they have all been blond white women. What other way is there for a beta male Indian like D’Souza to bed such women unless you engratiate yourself to the elites as he has done?

Let me see if I understood D´Souza´s reasoning:

Unfortunate indians catched fatal diseases from uninvited foreign…I mean, adventurous europeans.

Unfortunate indians die like flies.

Uninvited foreign…I mean, adventurous europeans, and their sons and grandsons, take the “deserted” land.

Is this, in some way, a thrustwhorty account of the real facts concerning the confinment of amerindians in their reserves? I think not. Hell, I think even history books for kids tell a different story.

So, of the 350,000 Amerind deaths, only approx 53,500 (using the higher figure) are due to violence

Direct violence is only required to assure subservience and pacification, displacement, starvation, humiliation and the introduction of disease will take care of the rest.

lol at quoting a commanche whining about the fate of the choctaw. Our behavior towards the cherokee was unbecoming; but the rest had to go.

lol? Unbecoming? May you and yours be thrown out of your homes, starved and murdered. Perhaps then, you won’t find it so amusing.

How much of it had to be conversion and how much slaughter, depended on the tribe. The western world didn’t offer just slaughter to the tribes, just the tribes were very resistant to giving up their ancestral (socially unacceptable) ways.

You mean those who refused to be conquered and give up their land, their dignity, their culture and their food source deserved to be murdered? Damn socially unacceptable savages.

Direct violence is only required to assure subservience and pacification,

Well, 1941-45 in Europe indicates that certain parties felt otherwise…..

displacement, starvation, humiliation and the introduction of disease will take care of the rest.

Disease and famine were certainly responsible for the vast majority of deaths.But’s that been the case throughout recorded history.Cf, for example, Cromwell’s conquest of Ireland:

Charles Carlton, Going to the Wars (1992)
Petty’s 1672 estimate of dead in Ireland, covering 10/1641-10/1653:
Protestants d. by war, dis., malnu.: 112,000, incl. 37,000 massacred at outbreak. Carlton says that 37,000 is exaggeration by factor of 9 or 10.
Catholic d.: 504,000

Fuller, A Military History of the Western World, v.2 (1955): 500,000
R.F. Foster, Modern Ireland 1600-1972 (1988)
Irish population decline from 2.0M (ca. 1640) to 1.7M (1672) [i.e.: 300,000]
1641: 4,000 k. in Ulster

http://necrometrics.com/pre1700a.htm#EnglCW

As with the Amerinds in Anglo-America, the vast majority of Irish deaths are attributable to disease and hunger, not direct violence.

and the introduction of disease

The introduction of Old World pathogens was unavoidable.Even completely peaceful contact (trade, embassies, etc) between Old and New World humans would have caused mass death in the Americas.And, as noted upthread, there’s very little evidence of deliberate attempts to spread disease among Amerinds in mainland Anglo-America:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Fort_Pitt

Disease took care of the natives first, not last. The various pathogens the Europeans brought with them from the Old World ran ahead of the Europeans, sometimes wiping out Indian villages before the natives in them had ever seen, and possibly even heard there was such a thing as, a white man.

Thanks for this needed clarification, Miss Ilana! Conflating love of my little platoon or even my concurrent majority with the love of the state and its corporatocracy, particularly the sort that occupies all facets of government now, is muddled and evil nonsense. It is absolutely vital that true conservatives wake up to that distinction in order to truly conserve what good remains and work once again toward that ordered liberty of our heritage.

In a few years they will make a film about the Little Big Horn where the 7th cis-Cavalry is shown being massacred by transwomen.

That is one of the most astute observations I’ve ever seen at Unz Review.

I am humbled…

But I would go on to note the fungal ooze that constitutes much of the ‘intellectual left’ is harder to lampoon than, say, the ‘Team America World Police’ character types:

I think part of that is due to cultural leftism being more thoroughly pervasive in our society. Unless one resides in a hermetic ideological bubble, cultural leftism will infiltrate one’s thinking without one even being aware of it. With the exception of mainstream conservative organizations, whose assimilation to cultural leftism is only on the order of 85% or so, all mainstream organizations have been fully assimilated into cultural leftism. So just like a semiliterate Pakistani shepherd would have difficulty critically analyzing Islam, it is hard for most of us to critically examine cultural leftism since we lack the needed conceptual schemata.

I think another factor might be that leftists may tend to be smarter and more well-read than conservatives, so lampooning most conservatives is akin to taking candy from a baby whereas lampooning leftists is like taking candy from a nine year old. Hardly impossible for the intellectually mature but still requiring more effort.

I subscribe to the belief that one should avoid mentioning ethnicity (or any other trait) if doing so is extraneous. A “beta” male by definition is a male who has difficulty attracting women with his intrinsic qualities and thus must rely on external trappings like wealth, fame and prestige. D’Souza’s ethnicity doesn’t really factor into this. It is probably true that Indian men are more likely to be beta than Europoid men due to cultural and possibly genetic factors, but ultimately a beta is a beta and an alpha is an alpha. Any sufficiently confident, charismatic and attractive Indian could pull the same “blond white women [sic]” as the beta D’Souza.

Well, 1941-45 in Europe indicates that certain parties felt otherwise

Are you speaking of Dresden and Nagasaki?

Disease and famine were certainly responsible for the vast majority of deaths.But’s that been the case throughout recorded history.Cf, for example, Cromwell’s conquest of Ireland:

This proves my point, no?

I am unclear as to your position here, are you attempting to be an apologist for the treatment of the Native Americans.?

The Native Americans had their land stolen, their people murdered, and the survivors driven into open air prison camps, called reservations, on the least desirable land the government could find. Even then, when mineral resources were found on the reservations, the BIA would fuck them out of the profits. What exactly is there to defend in the treatment of the Native Americans?

I lol’d but we may be nearing Peak Tranny. The left is overplaying its hand and the backlash will not be pretty.

Andrew Jackson experienced hostile Indians during his youth on the frontier.

Hmm, you mean those Native Americans whose land had been stolen and their people murderd were hostile about it? The savages!!! I guess this gave Jackson the right to steal the land of the peaceful Cherokee. Sound reasoning there zippy.

Your argument is morally bankrupt.

Define “peaceful.”

Added note about impact on Indians and whites of disease, and perception thereof, in the sad 1847 tale of the Whitman Mission Massacre. To what extent was Marcus Whitman a proto-Progressive, and half-breed Joe Lewis an early SJW?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whitman_massacre

The name lives on via Whitman College in Walla Walla, Washington.

Well, in the context of this discussion, and as pertains to their rapacious european conquerers: staying within their own borders, and not attempting to conquer another nation.

Is it just the left,

Georgetown history professor Carroll Quigley (1910-1977): “Conservatives now are telling us that we must curtail government, cut government spending, cut government powers, reduce government personnel for the sake of making individuals more free.

“Liberals, on the other hand, are still telling us, as they have for a long, long time, that in order to make individuals free, we must destroy communities. By communities I mean villages. Ghettos and cities. Ethnic groupings. Religious groupings. Anything which is segregated. We must destroy them. So that all individuals would be, if possible, identical. Including boys and girls.“

But the area of political action … in which you have government, individuals … three others: voluntary associations (which I’ll say no more about), corporations and communities. And if the liberals destroy communities for the sake of the individual, and the conservatives destroy the government for the sake of individuals, you’re going to have an area of political action in which irresponsible, immensely powerful corporations are engaged in opposition to individuals who are socially naked and defenseless.”

The Stonewall film has run into problems because it is not correctly representing the modern berdaches who rioted as black and brown, which they were. It is becoming rather obvious which community is the target of all this.

What exactly is there to defend in the treatment of the Native Americans?

That the crimes against them are highly exaggerated and primarily put forward by moral anachronistic-spouting schoolmarms and their schoolboys.

Native Americans were doomed the moment Europeans discovered the continent. The natives were never thick on the ground to begin with, at least in the territory that is today the United States. New diseases inadvertently introduced into the continent devastated them. Their numbers dropped precipitously, leaving nearly an entire continent of wealth open to exploration and colonization to whomever could get to it first – Russians, Spaniards, French, British, etc.

Look at Syon’s population numbers again: 600,000 natives in a territory the size of the contiguous United States in 1800? Keep in mind, too, that many of these natives did not look at each other as the same people. They fought with each other, killed each other, took each other’s territory. They sided with white men against each other. One thing was clear in the nineteenth century: The natives were not keeping the land. There weren’t enough of them to protect it.

And the U.S. itself was not secure in the 1800s. It could to afford to act like the moral hegemon you wish it could be. There were too many outside threats to its security. And some of these threats were happy to work with the natives against the U.S. So the U.S. government took steps to ensure the natives were not a threat to its nation-building efforts.

Is there any evidence that the natives were the target of a serious attempt by the U.S. government to exterminate them? Nope. It was the nineteenth-century equivalent of “law and order” and “eminent domain” for the purpose of nation-building. Now that may be an exaggeration on my part, but it’s less so than the serial exaggerations you’ve been engaged in.

Well, in the context of this discussion, and as pertains to their rapacious european conquerers: staying within their own borders, and not attempting to conquer another nation.

In other words, you wish the Europeans acted in ways that even the Native American tribes did not act like when they were strong.

Well, 1941-45 in Europe indicates that certain parties felt otherwise

Are you speaking of Dresden and Nagasaki?

Too numerically insignificant (Approx 25,000 in Dresden and approx 49,000 in Nagasaki), dear fellow . Not too mention insufficiently eliminatory.I was thinking more in terms of stuff like the Nazi Einsatzgruppen’s official tally of 518,388 Jewish dead by April, 1942.Incidentally, you do know that Nagasaki is in East Asia, yes?

This proves my point, no?

Not quite.It proves that what happened to the Amerinds happened elsewhere, and in a much shorter span of time. Cf how the Irish lost approx 400,000 in 1649-52, whereas the Amerind losses in the USA were 350,000 in 1775-1890

I am unclear as to your position here, are you attempting to be an apologist for the treatment of the Native Americans.?

An apologist for truth

The Native Americans had their land stolen,

A perfectly normal event in human history.

their people murdered,

What counts as murder? And it seems to me that the Amerinds did pretty well in terms of direct violence:

Individual conflicts:
Whites: 5,000
Indians: 8,500
Wars under the gov’t:
Whites: 14,000
Indians: 30-45,000
TOTAL:
Whites: 19,000
Indians: 38,500 to 53,500

and the survivors driven into open air prison camps, called reservations,

Dunno; compared to actual camps (cf the examples of Stalin, Hitler, Mao, Pol Pot, etc)….

on the least desirable land the government could find.

Not quite.The government had ample opportunity to relocate all the Amerinds to, say, Northern Alaska in the late 19th century.If they had wanted them to die out, that’s what they would have done.

Even then, when mineral resources were found on the reservations, the BIA would fuck them out of the profits. What exactly is there to defend in the treatment of the Native Americans?

Could have been much, much, much worse….

Well, in the context of this discussion, and as pertains to their rapacious european conquerers: staying within their own borders, and not attempting to conquer another nation.

Contra PC myths, Amerinds went beyond their borders and conquered other nations all the time…..

As Lillian Hellmen said
“every word she writes is a lie, including ‘and’ and ‘the’.”

This is true of the Neocons and is exacerbated by the fact that they never apologize and never fucking shut up.

A swarthy Mad Magazine cover.

Basically, d’Souza is and always will be an ignorant dick!

That guy has an absolutely punchable face.

This is opportunistic foreigner presenting a critique of another’s equally opportunistic mind set. D’Souza the Indian see’s my country as a good place to join the establishment. Mercer, the South African, Israeli, Canadian, now American, see’s my country as a good place to make a buck. Both occupy separate rooms in the international rooming house that my country has become.

I think another factor might be that leftists may tend to be smarter and more well-read than conservatives, so lampooning most conservatives is akin to taking candy from a baby whereas lampooning leftists is like taking candy from a nine year old. Hardly impossible for the intellectually mature but still requiring more effort

I couldn’t have said it better.

That the crimes against them are highly exaggerated and primarily put forward by moral anachronistic-spouting schoolmarms and their schoolboys.

So in your exalted opinion, my finding the treatment of the Native Americans reprehensible makes me an “anachronistic-speaking” schoolboy? Pinchie, I do not consider it anachronistic to point out the morally reprehensible treatment of Native Americans, it is a concept perfectly suited to many of our problems today, our backing of Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians comes to mind.

As far as I can tell, from the moral equivalence argument you attempt to put forth, the crimes perpetrated against the Native Americans were hunky-dory because we were able to beat the Russians, Spaniards and French to the punch. Besides, by 1800 we had already wiped most of them out through disease, so what the hell difference does it make.

And, of course, we had a manifest destiny to fulfill, so everything is alright. I can at least understand the twisted arrogance that brought forth the doctrine of manifest destiny – Gods on our side don’t-cha know, but attempting to defend the murders, rapes, land grabs, and repeated broken treaties as an equivalent of law and order, is a bit much – even for your self-serving notion of “nation-building.” A phrase most recently used by Bush to promote our wonderful excursions in the Middle East, it would seem the more thing change, the more they stay the same.

Too numerically insignificant (Approx 25,000 in Dresden and approx 49,000 in Nagasaki), dear fellow

But, Dear Fellow, it is the thought that counts.

Incidentally, you do know that Nagasaki is in East Asia, yes?

Yes, but I wasn’t aware I was constrained by your geographical dictates.

