I didnt call you a fascist without saying it, I dont think you're that radical . But if I believed you were a fascist I would call you one, I'm not afraid to say anything i believe . Dork? wow thats another witty response..
Not my fault if you don't understand... But she's talking about "multiculturalism" - as it is now - as a dividing force. It separates everyone into little boxes... And prevents us from uniting. Indeed, the message for the past decade and a half has been that a nation united is a bad thing. They keep pointing to Hitler and Nazi Germany (coincidentally ). They never point to all of the cases where such action succeeded - Washington, Jackson, Roosevelt - where the nation was rallied. Academia in particular has done its best to equate patriotism with National Socialism - and it has suceeded, because no one is there to tell students otherwise. But who has won? Those who would warn people and tell them to question their teachers, or those who call everyone Nazis? Perhaps they want the nation to never rally again? To die next time it is threatened? Don't blame me. I told you so.
dc rock: Well then why don't you be a little more forthcoming next time you insinuate I'm a fascist, and just call me one. You wrote what you wrote, and your intent is clear... For what it's worth, I'll always be forthcoming with you. Is it too much to ask the same in return?
If you think I was insinuating that you were a fascist thats your problem, all I was saying was that some of your opinions were SIMILAR to a fascist's. I put question marks under your Linda Chavez quote, not because I didnt understand rolleyes: give me a break), but because I don't really think Linda Chavez is someone that should be quoted often . Anyways I'm off to bed, so if you post anything else dont plan on getting a reply until sometime tomorrow night.
America is <b>a</b> melting pot. Emphasis on the singular. Multiculturalism seems to have as its aim to have several pots of equal size boiling on the stove-- all with equal flame, too! Of course, American culture is evolving but evolving has never included aspects of multiple cultures being given legal status in an effort to hasten and firm-up the process. Cultural characteristics are changed by the evolutionary process not replaced willy-nilly. Remember all the fuss when the Rockets had acquired Clyde and then Charles. Didn't Clyde fit in better than Charles? That can be CB's new nickname: Charles the Multicultural Vulture. Clyde was classy; Charles was brassy. <b>outlaw</b>, are the Irish asking us to teach Gaelic in our schools? I love the St. Patrick's Day Parade. Where do you get the idea I don't llike diverse cultural experiences? I'm not a mono-culturist and Patty Buchannan is Irish for God's sake!! All is ask for is assimilation of cultures in a natural order without legally ramming it down our throats. Would you ever move to Germany without the expectation that you would learn functional German? Me neither. However, this multlicultural hallucination we are having invites people to move here and keep their lives intact (bi-lingual education). That is absurd. The come here to be here not to implant a foreign cell here. <b>subatomic</b>: My intention is not to prove the native American culture is inferior-- although it undoubtedly <b>was</b>. I'm just trying to poke holes in the notion some have that they were living here in blissful harmony before the white man came. That's patently ridiculous. They were viscious toward one another. In fact I daresay that the white settlers (including the army) <b>learned</b> how to be viscious from the Indian example. All these "native Americans" just got here before we did. We all got here the same way: by coming from somewhere else. Where to draw the line? Weren't some of the "later" native Americans simply invaders who were invading the native Americans who were here before them? Of course. Yes, I say that the intent of many was to demolilsh the other tribes. Which tribe was it that referred to themselves alone as "the human beings?" Now if that ain't racism, what is? Regarding European immigrants, most never owned a single slave. I do believe that the slave-owning population was a minority of the population. My idea of cultural diversity is <b>not</b> to have them come out on the appropriate holiday? That's a hoot. Most of my dining out can be said to be a culturally diverse experience: Mexican, Indian, Thai, Greek, Italian, and Chinese. I've been a patron at a Greek restaurant for over twenty years. When my children were born, I carry them to the restaurant. Eleni, the proprietress, wants to offer a traditional Greek blessing. Do you think I flee in horror or participate in the beautiful little ceremony with tears in my eyes? <b>Jeff</b>: Others have said it before me. We are all immigrants. Going back and drawing a line to a time before white culture came is arbitrary. Where else in our 19th century white culture was there the brutality that we hear about in the Old West? We had to learn it somewhere or, at the very least, it had to be brought out of us by some extreme circumstance.
RichRocket: Where exactly is any culture (domestic or foreign) in this country beng given legal status? How do you even give legal status to a culture (does it mean that the culture can vote and drink alcohol)? I think I disagree with you here, but it's hard to tell because you're making no sense whatsoever. The idea that all Native Americans were "noble savages" is just as racist as the idea that they're all bloodthirsty barbarians. And both stereotypes are wrong. Not to mention that each Native American tribe (and then each Native American within his/her tribe) had its own culture and temperament, so to make blanket statements about them is just patently wrong. Before you make any more ridiculous statements like how the white settlers learned how to be "viscious" (do you mean vicious as in violent or viscous as in thick?) from the Native Americans (as if man has ever needed to to "learn" violence), please go read up on the subject. Then we'll discuss.