Not quite.It proves that what happened to the Amerinds happened elsewhere, and in a much shorter span of time. Cf how the Irish lost approx 400,000 in 1649-52, whereas the Amerind losses in the USA were 350,000 in 1775-1890

And, again, your point is that more people died somewhere else so what the hell are those savages bitching about.

Not quite.The government had ample opportunity to relocate all the Amerinds to, say, Northern Alaska in the late 19th century.If they had wanted them to die out, that’s what they would have done.

By that time they had reduced their population to the point that it no longer warranted the expenditure or the bad press.

Dunno; compared to actual camps (cf the examples of Stalin, Hitler, Mao, Pol Pot, etc)….

Your idea of moral equivalence? Do you work for the Clintons by any chance?

Could have been much, much, much worse….

Well there you go, I am sure they feel much better now.

Political correctness here at Unz? You are posting in the wrong place son.

I have every right to mention that he is an Indian beta male because I am talking about how white elites are able to co-opt useful minorities by granting them access to their women. They did the same to Martin Luther King.

As far as the Native America narrative many of the white people are trying to push here, it is completely devoid of intellectual honesty.

What the white man did in wiping out an entire race of people goes down as one of the worse crimes on history for a reason.

What white people here are trying to say is that a few white people landed in America, and then the germs, not white people themselves wiped out the natives. Then, with America free of a native peoples, white people just moved in.

This doesn’t take into account that Native Americans were adapted to life in the open, and that being herded into refugee camps killed killed a lot of them because their immune systems hadn’t adapted to large population densities yet.

It also doesn’t take into account the malnourishment many Natives had due to being driven off their lands and being in a weakened state. Or that a lot of them died from disease because it was winter time and they did not have the proper provisions to survive due to the warfare on their people.

Lastly, read the words from people at the time. Policy was to drive natives from the lands anyway possible. If they had not starved, they would have just been more wars until the deed was done.

I was just about to post the same thing.

And what of the great many Native American tribes who did the exact same thing to their enemies? The Plains Indians in particular (as Lucy Parker noted above) were such barbaric people that they do not deserve the label of a “society.” Might makes right is all well and good until you run into someone stronger.

I like and respect Ilana Mercer. A lot. However, her intellectual submission to libertarian dogmatism does occasionally show through in her writings, as this point makes clear:

Bad immigrants come to America to partake of the state. Or the very thing D’Souza and his cheerleader call “America.”

In the mind of the libertarian, “the state” and/or “the government” is nothing more than a faceless and destructive leviathan. Now, far be it from me to defend what the U.S. government has been trying (with a great deal of success) to transform itself – and the United States – into. And far be it from me to suggest that ours is still a government “by the people, of the people, for the people.”

Nevertheless, it’s worth asking why even “bad” immigrants are still more eager to depend on our government and state than on their own. And the answer is very simple: our government, our state, for their many faults, are still far, far more reliable and benevolent with respect to their subjects than theirs are.

Is it too much of a stretch to suggest that this may be because we as a people are more reliable and capable than they are? I don’t think so.

I haven’t bothered to read D’Souza’s puff piece for the simple reason that I find D’Souza’s works generally uninteresting reading. However, just based on this one piece alone, Mercer has not quite brought down his central argument, for the reasons I have stated above.

As a Canadian of British heritage and Tory sympathies, I certainly think American exceptionalism is irritating, especially when the NR types a few years ago launched into using it as a shibboleth, with Obama’s refusal to keep saying it as though it were some sort of law of physics used as a club to beat him over the head. As though there were not better things to use against him. I imagined Goldberg running around shouting “American Exceptionalism” in a high pitched whine and cackling.

It is an equally annoying trope whether as historical theory or as the basis for a lot of rah-rah boosterist crap from chambers of commerce, the halls of congress, and the public alike.

Ditto Manifest Destiny. A magnificent and evocative catchphrase, and a great ideology for an expanding nation bent on continent-spanning empire. Things to which I hardly object, as my country did them too. North America is much better with cities and roads and so forth. But it’s tough to get some Americans to admit that was imperialism, no less than anything the British did. That would demand accepting that America was imperialist even before 1898, and even conceding that imperialism is actually quite natural. It’s not as though the Indians weren’t doing it to the best of their ability beforehand.

Having said all that, America has done some good, more than many nations. It has done plenty bad, less than most nations. The Zinnite view, which essentially casts America as the most evil nation ever, government, culture, and popular way of life all taken together, is absurd. America has done nothing most of its major critics have not done. It has contributed less to culture than, oh, Germany, but its sins are also the lesser of the pair. It’s contributed more to invention than most. It’s not so bad, and it’s better than plenty.

So far I have also committed the sin of lumping government and people together, but I contend they aren’t as separate as all that. Modern America’s ways of life, embraced by her people, generate the appetites that the state nourishes for its own ends and strives to satisfy. If enough Americans think otherwise, nothing yet stops them running for office, or voting for those who do. But that would stop the gravy of the imperial welfare state.

From the beginning, the appetites of a free people have driven America’s sins, as much as its elite, if indeed they were sins and not just the common business of nations since the dawn of history, scarcely to be judged as vices.

Settlers went into the Ohio country before the reach of government got there, provoking the Six Nations and the French and leading to the French and Indian war. Settlers went west into the new territories across the Appalachians, and later across the Mississippi, admittedly after the US had laid claim but before there was all that much government. Settlement was coming and the outnumbered Indians were going to be dispossessed, but the manner of it was as much the product of the personal ambitions of a free people to settle, to farm, to trade, to raise animals, to build railroads, as of the state’s imperial dreams.

But as I said, I am glad these things were done. I benefit from the continental expansion of my nation, so I hardly begrudge Americans the same. I also have benefited from living next to the US, so I have benefited by the wealth and power that was built by its own expansion and its eventual superpower status. I have benefited by a world order built around US supremacy, since no other on offer since 1945 would have caused Canada to prosper so well. No other on offer now would, either.

So for good or ill, please do not collapse into civil war and wreck the future of North America until I have a chance die in my bed. Optimistically, give it another 40 years or so. I’m 44. If I live that long, I’ll be happy to see the whole world I knew collapse before me. At that point I’d likely giggle. History is fun like that.

Your German-speaking neighbors use the word Backpfeifengesicht to describe that sentiment.

”
Chelsea Manning, the former US Army intelligence officer behind the one of biggest leaks of diplomatic and other sensitive (i.e. embarrassing) material in American history, is facing indefinite solitary confinement at the Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, brig where she is serving a 35-year sentence. Formerly known as Bradley Manning, before her decision to go transgender, Chelsea is charged with four “crimes”:

“Sweeping food off a table at dinnertime that “almost” hit a correctional officer.
Asking to see her lawyer after being approached by said correctional officer.
Having a copy of the Caitlyn Jenner issue of Vanity Fair, along with other “forbidden” books dealing with transgender issues.
Having a tube of toothpaste inside her cell that was past its expiration date of April 9, 2015.”

http://original.antiwar.com/justin/2015/08/13/chelsea-manning-and-hillary-clinton-a-case-of-double-standards/print/

Dinesh D Souza seems to be that correctional officer angry ,and displeased to see no gratitude from the citizenry and all types of infractions by the people he or his paymaster purports to serve . He has to remind the poor Mecican ,Haitan,Iriaqis,Vietnamese Honduran how lucky they are to live here in US or how lucky they are in escaping from the kernel of the firestorm to US .

But, Dear Fellow, it is the thought that counts.

Only on Valentine’s Day…..

Incidentally, you do know that Nagasaki is in East Asia, yes?

Yes, but I wasn’t aware I was constrained by your geographical dictates.

MMM, well I did assume that you were responding to what I actually wrote.After all, you did quote me….

Not quite.It proves that what happened to the Amerinds happened elsewhere, and in a much shorter span of time. Cf how the Irish lost approx 400,000 in 1649-52, whereas the Amerind losses in the USA were 350,000 in 1775-1890

And, again, your point is that more people died somewhere else so what the hell are those savages bitching about.

Now you know how the Irish feel when people bring up the Armenian Massacres, dear fellow….

Not quite.The government had ample opportunity to relocate all the Amerinds to, say, Northern Alaska in the late 19th century.If they had wanted them to die out, that’s what they would have done.

By that time they had reduced their population to the point that it no longer warranted the expenditure or the bad press.

Interesting how certain Continental gentlemen seemed less inhibited……

Dunno; compared to actual camps (cf the examples of Stalin, Hitler, Mao, Pol Pot, etc)….

Your idea of moral equivalence?

More like numerical comparisons…..

Do you work for the Clintons by any chance?

Sadly, I’m not that well-connected.

Could have been much, much, much worse….

Well there you go, I am sure they feel much better now.

The dead are long past caring, dear fellow.Their posterity are the ones who nurse grudges.

Besides, by 1800 we had already wiped most of them out through disease, so what the hell difference does it make.

We didn’t “wipe out most of them through disease,” dear fellow.The pathogens did that on their own.

And, of course, we had a manifest destiny to fulfill, so everything is alright. I can at least understand the twisted arrogance that brought forth the doctrine of manifest destiny – Gods on our side don’t-cha know, but attempting to defend the murders, rapes, land grabs, and repeated broken treaties as an equivalent of law and order, is a bit much – even for your self-serving notion of “nation-building.”

As compared to what, say, the Comanches were up to?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comancheria

What the white man did in wiping out an entire race of people

MMM, last time that I checked, there were still Amerinds walking around….

goes down as one of the worse crimes on history for a reason.

What are the other great crimes, dear fellow? And are you lumping in the Anglos with the Spaniards?If you’re not, I really don’t see how the Anglo vs Amerind wars can be compared to things like the Mongol Conquests, which killed vastly larger numbers of people.

What white people here are trying to say is that a few white people landed in America, and then the germs, not white people themselves wiped out the natives. Then, with America free of a native peoples, white people just moved in.

No one’s saying that, dear fellow.Or at least I’m not saying it. What I’m saying is that the bulk of the killing was done by pathogens, in many cases long before Europeans showed up in significant numbers.

This doesn’t take into account that Native Americans were adapted to life in the open, and that being herded into refugee camps killed killed a lot of them because their immune systems hadn’t adapted to large population densities yet.

No, their immune systems had no experience with Old World diseases.

It also doesn’t take into account the malnourishment many Natives had due to being driven off their lands and being in a weakened state.

Again, dear fellow, the vast majority of the dying occurred before Amerinds were driven off

Or that a lot of them died from disease because it was winter time and they did not have the proper provisions to survive due to the warfare on their people.

Again, only a few.Most died long before incidents like the Winter campaigns in the late 19th century.

Lastly, read the words from people at the time. Policy was to drive natives from the lands anyway possible.

Hardy any way possible.There were several rather bloody methods that they did not employ….

Random Observer. Posts with this kind of common sense is considered bad form here. You have been warned.

So in your exalted opinion, my finding the treatment of the Native Americans reprehensible makes me an “anachronistic-speaking” schoolboy? Pinchie, I do not consider it anachronistic to point out the morally reprehensible treatment of Native Americans, it is a concept perfectly suited to many of our problems today, our backing of Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians comes to mind.

You can’t weigh the consequences of moral decisions made in a much different period of time unless you’re prepared to try and understand the moral constraints they were operating under.

As far as I can tell, from the moral equivalence argument you attempt to put forth, the crimes perpetrated against the Native Americans were hunky-dory because we were able to beat the Russians, Spaniards and French to the punch. Besides, by 1800 we had already wiped most of them out through disease, so what the hell difference does it make.

Somebody was going to take their land. It was there for the taking. Would you rather it had been the Russians or Spanish? They were going to treat the natives far worse than 19th-century Americans treated them.

And, no, we hadn’t wiped the natives out through disease by any moral agency. All it took was the presence of Old Worlders in the New World to doom the native populations to successive bouts of debilitating diseases. The Old Worlders didn’t have to be Americans, either.

And, of course, we had a manifest destiny to fulfill, so everything is alright.

It didn’t matter. The term didn’t originate until the mid-nineteenth century. Do you think the Native Americans were in better shape before Americans started coming up with a neologism for their land grab? The Americans certainly didn’t need it, and no one else would’ve needed it, either.

A phrase most recently used by Bush to promote our wonderful excursions in the Middle East, it would seem the more thing change, the more they stay the same.

You keep referring to contemporary events in a way that shows I was right to peg you was one of those young dufuses who sees everything through the prism of contemporary politics.

Besides, by 1800 we had already wiped most of them out through disease, so what the hell difference does it make.

Pure speculation. There is no evidence of large scale settlement (greater than 25,000) in what is now the USA that existed at the time the Anglos came. The largest Amerindian settlement was where present day Mexico City is today which was estimated by 250,000 by the conquistadors. Nothing else comes anywhere close. The Maya civilization had collapsed and were long gone.

Without such settlements, no beasts of burden (try getting a yoke on a male bison), and the horse only being introduced by the Spanish, the idea of a large population is unrealistic.

In the US proper there are no excavated large scale settlements (25,000 and above) that existed when the Anglos started settling. You would think there would be something given that we can excavate things as small as the Viking settlements from @1300 and find things.

It’s not about “political correctness”, “son.” It’s about accuracy, “son.”

And it’s funny to hear a leftist call me out for being politically correct. I’m dying here!

So the Cherokee were unique among human people to not try to take territory when they were able?