Oh, <b>subatomic</b>, I meant viscous. Now that makes sense doesn't it. Snob. I choose not to be in the spelling contest! Forgive me it was 4:30 AM, but thanks for the education. The best example I gave (and it's a good one) is the effete argument for bi-lingual education. That is a status-certifying move to make Spanish an official language. This kind of argument is about generalizations. I do believe that I just read a disavowment of the whole white culture as murderous-- yet somehow I managed not to be offended. Try it. My family went west to Idaho and fought off Indians on the way and once there. Once my great-great-grandmother draped blankets over the windows, lit a big fire in the fireplace, threw on a man's coat and hat and propped a gun on her shoulder and marched around the cabin all night hoping her silhouette would keep the Indians at bay while her husband was away. Did the white settlers also murder recklessly the peace-loving native Americans? If we were so vicious, we would have just give them <b>all</b>smallpox-infected blankets and been done with it. Why are you ashamed of your own culture? In general the native American culture was more violent than that of the settlers. What the heck are you reading that tells you otherwise? They lived a miserable, struggling existence despite what you learned watching "Dances With Wolves."
From the journal of Christopher Columbus: They...brought us parrots and balls of cotton and spears and many other things, which they exchanged for the glass beads and hawks' bells. They willingly traded everything they owned...They were well built qith good bodies and handsome features... They do not bear arms, and do not know them, for I showed them a sword, they took it by the edge and cut themselves out of ignorance. They have no iron. Their spears are made of cane...They would make fine servants...With fifty men we could subjugate them all and make them do whatever we want. Bartolomé de las Casas, History of the Indies, book 2 (he was a priest who participated in the conquest of Cuba): Endless testimonies . . . prove the mild and pacific temperament of the natives.... But our work was to exasperate, ravage, kill, mangle and destroy; small wonder, then, if they tried to kill one of us now and then.... The admiral, it is true, was blind as those who came after him, and he was so anxious to please the King that he committed irreparable crimes against the Indians.. ..[The Spaniards] thought nothing of knifing Indians by tens and twenties and of cutting slices off them to test the sharpness of their blades. ...Two of these so-called Christians met two Indian boys one day, each carrying a parrot; they took the parrots and for fun beheaded the boys. I didn't really care much for Dances with Wolves...it was too simplistic and naïve.
RichRocket: sub-Tom-ic. The "a" detracted from the all-important 2nd syllable. Spanish is going to be made an official language? What was it before - slang? Perhaps you mean people are trying to make it a national language. Of course, the United States has never had an national language, so I wouldn't be too worried there. So much for your good example. You may have missed it, but in my previous post, I derided the "noble savage" stereotype that Dances With Wolves used to great dramatic effect. Bad stereotypes are bad stereotypes. I imagine you, me and just about anybody on this board would be attacked if we plopped ourselves onto a piece of land that belonged to someone else and claimed it by right of "discovery." Trespassing tends to bring out a less than friendly side in humans. In general, the Native Americans reacted like every other civilization has when being invaded. They were neither more nor less violent. While your relatives certainly didn't deserve death (a good eviction would have been fair), they (and my relatives too) were guilty of the European mindset that land without permanent structures was land that belonged to nobody. And many, many setters were all too happy to kill as many buffaloes as possible (and not even to meet their own needs) in order to destroy the food supply of the Native American tribes located on the Great Plains. I guess contributing to the starvation of other humans isn't technically vicious, but it isn't very kind either. I'm not ashamed of my culture one bit - I'm very proud of what America has accomplished in its short lifespan. But I am ashamed when I hear people dismiss or distort historical fact to make themselves feel better. As I've said before, I'm benefitting from what happened in the last 200 years, but that doesn't mean I have to excuse or celebrate the less than savory aspects of those 200 years. Rather than say blatant lies like "The Native Americans taught the settlers how to be vicious," I'd prefer, "Damn, I wish we could have done things differently."
1. The good guys don't break treaties, usually. 2. The US' treatment of Native Americans meets every single UN requisite for being defined as genocide.