“…even though no king is about to dispossess us of our freedom…”

Spoken like a true puppet of the DNC.

Jesus said a man who looks upon a woman with lust commits adultery with her in his heart; leave it to modern feminism to substitute rape for adultery in that saying.

Sorry, that was said ABOUT Lillian Hellman, by I think, Mary McCarthy.

Spot on about the Neocons though.

You would probably call yourself a North American Realist. But I think that you are just a Nationalistic Realist. You are only as subjective about your (Anglo) and the related nation (US) as a developed nation national of about average education should be. It is mostly the red-necks and the mediocre paid propagandists such as the backpfeifengesicht this article is about who go: “Rha, rha, America, Fuck Yeah”. To phrase it simply – you are not too far off the mark, but you do project your Anglo-American way of thinking onto humanity as a whole. Just as not every individual is hungry for control over the fellow-humans, thus for nations. As a non-Anglo I would not consider you a threat, but I would never agree with your benign view of yourself as an Anglospherian.

The US has done a lot of bad in this World, a lot, really a lot. The worst is that the amount of criminality is increasing and it is threatening the whole humanity. The US is the only:
1) country which wanted to develop nuclear weapons,
2) did develop nuclear weapons,
3) did use the nuclear weapons,
4) is now actively developing the next technology of doom – the Anti Ballistic Missile Defense (an enabler of the First Strike), and
5) is in denial of its incessant desire for World domination.
Now, these five make the US the worst part of humanity ever in history, with the participating Jews being the close second and the Germans at a distance behind. The proof of my thesis would be the end of us all, therefore I wish to be proven wrong. But I definitely cannot observe any serious effort by the two problem leading ethno-groups to cast-off their holly grail of domination. The US military is simply the principal Anglo-Jewish tool for World domination (opposite of defense).

“So for good or ill, please do not collapse into civil war and wreck the future of North America until I have a chance die in my bed. Optimistically, give it another 40 years or so. I’m 44. If I live that long, I’ll be happy to see the whole world I knew collapse before me. At that point I’d likely giggle. History is fun like that.”

My what a charming nihilist and fine exemplar of secular modernity for all to see. It is no wonder your kind is dying out and your home country is being obliterated in a frenzy of social engineering and demographic destruction turning it into a extension of the Middle-East and Africa.

I’m sure you’ll live to see England turn into slaughterhouse soon enough. They’ll go long before us, that much is guaranteed with the cowardly and imbecilic lot running the place, along with the rest of Western Europe who imbibed the same ideological poison as you.

It was a real amazing feat by progressives you know, sugar coated totalitarianism combined with nice dose of values free self-indulgence subsidized by the state. Then importing every vile 3rd world savage they could fine and impose them on the natives as a kind of cultural acid.

The ones in North America were nomadic savages and stayed like that for too long as the world moved on. And they paid for it when they met a civilization that wanted the land they weren’t using.

Versions of this played out through history.

However the only one that counts is the Indian story. It’s pretty self-evident as to why. It’s the one with the white man as the bad guy, these people just love to demonize whites. Atrocities by the Ottoman Turks? Can’t use them they are Muslims. Tamerlame, again a Muslim. The killing of 80 million Indians by invading Muslim armies? Again the Muslim thing.

Move on to twentieth century and we have mass bloodbaths by German, Russian and Chinese socialists(Communists) – call them what you will, just totalitarian pukes. They dwarf anything from the previous ages. They don’t count.

Or the slaughter of primitives in Brazil. They don’t matter because it’s done by other brown skins which makes it okay.

That’s the great thing about Left, only some lives matter and even then it’s for political purposes. After the victims serve their purposes your average Leftist they are discarded as so much garbage.

In the end they remain the posturing and screaming phonies they were in college.

And, of course, we had a manifest destiny to fulfill, so everything is alright. 

What’s with all the “we” stuff, slick? Heck, don’t let it bother you. “We” weren’t there. Well, not me, maybe you. You look sorta old. It is what it is, right?

I mean, you don’t get your knickers in a knot when you see a statue of Ghenghis Khan, do you? That boy raped, pillaged and slaughtered the better part of half the populated Earth, yet the Chinese and Mongolians are STILL building statues to him in the East.

Darn proud of him the Chinese and Mongolians are! And I say good on ’em! That boy was one fierce warrior! I wouldn’t dream of demanding the Chinese and Mongolians prostrate themselves, wail and ululate all of Ghenghis Khan’s sins. And I d@mn sure wouldn’t be demanding reparations. It is what it is. Life goes on. Get over it.

A very good comment. My European ancestors were followers of Alexander Mack, radical pietists who settled in the remoter reaches of the Ohio River valley. They were pacifists and maintained friendly relations with their Indian neighbors.
When the American Revolution broke out, the British unleashed their Indian allies on the American frontier settlers. In 1777, my people were horrifically murdered, all but two boys who were captured.
They escaped and vowed eternal vengeance on all Indians. The one who is my direct ancestor is known to have killed at least 40 and possibly as many as 100 Indians, mostly Shawnee, in personal combats. But he married a Delaware woman who stayed with him until his death in 1808. She then traveled westward with her sons, one of whom, my ancestor, married into the northern Cheyenne.
By the time of the Mexican war, one of his sons was in the Oregon Territory, and moved down into California with the Gold Rush and established ranching operations still existing. Doing this involved conflict with the California Indians.
During the Civil War, his son traveled east to join the Union Army to fight the seccesh, but never got farther than Nebraska, as the cavalry unit he joined became involved in the Cheyenne/Sioux war of 1864-5. It’s very likely he engaged in combats with his own relatives.
Some 20 years later, his son, establishing a ranch in Montana, was bushwhacked by a person described as “a breed Cheyenne,” who robbed him, stole his horse and left him for dead. He tracked this man down and killed him in a fight outside Fort Benton.
One of his sons enlisted in the Army and was killed fighting Moros in the Philippines. And one of his grandsons was the first of our clan to return to Europe since the 18th century and fought Germans at Belleau Wood during World War I. Some may have been distant relatives. His son served with the 1st Fighter Group during World War II, again fighting Germans, some of whom may have been distant relatives.
The object of all this is to point out that our American history is complicated, lives intertwined, there were no clear and obvious goods and bads, just what happened to individuals and what they did in reaction to events that affected them personally. As you say, ” The ‘Blame America First’ crowd and the ‘America, Fuck Yeah!’ crowd are both equally obnoxious and ignorant.”
Indeed.

“there was a fair amount of intentional pathogen transfer”

Is this possible, given that we lacked the germ theory of disease until the mid-18th century? I’m aware of one story about smallpox infected blankets, and maybe there are more such stories. But can we say they knew what they were doing, even if they had the general idea of dirty things passing on sickness? What is “a fair amount,” anyway? Obviously the vast majority of deaths from disease couldn’t have been on purpose.

I’ve always found this biological warfare conjecture ridiculous.

Oh those poor peaceful Indians, victims of the awful white colonists.

The conflict pitted the nations of the Iroquois Confederation, led by the dominant Mohawk, against the French-backed and largely Algonquian-speaking tribes of the Great Lakes region.

The wars were brutal and are considered one of the bloodiest series of conflicts in the history of North America. As the Iroquois succeeded in the war and enlarged their territory, they realigned the tribal geography of North America, and destroyed several large tribal confederacies—including the Huron, Neutral, Erie, Susquehannock, and Shawnee—and pushed some eastern tribes west of the Mississippi River, or southward into the Carolinas. The Iroquois also controlled the Ohio Valley lands as hunting ground, from about 1670 onward, as far as can be determined from contemporary French (Jesuit) accounts. The Ohio Country and the Lower Peninsula of Michigan were virtually emptied of Native people as refugees fled westward to escape Iroquois warriors.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beaver_Wars

Hoping to take the stronghold by surprise, on May 7 Pontiac entered Fort Detroit with about 300 men carrying concealed weapons. The British had learned of Pontiac’s plan, however, and were armed and ready. His tactic foiled, Pontiac withdrew after a brief council and, two days later, laid siege to the fort. Pontiac and his allies killed all of the British soldiers and settlers they could find outside of the fort, including women and children. One of the soldiers was ritually cannibalized, as was the custom in some Great Lakes Native cultures.

On May 16, 1763, a group of Wyandots gained entry under the pretense of holding a council, the same stratagem that had failed in Detroit nine days earlier. They seized the commander and killed the other 15 soldiers, as well as British traders at the fort. These were among the first of about 100 traders who were killed in the early stages of the war. The dead were ritually scalped and the fort—as the Wyandots had warned a year earlier—was burned to the ground.
The fifth fort to fall, Fort Michilimackinac (present Mackinaw City, Michigan), was the largest fort taken by surprise. On June 2, 1763, local Ojibwas staged a game of stickball (a forerunner of lacrosse) with visiting Sauks. The soldiers watched the game, as they had done on previous occasions. The ball was hit through the open gate of the fort; the teams rushed in and were given weapons which Native women had smuggled into the fort. The warriors killed about 15 of the 35-man garrison in the struggle; later they killed five more in ritual torture.

Three forts in the Ohio Country were taken in a second wave of attacks in mid-June. Iroquois Senecas took Fort Venango (near the site of the present Franklin, Pennsylvania) around June 16, 1763. They killed the entire 12-man garrison outright, keeping the commander alive to write down the grievances of the Senecas. After that, they ritually burned him at the stake. Possibly the same Seneca warriors attacked Fort Le Boeuf (on the site of Waterford, Pennsylvania) on June 18, but most of the 12-man garrison escaped to Fort Pitt.

On June 19, 1763, about 250 Ottawa, Ojibwa, Wyandot, and Seneca warriors surrounded Fort Presque Isle (on the site of Erie, Pennsylvania), the eighth and final fort to fall. After holding out for two days, the garrison of about 30 to 60 men surrendered, on the condition that they could return to Fort Pitt. The warriors killed most of the soldiers after they came out of the fort.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pontiac%27s_War

A careful, but incomplete tally, of the Mexican victims of Comanche raids shows that between 1831 and 1848 a total of 44 raids of more than 100 men each were sent into Mexico. The victims of these raids amounted to 2,649 dead and 852 captives, of whom 580 were redeemed. The number of livestock stolen surely amounted to more than 100,000. What livestock the Comanche could not steal, they killed.

The bloodiest raiding year was July 1845-June 1846 when 652 Mexicans and 48 Comanches were recorded as killed. The Comanches had turned northern Mexico into a “semicolonized landscape of extraction from which they could mine resources with little cost.”

The Legislature of Chihuahua described the situation it faced in 1846. “We travel the roads…at their [i.e. the Comanches and Apaches] whim; we cultivate the land where they wish and in the amount they wish; we use sparingly things they have left to us until the moment that it strikes their appetite to take them for themselves.” The Comanche raids deep into Mexico created fear that the Comanche soon might even be seen “on the streets of Mexico City.” Traveler Josiah Gregg said that “the whole country from New Mexico to the borders of Durango is almost entirely depopulated. The haciendas and ranchos have been mostly abandoned, and the people chiefly confined to the towns and cities.” When American troops invaded northern Mexico in 1846 they found a devastated landscape and a demoralized people.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comanche%E2%80%93Mexico_Wars

Dear Hibernian:

Sorry, I am not a puppet of any one, least of all of the DNC.

I call it as I see it. If logic means anything to you, so would you. Having guns and having guns are two completely separate issues. Like many handy diversionary tactics, this is just another one. A mindlessly, cheap vote grabber cause.

Anyway, thank you. I take it you agree with all of my other points except the one affronting the NRA.

I love the brown fellow Dinesh and he knows how to get paid while laughing his way to the bank.
America is a beautiful country so find your angle and collect the dope, legally, that is! The smile is so devilish and impish, if I say.

Halleleluyah

However the only one that counts is the Indian story. It’s pretty self-evident as to why. It’s the one with the white man as the bad guy, these people just love to demonize whites. Atrocities by the Ottoman Turks? Can’t use them they are Muslims. Tamerlame, again a Muslim. The killing of 80 million Indians by invading Muslim armies? Again the Muslim thing.

You are playing fast and loose with the term “Indian”. Tamerlane (Timur) is considered a bloodthirsty monster with no redeeming qualities in India, so I have no idea what you are talking about.

“This is opportunistic foreigner presenting a critique of another’s equally opportunistic mind set. D’Souza the Indian see’s my country as a good place to join the establishment. Mercer, the South African, Israeli, Canadian, now American, see’s my country as a good place to make a buck. Both occupy separate rooms in the international rooming house that my country has become.”

Neither D’Souza nor Mercer is an American in any sense of the word. I have to give Mercer credit, though, she’s much more polished that the venom spewing Zionist she used to be. I had an exchange with her years ago about something she wrote (I don’t remember exactly what it was about, but it was either about Israel or immigration, or both) , and she went full zio-nut in two seconds. She had the hasbara talking points down before there was a hasbara. I do remember that she liked to throw around the term anti-semite, and when she wasn’t doing that, she played grammar police or called the legitimacy of the U.S. and its founders into question. Opportunistic foreigner pretty much describes her.

confinment of amerindians in their reserves

Well, they are basically animals put on exhibit in a “human zoo” of sorts. Can’t have them fouling up respectable society.

You missed the point entirely.

Pathogens may have been what finally killed most of them off.

But only because of the conditions most of them were forced to live under because of the white man.

There are plenty of America Indians walking around? Really where? I don’t count some casino Indian as a Native American.

And I don’t count Mexicans as Native Americans either as many of them are the offspring of forced rape of the red woman.

Dinesh D’Souza is quite the physical specimen.

He must be beating women off with a stick.

Great post! Many thanks

Just more proof that Mercer is just your typical leftist. There’s no evidence of any American Indian “Genocide” in the USA. As others have shown, the vast majority of Indians deaths were due to disease which wasn’t the fault of anyone. They didn’t have their land “stolen”. They didn’t own it to begin with, unless you think that by hunting on it every couple years denotes ownership. Its the white man who settled the Great Plains and made it productive farm land.

In any case, we paid the Indians the market rate for the land, for the most part. You can also throw in the fact that the US Government has paid more in welfare for the Indian tribes over the last 100 years then the land they “owned” was worth.

But of course, these are “hate facts” and the leftists and foreigners who constantly shout “Genocide” aren’t interested in the truth.

Seems I am surrounded, I have neither the time nor the inclination to reply to each of your posts, so let me attempt to address the herd in mass. First though, in the spirit of cooperation with the firing squad, let me offer some assistance. I have been dismissed as a: “ young dufuses who sees everything through the prism of contemporary politics” and lectured about “moral anachronistic-spouting schoolmarms and their schoolboys;” pretty weak stuff compared to your hero: Spiro Agnew – “In the United States today, we have more than our share of the nattering nabobs of negativism. They have formed their own 4H Club of the hopeless, hysterical hypochondriacs of history.” That boy could turn a phrase, hope this helps. Just for the record, it has been well over forty years since I saw the inside of a college classroom, and at the time I was too busy holding down two jobs – supporting my family, when I wasn’t studying or in class, to protest anything.

My own family includes many Cherokee. My grandmother, who died at the age of 104, told horrific stories of the period following the 1830 Indian Removal Act, those stories were related to her first hand by her grand parents and others of their generation. Many of her relatives decided to stay in their homes, instead of going on the Trail of Tears. Of those that stayed behind, their crops were burned, their homes destroyed or taken, women were raped, men and women were shot, some were hung and some, like her grandfather, took his family and moved into remote areas of the Smokies, to avoid the lawfully sanctioned murder of them and their children. I can assure you that many of my Cherokee relatives would find your flippant denials or mocking lies both stupid and offensive. They do not waste any time nursing an almost 200 year-old grudge, but to this day, the type of comments I have seen on this thread can bring old resentments back to life. They do not expect sackcloth and ashes, no one alive today is at fault for what happened back then, but lies, denials and flippant dismissals serve no one.

There is a long list of atrocities, which were perpetrated against the Native Americans by our country; many have been covered up or the facts changed by the winners, who wrote the history books. The narrative of god-fearing settlers taming the wilderness and being attacked by wild savages predominates among a certain segment of the population, well represented here. Since some of you repeatedly bring up the plains tribes, let one of the atrocities committed against them, Sand Creek, stand as surrogate for the many others. Pay particular attention to the last paragraph:

Here is a description from the National Parks Service website:

“Cheyenne and Arapaho peace chiefs, influenced by assurances of peace at the Camp Weld Conference, reported to Fort Lyon throughout October of 1864. The fort’s commander told Black Kettle and other leaders to await a peace delegation at their camp on Sand Creek and to fly the U.S. flag to indicate their peaceful intent. Throughout November, these elders waited.

On November 29, U.S. Army (Volunteer) soldiers attacked the village. Disregarding the greetings and calls to stop, these “beings in the form of men” fired indiscriminately at the Cheyenne and Arapaho. Of approximately seven hundred people in the village, about two hundred died that day. Two-thirds of the dead and mutilated bodies left on the ground were women and children.

Boasting of his victory and downplaying Army casualties, Colonel John Chivington paraded the body parts of dead Cheyenne and Arapaho through the streets of Denver, reveling in the acclaim he long-sought.”
http://www.nps.gov/sand/learn/news/the-sand-creek-massacre-nov-2014.htm

No doubt, some of you would have been expressing your acclaim, with the good citizens of Denver. Some of you will doubtless defend the actions of Chivington and company by pointing to some other atrocity committed at some other time somewhere else; others will think – so what, it happened a long time ago – get over it, you are interrupting our self-congratulatory celebration of our “exceptionalism”; and there are those who seem to have the mindset of old queens, in between their hormone shots, using the majority of their posts to snipe so that they can revel in the sound of their own twittering. Some of the posters are thoughtful individuals who just think it is an old story and serves no purpose in its retelling. Let me address the latter.

The mindset that allows the dismissal of the countries past crimes facilitates new crimes. I don’t believe we should dwell on our governments past wrongdoing, but denying or dismissing them is a poisonous cover for new abuses, and corruption. The same with our current, er, ventures. Ignoring evil and keeping it in the dark, by wrapping the flag around it, will only make it grow. Eventually you may find yourself or yours on the receiving end of the same tender mercies the government has shown others.

And let’s remind of this one:

The Marias Massacre (also known as the Baker Massacre or the Piegan Massacre) was a massacre of a friendly band of Piegan Blackfeet Indians on January 23, 1870 by the United States Army in Montana Territory during the Indian Wars. About 200 Indians were killed, mostly women and children, and elderly men.

During a campaign to suppress Mountain Chief’s band of Piegan Blackfeet, who harbored a man named Owl Child, said to have murdered a white trader and rancher, Malcolm Clarke, the U.S. Army instead attacked a band led by Heavy Runner, a chief who had been promised protection by the United States government

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marias_Massacre

Thank you

The natives, who actually “here firsters”, lost to the white man Boo hoo. Losers get handed oodles of crap. That is what happens when you are on the losing end. My ancestry is PA Quaker, and since Billy Penn bought Pennsylvania, I can stick up my nose and moralize. Yet I won’t. When you turn over your home that sits on former Indian territory (yep I typed Indian…ooh…), I’ll consider joining the pontificating about poor native tribes. Hmm…no I won’t. As for Dinesh, he is a rah, rah type of guy. It’s kinda cute.

Losers get handed oodles of crap

http://ronaldthomaswest.com/2013/05/24/the-michelle-bachmann-archetype/

^ In your face ‘loser’ Marian, you sound about as Quaker as Michelle Bachmann

One of the best posts I have seen in these pages. Comprehensive, informative and tackles the various spins, disguised as genuine historical insight, very effectively. It has lessons for those of us attempting to gauge the current condition in the I/P theatre. As someone who hasn’t studied this history carefully, I find myself drawn to doing so now. RTW also has some good discussion at his website.

Thank You

Dinesh D’Souza is quite the physical specimen.

He must be beating women off with a stick.

If you like conservative, well-educated, blonde WASPs, this indian-american immigrant has been a successful ladies man:

http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2015/04/dinesh-dsouza-video-life-after-conviction

He also became a hot commodity among blonde conservatives. After dating Laura Ingraham and then Ann Coulter, he found the ultimate prize in Dixie Brubaker, a beautiful blonde from a conservative California family, whom he had met while working in the White House; they married in 1992. D’Souza admits, “It was my mission to marry the all-American girl.”

This article has pictures of all the women mentioned above:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2219974/Dinesh-DSouza-Conservative-pundit-resigns-Kings-College-New-York-amid-infidelity-claims.html

Michelle Bachmann is a sincere Christian. She is Lutheran. Marian’s claim to Quaker ancestry is not equivalent to a claim to be Quaker.

Don’t hold back, tell him what you really think.

It is not about truth, it is about facts, and you should just forget about trying to handle those.

It was disease, but mostly, as Michael Medved wrote, it was a stone age people fighting against a culture that had the railroad and repeating rifles.

” the dividing line between a thoughtful human being with a soul,”

ONLY a liberal considers his views on what constitutes “a thoughtful human being with a soul,”
as FACT.

Please tell us all about global warming, now.

Brainless, propaganda parroting twit.

If you like conservative, well-educated, blonde WASPs, this indian-american immigrant has been a successful ladies man:

Now that’s funny! From the article:

‘I had no idea that it is considered wrong in Christian circles to be engaged prior to being divorced, even though in a state of separation and in divorce proceedings.’

‘Obviously I would not have introduced Denise as my fiancee at a Christian apologetics conference if I had thought or known I was doing something wrong.’

What a lying fuckin’ little prick! Another Republican, family values con-servative. And a Christian APOLOGETICS conference? Well at least they know their parishioners.

BTW; per the earlier tete-a-tete between the author and the commenter, I looked you up Miss Mercer (Mrs.? Ms.? sorry) you are WAY hotter than any of D’souzas bimbos. Good job Guurl!

Existential Confusion lives up to his name.

Inundated with facts and arguments that show the demise of the Native Americans was caused far less by U.S. government policy than by disease and the Amerinds’ inability to compete, he retreats to emotional descriptions of a couple of massacres that might have killed one-ten thousandth of the Native American populations living at the time.

Nobody I’ve seen denies this history took place. What they deny is that it was central to the demise of Native Americans ruling in their own land – or that the Europeans could’ve expected any better if the shoe had been on the other foot.

Existential Confusion’s history is, after all, a little one-sided. Native Americans were committing their own atrocities. The difference was not one of morality, but one of power. The Europeans had it; the Native Americans did not.

The mindset that allows the dismissal of the countries past crimes facilitates new crimes.

But of course it does no such thing. History is not some karma-producing machine that tries to live up to Existential Confusion’s sense of justice.

Michelle Bachmann is a sincere Christian

Yes, unfortunately that means she (as the great many Christians, particularly those on the right) had been sucked into a fiction (‘The Christ’) invented by Saint Paul.

http://ronaldthomaswest.com/2013/04/11/celebrating-the-anti-christ/

Jesus is almost certainly the most lied about man in the annals of Humankind.

It was disease, but mostly, as Michael Medved wrote, it was a stone age people fighting against a culture that had the railroad and repeating rifles

With all due respect to Michel Medved, I have the advantage of authentic Blackfoot oral history. It was disease. The majority of Blackfeet Indians had died before there was any trans-Appalachian settlement, from common cold, measles and smallpox, which had swept up from the south in the early 1500s. By the time Coronado had explored West Texas from the Rio Grande valley, he’d discovered entire Native ghost towns in a depopulated region. The Northern Plains iteration of the same epidemics are the (now mostly plowed under) thousands upon thousands of tipi rings. The Western anthropologists mistakenly believe these rings are much older than they actually are; but tent stakes were adopted from the early White traders tents, a new technique that spread and preceded the actual traders arrival in the Plains. Previous to this the tipis had been secured by stones. When the camps were moved, the stones were removed and stacked. Intact tipi rings indicate those camps (entire villages) where nearly all the inhabitants had died. Oral Historian Floyd HeavyRunner (my personal friend and close associate of over thirty years) estimated (he thought) conservatively 2/3 or more Blackfeet population reduction prior to encountering the Hudson Bay Company traders (pre-Lewis & Clark.)

I would go on to point out you are at least somewhat correct relating to the technology disadvantage but it took the deliberate eradication of the Bison herds to actually bring the Plains tribes to heel sooner rather than later.

RTW also has some good discussion at his website

Thank you Sam, here’s the link for those interested in exploring:

http://ronaldthomaswest.com/2014/08/17/life-in-indian-country/

Yours is one of the best posts I have ever seen at unz.com. It was worth reading even just for this simple statement of fact: “The mindset that allows the dismissal of the countries past crimes facilitates new crimes.” Is there any “war” the US has fought that does not prove this, every past atrocity leads to the new one.

My nation is 7,000 miles away from your ancestors in space and 150 years in time. Yet it was bombed repeatedly by the US and its servants and many people were killed. The first time the bombing started, most people were in disbelief, most of us have been educated on the diet of US movies, particularly the Westerns were the good guys always win. Crazily, most people did not believe that we would be bombed until the bombs started falling. Just like they justified most massacres of your people with some misapplied story of your massacre of the white settlers or by the bringing of “progress”, they justified the bombing of us by humanitarian reasons – they were saving someone else from us, in reality they were bombing us to take our ancestral land.

I do believe that if they owned up to and paid for what they did to your and other Indian nations, they would not have done exactly the same many, many times later, every day, today and tomorrow. Hiroshima and Nagasaki would not have happened. Instead, they keep generating the lying propaganda BS, to which this ugly character has contributed.

I used to believe that US people were materially rich because they are well organized and worked very hard. Now I realize that the main reason they are materially rich is because they have stolen so much from others. The US is a nation, with some exclusions, of murderers and thieves with a complex of exceptionalism, faux morality and hollow grandeur.

always bolsters your case when you start a post by calling the other guy a childish name.

His point is a valid one though. What has become of Anglo Americans that an Indian and a Jew have louder voices than they do? Do the WASPs not have the right to be tribal as both above mentioned groups inherently are? Has organized Jewry not worked to counter Anglo Americans attempts to form a collective identity ? Have Indian Americans voted in concert with WASP Americans , their hosts?

Are you surprised? the country is giving away rooms at rock bottom prices, why wouldn’t opportunists move in?

Apu E. Neuman?

Thank you, I appreciate the kind words.

So for good or ill, please do not collapse into civil war and wreck the future of North America until I have a chance die in my bed. Optimistically, give it another 40 years or so. I’m 44.

Am I to understand from this that you acknowledge that you depend from your livelihood on a disgusting, corrupt and unsustainable mutation of Anglo-European culture and cultural outpost but you’re just too damned comfy to welcome the chance to do anything about it?

If there is a future generation of white Christians, they will curse you and your kind for leaving them such a horrid world.

It [America] has contributed less to culture than, oh, Germany, but its sins are also the lesser of the pair. It’s contributed more to invention than most.

Our mid-20th century invention boom surely had nothing to do with the Nazi scientists we picked off the remains of the German Empire in 1945. None at all.

While I agree that nuancing is in order to temper the excesses of certain anti-Anglo/anti-American white nationalist types, you have to do it for the right reasons. The problem is that you seem to be too deeply complacent yourself (see above) to send up the complacency of Europeans, Canadians and ANZers with their present status of U.S. vassalhood (the entire reason why they continue to bow to ridiculous American demands).

There is some truth to what you write. However, whatever we may think of nuclear weapons (and I must admit I am among those who think there is good reason to question the wisdom of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombardments), they have claimed far fewer lives than the many hundreds of millions claimed in the name of Nazism, Communism and Japanese Imperialism combined.

I do not like much of the cultural stupidity imposed by the U.S. since the end of World War II. But it is perhaps too easy to say here in Europe, seventy some-odd years down the road, that it would have been better to have the painful Communist interlude all over and break out gloriously and definitively. How many 20th-century Europeans, apart from idiot left-wing partisans, would seriously have wanted to succumb to this even if they could have known what they were exposing themselves to?

France caved on the sale of the warships to Russia under U.S. pressure. There can be no gainsaying that. The price for non-complicity would have been heavy at least in the short- and medium-term. Until and unless Europeans decide to tolerate, politically, such a price, the foreseeable future will remain one of U.S. vassalhood.

I am sorry for the pain for that you and yours have had to endure.

I hope that you can separate the actions of the U.S. government from the citizenry at large, just as I am sure you would not want others to equate some actions of your own government with your country’s people. I am as guilty as any of equating a people with their rulers / government; it is an ongoing battle within myself to remember that they are not one in the same. Even a country founded in a noble and benign intent, which I believe ours was, without constant vigilance, will eventually fall prey to the tyranny of those with money and power over the citizenry. That transition from liberty to, in our case, an insidious tyranny – wearing the mask of patriotism, has always been the biggest threat to our freedom. Our “war on terror” is just the latest, and most successful ploy of our rulers to advance their agendas of power and wealth. The, largely U.S. government created, external threats are used to steal our citizen’s wealth and freedoms, while using their sons and daughters as canon fodder in conflicts that serve no one’s interests but our rulers – elected and not.

By ignoring and excusing the past and ongoing, crimes of our government, it allows our rulers the cover of the benefit of the doubt for their expressed noble intent, and erroneously assume the best of a pernicious ruling class. The results are foreign wars and domestic oppression. In the U.S.A. one result is the patriotic act, and the invasive omnipresent spying, which allows the preemptive destruction of any perceived threat; the problem is that the only threat our rulers are concerned with is the threat to their own power and agenda.

Our founding fathers did not trust government, they saw it as a necessary evil, which needed to be constantly watched and kept in check, to assure that it served the needs of a free citizenry. Today, too many Americans have got that relationship backwards.

I submit that one of the worst atrocity committed by the US government against the American Indian tribes was the removal of the Cherokee; but nobody has mentioned the most shameful element of the story: that President Andrew Jackson willfully contravened the Supreme Court. Cherokee chief John Ross argued in front of SCOTUS and won; Jackson responded “Mr. Marshall has made his decision, now let him enforce it.” The complete rejection of the Constitution and rule of law by Jackson is one of the most shameful episodes in US history; Obama has nothing on Jackson…

But, in the end, it would not really have mattered if Jackson had upheld his oath of office; the former colonists were going to sweep over the whole continent one way or another. And, as the many Cherokee that I know agree, we are all much the better for it. The Trail of Tears and the other atrocities committed by the U.S. Government were horrific and cruel and shameful, but no sane American Indian of today wants to live in a world where America didn’t expand and conquer the natives – they are far better off today than they would have been had that not happened, and they know it.

And that is IMHO the history of the United States in a nutshell: the U.S. has done plenty of things that, taken in isolation, are terrible, but overall the world is a much better place for the U.S. Counterfactuals get us nowhere.

I am sorry for the pain for that you and yours have had to endure.

Great. Now the thread has become a group therapy session for a bunch of Miniver Cheevys with a little Native American blood and a even thinner grasp of history. They feel sorry for themselves for crimes that were never committed against them and for losing a way of life they never had.

I recommend more fiber, perhaps your anger is just the result of irritable bowl syndrome. Then again, it could be terminal constipation, because obviously the shit has backed up to your brain.

I have not included “Pincher Martin” on my Ignore This Commenter list but all your posts appear as if blocked in the list of comments. I see no reason to suppose that I would have put you on my Ignore list under any name so I can’t even find a technically unlikely reason for your comments being blocked. This is the second time this has happened in my experience. Before I report it directly to Ron U as a problem would you care to say whether you have commented under some other name – and if so what name?

You’re the one with the anger – and all because of an fictional past you imagine yourself to be the victim of.

The fact that this history did not take place in the way you have imagined it does not assuage your angry moral righteousness. You still are upset about long distant events of which you have a very imperfect understanding. But what’s worse is that you have no desire to improve your thinking about those events. Learning about the facts and the context would merely dull your righteousness, so you weave your way around them.

Most people who are like this are not really angry about the past; they are angry about the present – and their place in it.

Before I report it directly to Ron U as a problem would you care to say whether you have commented under some other name – and if so what name?

I’ve only posted as Pincher Martin.

I am not sure why you replied to my comment. Does it mean that you have some sort of private feud with this NGB commenter that you are playing out in public and I am not to interfere?

I read the three links that you put into your reply to NGB. I book-marked your website so that I can read more of your writing.

What did you mean by “have to immigrate?”

If NGB is a “real Murican” is he not within his rights to object to all immigration whether the immigrant “had to” immigrate or is invaluable to our wonderful country?

This is not intended to be any sort of defense of anti-Semitism.

You’re the one with the anger – and all because of an fictional past you imagine yourself to be the victim of.

That’s funny, I neither feel like a victim, nor have I ever asserted I am a victim. So, which section of your ass did you pull that imaginary scenario from? Every post you have aimed at me has been insulting and derogatory to me personally, I suppose in some misguided attempt to compensate for a lack of manhood in your personal life. Hint: the Internet tough-guy thing really isn’t that believable. You are not interested in a productive discourse, just a bad mitten exchange of cheap insults and rhetorical one-upmanship. Only assertions that fit your preconceived notions of your ruler’s approved dogma are acceptable, any fact that doesn’t fit is labeled an emotional narrative or liberal drivel.

You exemplify what has most divided our country, and given cover to liberal assertions amongst the population at large, that being a smug self-righteousness and cheap imitation of patriotism, lacking either the courage or intellect to oppose the status quo. In another time, you would have worn a powdered wig and sworn allegiance to King George III. Actually, you probably did swear allegiance to King George Bush I & II.

Most people who are like this are not really angry about the past; they are angry about the present – and their place in it.

You are as prescient as you are pleasant – OK I’ll play. I suffer neither anger nor angst, I am retired and my life is quite comfortable; I am surrounded by friends and family, and spend my days in surroundings that most people only get to visit on their vacations. You, I would judge by your constant need to be seen asserting yourself, are an emotional hemorrhoid, afflicting any family who have not yet been able to extricate themselves from your company. It is probably too late, but you really should try to get help.

And, as the many Cherokee that I know agree, we are all much the better for it. The Trail of Tears and the other atrocities committed by the U.S. Government were horrific and cruel and shameful, but no sane American Indian of today wants to live in a world where America didn’t expand and conquer the natives – they are far better off today than they would have been had that not happened, and they know it

So, they’re now Cherokee Americans, like Irish Americans or Japanese Americans where sanity excludes the fact the industrial revolution and capitalism-consumerism overtaken the world via events like the soon to be TPP determines natural resources in 2015 are already depleted faster than nature can regenerate those same resources in a full year (it happened a week sooner this year than last year.) Welcome to the new norm of sanity where inevitable environmental-social collapse are mere abstracts of science and meanwhile not to worry, ‘The Rapture’ will take care of everything (that’s irony folks but I have to spell it out for the Christians, they’re kinda literal.)

That’s funny, I neither feel like a victim, nor have I ever asserted I am a victim. So, which section of your ass did you pull that imaginary scenario from? Every post you have aimed at me has been insulting and derogatory to me personally, I suppose in some misguided attempt to compensate for a lack of manhood in your personal life. Hint: the Internet tough-guy thing really isn’t that believable.

You think my posts have sounded tough? You have no idea what that words means.

And if my posts have been mildly insulting and derogatory, perhaps that tone is a reasonable response to the content of your posts, which have been both ignorant and heavily laden with emotional sentimentality about history that reduces everything down to moral posturing about a few episodes of history. You’re the kind of guy who thinks the Vietnam War can be reduced to the My Lai Massacre and an Oliver Stone film.

You are not interested in a productive discourse, just a bad mitten exchange of cheap insults and rhetorical one-upmanship. Only assertions that fit your preconceived notions of your ruler’s approved dogma are acceptable, any fact that doesn’t fit is labeled an emotional narrative or liberal drivel.

I’m very interested in productive discourse, but no one is going to get that from you.

Several posters here have attempted to tell you that you are wrong on your facts. You don’t listen to them. Instead, you prefer to double down on the emotion. You feel you’re right because … well because your feelings tell you that you are.

I should have just agreed with the poster I was replying to, instead of bringing up an old exchange from a long dead forum that you don’t even remember. Bash away all you want for that.

FWIW, I wasn’t under the impression that you are any sort of Likudnik or settler crazy, or that you are a highly paid writer. And if my post reveals hatred, you’ve lived a charmed life.

You missed the point entirely.

Pathogens may have been what finally killed most of them off.

But only because of the conditions most of them were forced to live under because of the white man.

Afraid not, dear fellow.Try researching, for example, the small-pox epidemics that decimated numerous tribes in the West in the years 1800-1825.That was long before Anglos started putting Amerinds in Reserves.

There are plenty of America Indians walking around? Really where? I don’t count some casino Indian as a Native American.

Why not, dear fellow? Those are the Amerinds who are doing rather well for themselves these days.

And I don’t count Mexicans as Native Americans either as many of them are the offspring of forced rape of the red woman.

Big on purity of blood, eh? Incidentally, do people still use phrases like “red woman?” I was under the impression that it was un-PC

re: Andrew Jackson and the Indian Wars

I’m hardly an expert, but from reading Remini’s biography of Jackson a few years ago I distinctly remember there had been genocidal attacks by Indians — Creeks in this case — against white settlers before Jackson entered the war. In fact the same thing happened in Virginia at the very beginning, the Indians attacking first as I recall. Of course this has always been the way among uncivilized people since before history began — you see it in the Old Testament — just as conquest and servitude have been the way of the civilized. Give America and her victorious Western European allies in World Wars I and II some credit that they are trying to draw a line marked finished to both of these age-old habits of mankind. That is truly something new.

My own family includes many Cherokee.

Oh, dear, ancestral resentment.It’s quite interesting how that emotion only strengthens as the ancestry becomes attenuated…

My grandmother, who died at the age of 104, told horrific stories of the period following the 1830 Indian Removal Act, those stories were related to her first hand by her grand parents and others of their generation. Many of her relatives decided to stay in their homes, instead of going on the Trail of Tears. Of those that stayed behind, their crops were burned, their homes destroyed or taken, women were raped, men and women were shot, some were hung and some, like her grandfather, took his family and moved into remote areas of the Smokies, to avoid the lawfully sanctioned murder of them and their children.

Well, let’s look at the numbers:

Trail of Tears
Trager, The People’s Chronology: 4,000 out of 14,000 Cherokee die on route.
Osborne: anywhere between 1,846 and 18,000 Indians died, in total.

http://necrometrics.com/wars19c.htm#AmerInd

MMMM, so , under 20,000.

Now, let’s compare that to something really bloody:

The Sino-Dzungar War (1755-57):

What was it: Basically, the Chinese decided to exterminate a people called the Dzungars.

How many Dzungars were killed: Standard estimate* is that the Chinese killed around 600,000 men, women, and children.

So, that’s a maximum of 20,000 vs 600,000….

Ah, Colonel John Chivington and the Sand Creek Massacre….

Well, there’s always this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_massacre_of_1622

“The Indian Massacre of 1622 took place in the English Colony of Virginia, in what now belongs to the United States, on Friday, 22 March 1622.[ …..]The Powhatan grabbed any tools or weapons available and killed all English settlers they found, including men, women and children of all ages. Chief Opechancanough led a coordinated series of surprise attacks by the Powhatan Confederacy that killed 347 people, a quarter of the English population of Jamestown.”

And then there are all the Amerind-on-Amerind massacres:

“The Cutthroat Gap Massacre occurred in 1833, the “The Year the Stars Fell” in Oklahoma.[1] A group of Osage warriors charged into a Kiowa camp and brutally slaughtered the women, children and elderly there. Most of the warriors of this group of Kiowas, headed by Chief A’date or “Islandman” had left to raid a band of Utes or had gone buffalo hunting.[2] The camp was left mainly unguarded and when the Osage came, the Kiowas had no choice but to flee. The Osage killed approximately 150 Kiowa people and took their sacred Tai-me medicine bundle and two children captive.”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cutthroat_Gap_Massacre

The mindset that allows the dismissal of the countries past crimes facilitates new crimes. I don’t believe we should dwell on our governments past wrongdoing, but denying or dismissing them is a poisonous cover for new abuses, and corruption.

Who’s denying or dismissing, dear fellow? Well, barring, of course, Amerind apologists, who seem to think that Amerinds were gentle children of nature, completely incapable committing any evil acts…..

No, I’m just keen on keeping a proper sense of proportion.

*Cf Sources such as John DeFrancis’ In the Footsteps of Genghis Khan (p. 175), Rene Grousett’s Empire of the Steppes: A History of Central Asia (537-538), etc

Jesus said no such thing.

You think my posts have sounded tough? You have no idea what that words means.

I’ve seen tough guy posers and wannabe bullies before, they never impressed me, and neither do you.

And if my posts have been mildly insulting and derogatory, perhaps that tone is a reasonable response to the content of your posts

Your response to my posts are nasty, because you do not agree with them, and being the type of immature lack-wit, unable to discuss an issue on the merits, you resort to schoolyard tactics.

Several posters here have attempted to tell you that you are wrong on your facts. You don’t listen to them

So, Several posters have told me I’m wrong, so what, I disagree – of course that isn’t allowed, it upsets you, too bad. Several posters agree with me, are they suppose to bow, to to your opinions? because bottom line that’s all you have, Pincher, opinions. Just exactly what have you brought to this discussion, Pincher? What facts, what references? You bring nothing, except your own self-importance, and get then your panties in a wad, every time someone disagrees with you.

And what facts did your “several posters” offer? Some Syon posts some post 1800 population figures he got from some sight called necrometrics – is the the highest authority to which all must bow? A cursory glance shows that much of the basis relies on census figures, do you really believe the tribes were self reporting or were white just filling in the blanks. Just out of curiosity., do you believe the government figures on illegal immigration? Syons point was that more Native Americans died do to the pathogens introduced by whites, than were killed by massacre. OK, I will go along with that, I believe that is accurate. I believe overall the figures are low, but there is no way of knowing for sure.

Syon also posts some figures (not referenced) siting number of whites and Natives killed in direct conflict, again, who put together the tally, the Army, it doesn’t matter I guess the jist is that even armed with bows and knives, against small arms and artillery the Natives put up a pretty good fight.

My contention, has been that U.S. Government set out to steal the Natives land, and did so through violence treachery and broken treaties. You can disagree with me on whether that was right are wrong, but the facts are there.

I am not qualified, and neither are you, to speak to the Plains Indians plight. For that I would recommend Ronald Thomas White’s website: http://ronaldthomaswest.com/2014/08/17/life-in-indian-country/

What knowledge I possess is of the The Eastern Tribes Primarily the Cherokee Nation.

Let’s start with the author of so much misery, your hero: Andy J.

Here is the American Governments policy towards Native Americans as, enunciated be Andrew Jackson in his First Annual Message to Congress, December 8, 1829 – Straight from the Asses mouth.

By persuasion and force they have been made to retire from river to river and from mountain to mountain, until some of the tribes have become extinct and others have left but remnants to preserve for awhile their once terrible names. Surrounded by the whites with their arts of civilization, which by destroying the resources of the savage doom him to weakness and decay, the fate of the Mohegan, the Narragansett, and the Delaware is fast overtaking the Choctaw, the Cherokee, and the Creek. That this fate surely awaits them if they remain within the limits of the states does not admit of a doubt. Humanity and national honor demand that every effort should be made to avert so great a calamity.” — Andrew Jackson

In other words, we stole their land, destroyed the resources they need to survive, and now that we have weakened them through treachery, deceit and force of arms, we can just ship the survivors off to barren land in Oklahoma, where they can serve as a buffer between us and the Spanish

Here is a sentiment to warm your heart, Pincher:

Fifth Annual Message to Congress, December 3, 1833:
They have neither the intelligence, the industry, the moral habits, nor the desire of improvement which are essential to any favorable change in their condition. Established in the midst of another and a superior race, and without appreciating the causes of their inferiority or seeking to control them, they must necessarily yield to the force of circumstances and ere long disappear.” — Andrew Jackson

Seems pretty identical to your manifest destiny and the Israeli attitude toward the Palestinians. I deem your culture inferior to ours so we have the right to do with you as we please.

Some 100,000 American Indians forcibly removed from what is now the eastern United States to what was called Indian Territory included members of the Cherokee, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Creek, and Seminole tribes. The U.S. government coerced treaties or used the U.S. Army against those resisting. Many were treated brutally. An estimated 3,500 Creeks died in Alabama and on their westward journey. Some were transported in chains.

In 1830-the same year the Indian Removal Act was passed – gold was found on Cherokee lands. Georgia held lotteries to give Cherokee land and gold rights to whites. Cherokees were not allowed to conduct tribal business, contract, testify in courts against whites, or mine for gold. The Cherokees successfully challenged Georgia in the U.S. Supreme Court. President Jackson, when hearing of the Court’s decision, reportedly said, “[Chief Justice] John Marshall has made his decision; let him enforce it now if he can.”

So the “law and order claim, you made, seems to not be true.

Most Cherokees, including Chief John Ross, did not believe that they would be forced to move. In May 1838, Federal troops and state militias began the roundup of the Cherokees into stockades. In spite of warnings to troops to treat the Cherokees kindly, the roundup proved harrowing. Families were separated-the elderly and ill forced out at gunpoint – people given only moments to collect cherished possessions. White looters followed, ransacking homesteads as Cherokees were led away.

By November, 12 groups of 1,000 each were trudging 800 miles overland to the west.
By March 1839, all survivors had arrived in the west. No one knows how many died throughout the ordeal, but the trip was especially hard on infants, children, and the elderly. Missionary doctor Elizur Butler, who accompanied the Cherokees, estimated that over 4,000 died-nearly a fifth of the Cherokee population.

About 1,000 Cherokees in Tennessee and North Carolina escaped the roundup. They gained recognition in 1866, establishing their tribal government in 1868 in Cherokee, North Carolina. Today, they are known as the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians.
http://www.nps.gov/trte/learn/historyculture/stories.htm

The abbreviated timeline of the Cherokee nation from the first treaty (broken) with the United States to The trail of Tears

1785
Treaty of Hopewell, is the first treaty between the United States government and the Cherokees. (includes land cession # 10a and # 10b). Cherokee think this will be the end of the settlers’ invasion of Cherokee land. Within three years bitter fighting will erupt as settlers continued to move into the Cherokee Nation.

1786
“It may be regarded as certain that not a foot of land will ever be taken from the Indians
without their own consent.” – Thomas Jefferson 1786

1791
Treaty of Holston (includes land cession # 11 and civilization clause and annuities). Cherokee cede land in eastern Tennessee in exchange for President Washington’s guarantee that the Cherokee Nation will never again be invaded by settlers. The treaty forces Americans to obtain passports to enter Cherokee lands, and grants Cherokee the right to evict settlers. It also includes a call for the U.S. to advance the civilization of the Cherokees by giving them farm tools and technical advice. It further provides that the Cherokee nation send a delegate to congress.

1798
Treaty of Tellico Blockhouse (cession # 12, # 13, # 14; guarantee of land forever).

1802
Georgia Compact (regarding future Indian land cessions). President Thomas Jefferson signs and agrees with the state of Georgia to removal of all American Indians in exchange for the state’s claim of western lands.

1805
Land cessions # 16, # 17, and # 18. The Cherokee Nation’s population has dwindled to less than 12,000 and it has now lost more than half its land.

1814
Cherokees are instrumental in assisting General Andrew Jackson in defeating the Creeks at Horseshoe Bend. Jackson admits that the Cherokee were responsible for his victory. Sequoyah is among the Cherokees at the battle. Jackson demands cessions of 2.2 million acres from the Cherokee
1819
Final cession of land in Georgia, and part of a much larger cession, the Cherokee give up claims to all land east of the Chattahoochee River. Land cessions # 27, # 28, # 29, # 30, # 31, # 32, # 33, # 34, and # 35. A new council house, consisting of two open shelters facing each other with a log house at one end, is constructed at New Town and the seat of the Cherokee government moves there. Major Ridge leads the procession of Cherokee officials into the Council House for the first session.

1830
Indian Removal Act passes U.S. Congress.

1832
In the Worcester vs. Georgia court case, the U.S. Supreme Court upholds Cherokee sovereignty supposedly protecting Cherokees from Georgia laws. President Jackson ignores the court ruling quipping let the Chief Justice enforce it. Georgia begins land lottery and gold lottery, and the Cherokee land (including homes) is divided and deeds are distributed to Georgia citizens who registered for the lottery.

1838
General Winfield Scott and 7,000 U.S. troops are dispatched with orders to “remove the Cherokee by any means necessary.” Deadline for voluntary removal is May 23rd. The Georgia Guard begin the round-up five days early. The official round-up begins on May 26th and continues in Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama, and North Carolina, where the Cherokee — men, women, and children – are forced from their comfortable homes and herded into “forts” (military stockades), gradually making their way north to the Cherokee Agency in southeastern Tennessee. Bad sanitary conditions, lack of privacy, non-existent washing and bathing facilities, foul drinking water, and unhealthy food, both demoralize the Cherokee and create serious health hazards. Sickness is widespread. The first detachment of Cherokees (2,700) leave for the west in June but, due to drought and summer diseases, many deaths occur, and removal is suspended until cooler weather. Most of the remaining 13,000 Cherokees spend the summer in the internment camps and finally leave by wagon, horseback, or on foot during October and November. June 19th the last group of Cherokees leave New Echota (former capital of the Cherokee Nation). On November 25thTsali is executed (martyred) halting the hunt for fleeing Cherokees (about 1,000 avoided removal).

1838 – 39
The “Trail of Tears” roundup, imprisonment, and forced 800 mile march to Oklahoma causes the death of as many as four thousand or more of the 15,000 to 17,000 Cherokees removed.
http://wsharing.com/WScherokeeTimeline.htm

Pretty much seems that my assertions of atrocity, theft and murder, have some merit

So sayeth “The Jesus Seminar.”

Are you really expecting someone to read all that?

And a cursory glance tells me you suffer from selective outrage. Injun atrocities were far worse than anything whites ever did. The Injuns were primitive pagans who married their daughters off at 13. Some were cannibals. I could go on and on. Your tale of woe does not impress. The Injuns were brutal. Deal with it.

I did read all that (of @Existential Confusion) and I am glad for it.

But I quickly disregarded your BS paragraph, just another US red-neck whose predecessors massacred the aboriginal population under various BS justifications: progress, brutality of the aboriginals etc. Nothing has changed and will not change until you sample your own medicine one fine day.

The Cherokee and other of the Civilized Tribes were treated harshly and I think in a spirit of acquisitiveness.

There is a theme in the story of Indian-White interaction that Isn’t being addressed. No group was more bloodthirsty toward the displaced eastern Indians than plains Indians. Sauk and Fox, Delaware’s etc. were frequent victims to Kiowa’s, Cheyennes, and other plains tribes. It was in part to protect these tribes that the post Civil War campaigns were launched. It was not the whole reason by any means, but it was cited at the time.

A tragedy of the westward expansion was that those sophisticated tribes that lived more settled lives were very hard hit by disease as well as their savage cousins of the plain.

One significant cause of Indian deaths related to the Indian wars was exposure. The practice of raiding Indian villages during the winter was a standard procedure. Typically, Indians ran off and hid if not captured or killed. Many subsequently perished as the army would burn indian food stocks, dwellings etc. Most could have surrendered but chose to remain with their people and take their chances. Contrary to modern propaganda, it was always Army policy to take prisoners.

It is a bit extreme to rely on the Sand Creek story as your example. The troops who perpetrated this massacre were not army regulars. They were Colorado Volunteer Cavalry serving during the Civil War. The Army was outraged by Col. Chivington’s behavior and brought charges against him. He escaped the firing squad on a technicality, but was considered a disgraced man afterwords. There were many instances of the army attacking Indian villages but none were as bad as Sand Creek. Even the second attack on Black Kettle’s village on the Washita was more restrained.

Nothing has changed and will not change until you sample your own medicine one fine day.

Haha ! Kiza’s post is an excellent example of how the morality of the so-called oppressed of the earth is not much different than the morality of the so-called oppressors when they have an opportunity to use power. He’s practically licking his lips waiting for the opportunity to make us “sample” our own medicine.

I’ve seen tough guy posers and wannabe bullies before, they never impressed me, and neither do you….

Your response to my posts are nasty, because you do not agree with them, and being the type of immature lack-wit, unable to discuss an issue on the merits, you resort to schoolyard tactics.

Do you need a hanky?

So, Several posters have told me I’m wrong, so what, I disagree – of course that isn’t allowed, it upsets you, too bad. Several posters agree with me, are they suppose to bow, to to your opinions? because bottom line that’s all you have, Pincher, opinions. Just exactly what have you brought to this discussion, Pincher? What facts, what references? You bring nothing, except your own self-importance, and get then your panties in a wad, every time someone disagrees with you.

I love disagreement. It’s the dishonest stupidity that aggravates.

You need references?

William McNeill’s Plagues and People is the classic text which argues that approximately 90 percent of Native Americans were killed off by disease. There has been a lot of research since McNeill’s book, but most of it supports the conclusion that diseases were easily the biggest killer of Amerinds and that there was no need for them to be intentionally spread.

The best apology of U.S. Indian policy that I’ve read is Robert Remini’s Andrew Jackson and His Indian Wars. He argues that the young American state’s need for national security and the potential for mischief by Indian populations left remaining near the coast would prevent the U.S. from being secure against European powers. He also describes the frontier mentality, and how the U.S. was unable to protect the southeastern tribes from settlers who were rushing into the area. This threatened to cause a near constant state of low-level warfare between Native Americans and settlers, which would draw the U.S. government into the mix – yet another source of instability for a young state which still had to contend with European powers who had designs on the continent.

As a westerner who had no sentimentality about Native Americans he knew very well, Jackson instinctively understood the two groups would not live together in peace and that a grand solution had to be found. That solution was removal.

And what facts did your “several posters” offer? Some Syon posts some post 1800 population figures he got from some sight called necrometrics – is the the highest authority to which all must bow?

You need not bow to anyone, but you refused to answer Syon’s statistics and arguments directly, which was dishonest.

As for your long list of selective outrages, I have no desire to address them all, but you clearly misunderstand some of the things you’re posting.

Take Jackson’s First Annual Address to Congress, which you have interpreted invidiously. Jackson quite rightly knew that those southeastern tribes were goners if they stayed in their home lands, so he ordered their removal – and his message made clear that their removal was necessary for saving them.

Pretty much seems that my assertions of atrocity, theft and murder, have some merit

You’re once again arguing against phantoms in your imagination.

No one disputes these events happened. What they dispute is that they were central to Native Americans losing their lands and the diminishment of their populations.

Am I awaiting it, yes, I am awaiting cosmic justice. Am I wanting to administer such medicine myself – no. I would not stoop down to your level. Your interpretation of my words is very telling.

Let me then clarify what I mean by “cosmic justice”. When a bully, a rapist and a murderer administers his trade he believes he is the one, the chosen one, the best one, the top dog. But somehow, in life, there is always someone even meaner, even nastier, even more murderous.

Who’s denying or dismissing, dear fellow? Well, barring, of course, Amerind apologists, who seem to think that Amerinds were gentle children of nature, completely incapable committing any evil acts…..

Well, they were children of nature, but nature is hardly gentle. The Cherokee like any people are capable of evil, they held, sold and traded slaves captured in battle or raids, long before the whites came. They attacked, raped, tortured and killed settlers who encroached on their territory, and the more they were pressed the more violently they fought back. But they were fighting on their own ground, which the U.S. Government was taking, both through force of arms and through a series of broken treaties.

Was the primary source of Cherokee deaths caused by european pathogens – yes, but I believe that was just a happy bonus for the U.S Government. They wanted the Native’s land and they would have taken it with or without disease making the job easier for them. They would have killed as many as necessary with bullets and starvation to accomplish their objective.

I’m just keen on keeping a proper sense of proportion.

Yes, it is historic fact that the Chinese killed 600,000 Dzungars, obviously there were more Dzungars than Cherokee. If you want to create a numerical hierarchy of human eradication, for purposes of putting the treatment of the Cherokee in numerical perspective for me, I appreciate your effort. I, perhaps erroneously, assumed you were making the point that the Cherokee deaths didn’t matter, much, because their overall population was statistically insignificant..

Am I awaiting it, yes, I am awaiting cosmic justice.

Would you like a coffee while you wait?

coffee while you wait

In view of all the exploitation of native peoples and natural environments that has occurred during the development of coffee into a world commodity, I am certain that that vile liquid has and never will touch Kiza’s lips.

Did you guys figure out if “tomato” or “tomato” was correct yet?

I love disagreement. It’s the dishonest stupidity that aggravates.

Yes, I agree, I would add to that statement: As does belligerent self-importance.

William McNeill’s Plagues and People is the classic text which argues that approximately 90 percent of Native Americans were killed off by disease.

Exactly where did I dispute that the majority of Native Americans were killed off by european introduced diseases? I have no doubt that the U.S. Government saw that as a fortuitous happenstance, which allowed for the conservation of ammunition. One way or another, they were going to take the Native American’s land, if disease handled it for them all the better, but if not military action, starvation – through destruction of their food source and treachery would be and was employed.

The best apology of U.S. Indian policy that I’ve read is Robert Remini’s Andrew Jackson and His Indian Wars. He argues that the young American state’s need for national security and the potential for mischief by Indian populations left remaining near the coast would prevent the U.S. from being secure against European powers.

Apologist is an apt description, his three volume set biography: The Life of Andrew Jackson, made it abundantly plain that he was a great fan of Jackson and in agreement with most, although not all, of his policies. He was less a fan of some of Jackson’s economic and banking policies. His agreement with Jackson, that the Native Americans needed to be removed to facilitate the growth of the republic, is Remini’s I believe accurate explanation. Jackson couched his policy of removal, and where removal was resisted, eradication of Native Americans, in platitudes of noble intent also. Even framing his policies as in the Native American’s own best interest. This didn’t stop him from profiting: In 1794, Jackson formed a business with John Overton “for the purpose of purchasing lands as well those lands without as within military bounds”—overtly buying and selling land which had been reserved by treaty for the Cherokee and Chickasaw. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Jackson#Land_speculation_and_founding_of_Memphis
Assigning benevolent intent towards Native Americans, as even a consideration of Jackson’s removal and relocation policies, is a bit hard to swallow. But again, the winners get to write the history.

No one disputes these events happened. What they dispute is that they were central to Native Americans losing their lands and the diminishment of their populations.

I really do not know what to make of that statement. The Cherokee lost most of their population to smallpox – agreed. I would not refer to the loss of 4,000 or more tribal members, out of a population of 12,000 – 17,000, on the trail of tears alone, as not central to their diminishment.

The loss of their land was accomplished through direct military action and the intentional misrepresentations of the contents of numerous treaties – to an illiterate people, often signed by those who had no tribal authority to do so, and then the breaking those treaties whenever convenient to their ultimate goal of taking the Native American’s land.

I’m not sure what a North American Realist or Nationalistic Realist actually are, or how they differ.

In a fantasy world, I might support a united Anglosphere as a political entity, or a united North America, so long as the cultural balance struck me as about right. I wouldn’t want it to be too dominated by either British or American ways of thinking and being. And since that’s what would happen, I can do without either and stick with my own country in alliance with its most likely natural partners, but independent. Whatever political entity I am in, I want it to rule itself, recognize that self-interest is the business of nations, and that the state should seek, broadly, to preserve itself and defend and advance the requirements of its people. And have a realist foreign policy and pragmatic view of its needs. In other words, the purpose of all foreign and defence policy is to keep us free and rich. These are the only ineradicable demands. As to the sins of our past and future, they are what they are. I gain from them having been committed and as a free man I neither fear them nor refuse to accept them. Neither will I do more than endorse single official apologies, for form’s sake. Canada’s sins are fewer than those of most.

But I wasn’t really thinking about Realism, or North American Union, or Anglospherism. Or even nationalism. Just noting that these things are the lot of history, and the reason some survive and thrive and others not. And that America’s sins are not, in fact, the greatest any more than its virtues tower precipitately over the contributions of other great peoples.

I am not projecting an Anglo-American way of thinking onto my fellow humans. I am not aware of any nation or people with the size and organizational capacity to manage it who have not tried to control others one way or another: French, Dutch, Germans, Spanish, Portuguese, Belgians, Danes, Norwegians, Swedes, Poles, Italians, Hungarians, Turks, Slavs of all sorts not least the most successful, the Russians. Arabs of all sorts, Jews, Phoenicians, Arameans, Hittites, Akkadians [and successor Assyrians and Babylonians], Medes, Persians, Turks again, Mongols, Afghans [MANY invasions of India], all the main Indian peoples against one another at least, Uyghurs, Tibetans, numberless Central and North Asians of various stripes, Koreans, Japanese, Chinese Han [BIG TIME winners- so successful that this Yellow River valley people now owns a huge empire as their ethno-homeland, even discounting the western lands]. Every one of these has waged aggressive war on others, has sent out attempts to colonize, etc. History is long. Southeast Asia currently consists of peoples who likely represent second wave settlers [replacing Austronesians] and later conquerors- say, Chams and Khmers and others versus Vietnamese, Burmese and Thai. All three of the latter are colonizing peoples who came south.

Indonesia before the Dutch consisted of warring principalities, sultanates and tribes.

Africa below the Sahara has thousands of years of warfare from the level of subtribal band up to big horse and camel empires.

The aboriginals of Australia seem to have fought one another plenty. Certainly those of the new world did, and on an impressive scale. Even to the level of empire at the top of the poll.

So, unless you represent an uncontacted Amazon or Papuan tribe, you also descend from people who wanted to kill, rob, or control others. And I wouldn’t be sure of those Amazonians or Papuans either. Any real pacifists must be truly exceptional.

As to your list;

1) Clearly false.
2) Clearly false.
3) Yep. I happen to consider it to have been justified. At minimum, if incendiary raids were justified, so were the nukes. The latter were merely more efficient. Plenty of others used air power to kill civilians, they just had to use old school methods. Japan included. If all that was unforgivable, then America does not stand alone accused.
4) Wow. ’80s Soviet propaganda flashback. Every defence is really an offence.
5) I don’t know about incessant. I’d say lazy and sporadic, even impulsive. But, again, of how many nations could that once have been said? The issue is to claim that America stands alone as the worst nation, not that it partakes of the sins of many before it.

Uh, yeah, OK.

Charming.

England is much farther from Canada than the US is, and separated by an ocean that even now is a challenge for boats full of refugees to cross, at least compared with the Med or the Mexican border. England’s collapse, or that of Europe, will be a strategic and economic blow to us all, but not the immediate existential terror for Canada that would come out of a US collapse. We’d fall too, soon after, no question. Hence my point.

Also, the events of the last few years suggest that the US political system, sense of national unity, and ability to act to solve problems is a good deal farther down the road to paralysis than anyone else, even the UK. I hardly expected that assessment to be controversial on these pages. This site seems full of people who think that, and a subset ready to see it happen and build something else on the wreckage.

I would have thought it clear that I would rather this catastrophe not happen, and that I have had on the whole a positive view of the role of the US. Please note that the nihilistic spirit at the end of my previous post explicitly also encompasses the end of my own nation and implicitly of western civilization. So it was hardly directed as a shot at the US or American culture as somehow more deserving of this fate than the rest of us. That was entirely clear.

As to the rest, what to say. Why do you assume I am a nihilist secular modernist, whatever that is? There’s been room for a taste of gallows humour [i.e. ‘nihilism’] in every western culture since forever including, even, the rather painfully literal-minded modern mainstream culture of the US. Contra people like Jedediah Purdy, plenty of us for hundreds of years have found it possible to love family, country, language, and even religion [sometimes even quite hardcore] without being completely humourless, irony-free, or optimistic panglosses. Samuel Johnson seemed to manage being an ironist and a full-contact John Bull Englishman at the same time.

I call myself a Christian on alternate days. In the end, I believe. My faith has been there when I needed it the most. Unlike most who struggle with it, it’s the universalism and brotherhood that bothers me most. It tends to the suicide of my people. That bothers me. But the Christian in me remembers that all is shadow, and my salvation does not depend on any of these issues. So why assume that my comments would be incompatible with faith?

On the other days I am more pagan than secular. The Trinity is the God of my City, as it were. I follow whether I believe or not at any given moment. Here I am in concert with the goal of preserving people and culture, but aware that it’s not clear that Father or Son would share those goals for me.

Whichever mode I am in, I remember that history is long, and sooner or later neither your country nor mine will exist in their present form. Regardless of how that happens, or when. This is not secular, modern, or nihilist.

And I prefer to put that day off as long as possible, and ideally direct the future toward some better end and replacement than the one we are barrelling toward now. But if the only course on offer is the America the radicals have built, and the fate that seems inevitable for it, I prefer that this not come in my time. What about that is hard to understand? I’m already too old and unhealthy to usefully pick up a gun for anything but last-ditch duty.

And if that day comes, at least in my old age I will be able to avoid too much of the disaster, and it will be the radicals’ America and mine whose fate I will be cackling over.

Again, I wouldn’t think that especially controversial in these parts. Maybe a little dark. But, again, this fate would ultimately include whatever version of my country they come up with, so I consider the attitude fair.

Agreed. I haven’t enough recent comment points to just click the button.

There’s hardly any people of any size or length of history who haven’t got something of this sort to answer for.

For example, the ‘historic’ tribal lands the Iroquois are always squabbling over in southern Ontario and Quebec are mostly lands they got as Royal grants when the US took their original homelands in New York. To the extent the 5/6 Nations had historical presence north of the lakes and St Lawrence, it was hunting grounds they first claimed in the Beaver wars after having a go at exterminating the Hurons, Eries, Neutrals, etc. and driving various Algonquin speakers further east and north.

That’s quite a quintessentially American family saga. Thanks for relating it.

It definitely makes your point.

I’d also watch that as a miniseries.

I really do not know what to make of that statement. The Cherokee lost most of their population to smallpox – agreed. I would not refer to the loss of 4,000 or more tribal members, out of a population of 12,000 – 17,000, on the trail of tears alone, as not central to their diminishment.

You don’t get it. The Cherokees were already diminished by the time The Trail of Tears happened, and they were going to be further diminished whether they stayed in the southeast region of the United States or not.

The population of Georgia alone increased from 250,000 to 500,000 in the twenty years before the Trial of Tears took place. Another 170,000 people were added to the state during the 1830s.

The small number of Cherokees had no chance against that massive rising tide of settlers. Their lands were going to be taken from them anyway, whether they stayed or not. White squatters on the land were a constant problem.

What were the Cherokee going to do? Hope the U.S. federal government came to their aid against its own citizens when that government was still small and fragile and could barely protect itself? The U.S. government actually did come to their aid occasionally, but the problem still festered, because there were a lot of whites and not too many Indians – and the white population was growing fast and the Indians hardly growing at all.

What’s more, think of the foreign policy context. The Brits had burned the U.S. capital to the ground in 1814. War with France was real possibility in the 1830s. You may have forgotten those facts, but Andrew Jackson certainly didn’t forget them.

He decided to improve the nation’s security by removing the Indians. He also believed that removal would help those Indian tribes survive, unlike those tribes in the northeast who were never removed and now don’t exist at all. At least the Cherokees are still around to complain about their treatment today.

committed the sin of lumping government and people together

I can’t quite understand how people who make this distinction the foundation of their current schema, explain how people in a democracy are devoid of responsibility for the actions of their government.

You and rod1963 appear to assume that I am a progressive of some sort who enjoys the sort of America they have built [I recognize that it is older and more bipartisan, but for argument’s sake let’s call it ‘Obama’s America’].

I do not understand this confusion. It is that very America that I expect is leading towards some sort of terrible collapse [ sooner and more drastic than the inevitable end/transformation that awaits every human political entity and culture that ever was or ever will be ]. And I expressed my terror that this will happen in my lifetime, and with every passing day me getting older and less able to adapt to a continent that for the first time in its post-settlement history could seriously turn into something like mid-century Europe or the contemporary Middle East. [Or it could just get radically more divided and poorer without getting quite so apocalyptic]. These are not things for a man to be sanguine about at any time. I can’t say I’d look forward to it with good cheer were I American. As my country will end up playing the part of Belgium, Armenia, or Lebanon, I can’t say I look forward to its end in a continent of competing new states or other kinds of players, either. Nobody likes to be on the borderlands when Rome falls, unless in a position to move in and take it. We aren’t set up for that in any way.

As to my livelihood. I’m not sure how far back you want to go for models. Canada is a lot richer and opportunities have gotten a tad more democratized for people from my upper-working class background since the 1950s. But I suspect I could have gotten on just fine then, maybe even similarly to how I have done now, with a few more class hurdles to jump but arguably fewer left-generated ones. I don’t know that I ‘depend’ on much developed since other than better health care with newer drugs invented since that time. More nutritional awareness, perhaps.

So I don’t know that I “depend” on a disgusting, corrupt etc. etc. mutation. Nothing about my way of life depends directly on any corruption. Not that Canada has none, of course.

I merely consider that what is currently on offer from any angle doesn’t involve anything that would turn things in a positive direction. I have yet to see any platform offered that could turn things around by any peaceful means, and I do not take non-peaceful means trivially. And those means would be horrible, and offer just as much chance to the other side to shape the future. If I see anything resembling a path to a better future, I’d look at it.

And I admitted from the beginning that I am a Canadian, and the fate of my own country in such a future is my chief concern. Nobody else here has to share it. I am merely terrified that what happens to the United States will be the end of my country, wrecked in the backwash somehow.

Your comment on German scientists doesn’t actually detract from the excerpt of mine that you cite. I said America contributed less to culture than Germany. I might concede the same with regard to science, although by a lesser margin. America’s sins remain less than Germany’s. I would also argue that America has contributed less to culture than Russia, and arguably less to science, also by a lesser margin. America’s sins are also less than Russia’s. America has even contributed less to culture than Britain, maybe the same to science or a bit less, and its sins may be equal to Britain’s. It’s not a horse race.

Just noting that America has contributed and sinned, both, and it is not really the world leader in either. [My original point- America isn’t the biggest ever boon to mankind, or the biggest ever villain. Either contention is absurd.] It has contributed plenty to the subset of science I chose to call ‘invention’, and it was doing so before 1900. [I’d like to put in a plug for Britain, which arguably wins this category, but I’m not aiming to set up intra-Anglo rivalry]. It continued to do so after 1900. From a certain point, that included immigrant Germans- the ones the Germans didn’t want and eventually wanted to slaughter. After 1945, the scientists and engineers from team slaughter also showed up. Nobody says their contribution was trivial. It wasn’t the only thing going on even in postwar America, either.

As to the rest, I admit trouble accepting that having a hate-on for America or “Anglos” is a valid WN position. NS Germans certainly used that jargon. But Anglos are not less white than they and have contributed as much or more as the Germans to western civilizational development. This is not to denigrate the Germans- music, art, literature and every field of science owes them massively, and in many categories they were the leaders. Not every category. On the other hand, I am just as glad their legal, political, and philosophical inclinations were for so long kept at bay. I don’t want to live in a Nazi state. Neither do I care to live in any state whose ultimate underpinnings are rooted in Hegel, or Fichte, or ultimately even Kant. There is something that strikes me as servile even in the most elevated, civilized, cultured elements of German philosophy. They have been paragons as civilized men. Not as free men. I want to be both.

Your last thought takes me back to the high geopolitics. My country’s institutions and culture are hybrids, I don’t want to have to live in an Americanized society or a too-British one, still less one too much influenced by non-Anglo Europe. I like the mix we have, and I like that all these other versions of western life are out there, living their own ways. The only member of the west capable of maintaining a world order in which we can all even try to flourish is the United States, even if I have lost a lot of faith for the current version of the US compared with the one I started to notice 35 years ago, or the one my father admired circa 1955. I dread that the transformation of the US will either: keep it strong but take it culturally out of the Anglosphere altogether or even out of leading a ‘western’ block as such, or weaken it to the point we are all the poorer and weaker and less able to shape the world to mutual benefit, or break it up all together and leave us in some order whose shape we cannot see. Nobody else is in a position to do the job, even the EU, China and Russia are not up to it, and they would all be worse.

Well, I may be the last Canadian [or citizen of any commonwealth realm] who prefers to think of sovereignty as inherent in the Crown, with the latter having an obligation on oath to govern by consent according to customary laws and usages, which includes consultation through representative institutions and government according to the counsel of responsible ministers sitting therein.

But that’s just me. I’m a bit eccentric. That’s the theoretical, old school description of the Westminster system. It has its flaws. But I won’t yield it easily- the abolition of the Crown would be a concession to the sort of folks with whom I have larger philosophical problems.

You raise a huge problem, but I suspect that libertarians, and many here [there will be some overlap] will assume that the US government has ceased to be either a democracy or a republic, according to taste. There seems truth in that even to me, but I don’t quite buy it. Nothing prevents people from running for office on other views, and only the unwillingness of a majority to accept those views prevents them from winning. Ergo, the majority of Americans who buy into the consensus ARE responsible for the actions of the government.

Berean_Bob has noted that “Kiza” is quite ignorant when it comes to Injun history.

What’s funny about people such as “Kiza” is that they are sanctimoniously happy to insult and blame white Americans for everything including a bad case of hemorrhoids, all the while using white American technology to do it.

Yep, all of the stuff you’re utilizing in your life – to make your life better and more enjoyable – none of it exists because of the barbarian pagan Injuns. Most of it was envisioned, dreamed up, invented, developed, improved, and distributed by white Americans, and most of the rest of it was envisioned, dreamed up, invented, developed, improved, and distributed by white non-Americans.

None of it is Injun. Chew on that!

Funny I don’t see people like you, or the Injuns for that matter, wanting to go hunt buffalo and live in a cold teepee somewhere. Hypocrite scum!

So if you hate white Americans so much, then you need to be intellectually honest and stop using all of our cool stuff. How does that sound, hotshot?

Irony notwithstanding, you are absolutely correct: I do not drink coffee at all because I do not like the taste. I did not know there was so much exploitation associated with it, but exploitation is not my main issue anyway.

My key point is the psychopathic US leadership but also the population, which not only exploits other nations (as all empires in the history have) then just destroys, rapes, murders and moves on to another victim. This is a unique characteristic of the US empire. I did write about this before, for example how the French exploited Vietnam but at least left them a decent railway line. The US left them agent-orange (almost left nuclear radiation as well).

The US builds nothing useful, the war-subcontractors pocket some reconstruction money, but nothing useful ever gets built. The US lead “reconstruction” is just another name for war-related profiteering.

In this sense, the US is a unique nation and a unique empire in history:
1) quickest profit from war ever,
2) builds nothing, only kills and destroys, and
3) delivers dollops of moronic propaganda to domestics and to foreigners.

In other words, the US empire is like a locust cloud.

Your warped logic goes like this: we brought “progress”, it does not matter if you want our “progress” or not, you get it shoved down your throat at the point of our gun. We are the best because we have the most powerful weapons and our achievements, our intellectual and our moral superiority all originate from the barrels of our guns. If we cannot say something smart, we can certainly shoot you to close the argument. This is how we solved the conflict of taking the Injun land. And, BTW Bob, show me the wild buffalo you did not make extinct and I will go hunt them. But I will hunt them only when I need food, not just to get their skins, which is how your predecessors made them extinct.

I can assure you, Bob, that humanity would exist quite nicely and more happily without your US achievements. For example, it would exist much more happily without the US industrial massacres of indigenous populations.

On a related matter, I watched this video from the SF streets of police brutality on a one-legged black man with a few friends. We concluded that, for all we collectively know, the German Gestapo police never did things like the local police does in the US daily. And the US psychopaths did and still do 100 times worse in the occupied territories.

When one considers any humane values, the US leads progress almost only backwards.

I doubt that most South Koreans would agree with you. Some of the North Koreans might in between taking bites of leaves and grass.

Are you capable of making any comment not based on the stinking CIA propaganda?
It is sad how characters like you recycle the stupidities that your regime generates.

My key point is the psychopathic US leadership but also the population, which not only exploits other nations (as all empires in the history have) then just destroys, rapes, murders and moves on to another victim. This is a unique characteristic of the US empire. I did write about this before, for example how the French exploited Vietnam but at least left them a decent railway line. The US left them agent-orange (almost left nuclear radiation as well).

The Vietnamese love Americans, and they love America’s empire. That’s why the Vietnamese commies are thinking of inviting the U.S. military back to Cam Ranh Bay. That’s why they increasingly want some sort of military alliance against China. And Vietnamese, in general, love Americans. The war is ancient history to most of them, since the median age in the country is something like twenty-five. But even the older Vietnamese love America, whether they fought against it or alongside it.

Vietnam is begging the US to come back an occupy it? You might as well be believing that all of Eastern Europe is keen on the US occupation to replace the Soviet Union occupation. Your media say this, so you must believe it. The fact that this is what a few paid servants of the US empire say, just exactly the same as a few paid servants of the Soviet Empire used to say a few decades back never enters your shallow brain.

The US finances all these servants of the empire by so far limitless printing of US$. Come here in a few years from now to tell me how everyone is keen on the US occupation when the US$ gets replaced in the world trade and the US economy implodes.

I just could never understand which strata of the US society consumes all this incessant BS. It is the “Born on the 4th of July” strata that you appear to belong to.

Occupy is your word, not mine. The U.S. never intended to occupy Vietnam in the first place, which his why the Vietnamese still love the American empire. They understand the benefits of imperial protection better than you understand it.

Of course, the American imperium is a bad deal for most Americans. We incur a lot of costs, accept a lot of bad deals, take in a lot of foreigners, etc. But that doesn’t concern the Vietnamese.

In summary, the main points of your arguments are as follows (If I am misrepresenting your arguments it is not intentionally)

(1) Disease, not malicious or intentionally pernicious action by European colonists caused the demise of the Native American’s population: William McNeill’s Plagues and People is the classic text which argues that approximately 90 percent of Native Americans were killed off by disease.

(2) Andrew Jackson decided to “improve the nation’s security by removing the Indians. He also believed that removal would help those Indian tribes survive. The Trail of Tears happened, and they were going to be further diminished whether they stayed in the southeast region of the United States or not.” So Jackson’s actions were of noble intent in initiating the taking of Cherokee land and the Trail Of Tears.

First as to your assertion that disease caused 90% of American Native deaths: Russell Thorton makes a well documented case for low fertility – caused by the destructive affects of colonization (stress, malnutrition and starvation from conflict and repeated forced relocation,) not disease, being the primary factor in the loss of North American Native population.

Aboriginal North American Population and Rates of Decline, ca. A.D. I 500-I900′
RUSSELL THORNTON
Department of Anthropology, University of
California, Los Angeles, Calif, 90095-1553, U.S.A.

A preoccupation with disease to account for the decline in the Native American population has fostered a simplistic view of Native American population dynamics. A more appropriate focus is on how colonialism, including its diseases, interacted with Native American demographic regimes to produce long-term rates of population decline. Fertility reductions as well as increases in mortality seem to have been important in the decline.

I meant to post a link to Dr. Thorton’s paper, in my previous post.

Aboriginal North American Population and Rates of Decline, ca. A.D. 1500-1900
by Russell Thornton
http://www.academicroom.com/article/aboriginal-north-american-population-and-rates-decline-ca-ad-1500-1900

“Did you guys figure out if “tomato” or “tomato” was correct yet?”

Yes, we are working on potatoes vs potatoes now.