Getting back to Pat and his book, I can't say I'm the biggest fan of his fear-oriented politics or Christian-centric world view. Having said that, I'll probablty buy his book though. Buchanan is no moron, and having watched him since his CNN Crossfire days, I think there are few people that could beat him in a debate on pretty much anything. He was a well regarded speech writer for Nixon (and Reagan too?). Politically he's an anomally, and a very curious one at that. He doesn't fit under the fundamental christian trashcan that so many want to toss him in and forget about. He's a Roman Cathlolic, and he claims that his moral views in no way deviate from that of the Vatican's. He's certainly a conservative , but is ardently anti-Gatt, anti-NAFTA, etc., and claims to represent American labor interests. The blue-collar Hamiltonian? I have given many books a fair read by far left American academians, who are no less biased and have far less accolades, and yet are greeted with far more critcal acclaim. I just think I have to give Pat Buchanan a little more respect than that. If he really is as irrelevant as people say, why were previous presidential candidates afraid to debate him (primary and otherwise)? It's hard to have at least some empathy for a guy that disagrees with pretty much everyone and can take the most unimiginably difficult positions and win the argument. I'm glad he's not a lawyer. OK, but having said all I want defending him, what I've heard so far about the book sounds pretty nutty, even for him. Maybe he just want to keep from losing the public's eye and has to drum up some drama? In any case I think the book will be an amusing read. --Deji
<b>rimbaud</b>: Oh, yes, I forgot about Columbus' beach party; everyone knows that beach dwellers are easy going. Try meeting a Huron in a dark forest! If I have time I'll look up some good examples of the cruelty and brutishness of some of the other native Americans. We can call it a tie. <b>haven</b>: Unless you'd rather be living in a teepee or a lodge hut in those brutal Massachussets winters, I think you'd agree that the good guys won. We broke treaties with a nomadic people; I'm not going to cry about it. Are you? <b>subtomic</b>: I thought all of our contracts were in English, as is the Consititution, the Bill of Rights, and our legal documents. Even CC.NET originates in English for God's sake. I'm sure I don't get your argument here. Are you from Quebec? Legitimizing a second language (via tax-funded schools) is deconstructing American culture in a small but significant way. The Indians didn't "own" land in the conventional way, did they? I think they just tried to stay out of areas where they were likely to be considered unwanted and thus killed. How did the sport of scalping get started? Was that those ornery Ohioans again?
I must be hallucinating. There is absolutely, positively zero defense for the Europeans and early Americans treatment of the Native Americans. It was government sanctioned genocide. We killed them, enslaved them, bullied them into taking ****ty treaties, then broke those treaties when it pleased us because they were savages, what the **** do they matter? Were the Indiginous peoples perfect and living in harmony? No, they were just as war-torn as Europe(they just didn't have the technology to kill people as efficiently), but the "good guy's" certainly didn't win. I don't know if theye were any good guys in this whole situation, but the Europeans were certainly in the wrong more than the Native Americans.
Puedlfor -- I have one defense, at least for Columbus' party. Think of Spain and 1492 , and all of the other things that were going on in Spain at the time, like the expulsion and forced conversion of jews, Inquisition, etc, it's pretty consistent with the simplified thinking of the people and the time to view the pagan West Indies islandlers as "less than human." Even still, the value of human life (at least a non-noble was less than livestock). The horrible way the Spanish treated Native Americans is consistent with the horrible way they treated everyone. And to be sure, these young Spaniards had the moral support of the Catholic Church (and the perceived divine authority of Queen Isabella) that conquering and Christianizing is their moral obligation. Just consider what happened to loyal Moors and Jews in that time period in Spain. That the same brutal diplomacy was extended to Hispanola shouldn't shock you. You shouldn't judge 15th Century Europeans with 21st Century American standards...or...or you'll burn at the stake, you heretic! As for the French English Portuguese Dutch and later the Americans and Mexicans...maybe we should start a new thread. --Deji
Ok. I can hold my tongue no longer. (I'm Grizzled btw, I managed to screw up my account while changing some settings yesterday and haven't got it sorted out yet.) I'm a Canadian, and so have refrained from commenting on American culture, but if we're going to bring Quebec into it …. I'll start off by stoking the fire a bit. Your general position RR is quite problematic. Either all people are equal and deserve equal rights, or not. If you say not, you are opening the door to the kind of justification that many of the militants in the Middle East are using to justify 09/11/01. "They are just _____ Americans, so it doesn't matter what happened to them." Fill in the blank with whatever excuses you like, Godless, imperialistic, criminal. Few things in this world are black and white, but this, I believe, is one of them. People are either all equal and deserve equal rights and human rights, or not. You're either on one side of this fence or the other. The question of reparations is another issue altogether, and reparations long after the fact have the problem that people who are not personally responsible are asked to pay. I don't think it's healthy to be laying guilt at the door of people who did not commit the crimes themselves, but compassionate reparations, if you will, can be a useful way to heal a wound, no matter who caused it. "Good" and "Bad," btw, have nothing to do with technology. The Soviets were very technologically advanced, as are the Japanese. Dose this make them necessarily good? I don't think so. The Quebec situation is complicated. Bilingualism is a good thing for this country, in general. Much of Quebec, (until quite recently some would argue) is not interested in it, however. Quebec is officially a unilingual French province. This is obviously a problematic and unsustainable position, but it has been the result, IMO, of an emotional response to past wrongs committed by the formerly largely English ruling class against the largely French working class. From the mid part of the last century on the French began to take control of their own institutions and when they had essentially gained control of these, there was a backlash of sorts against the English. The rest of Canada has by and large let them moan and whine and has funnelled significant sums of money into Quebec. I was not sold on the wisdom of this approach, but in recent years the support for separatism has waned considerably. My take is that they are almost finished with their hissy fit, and are ready to get real about building this country in a way that is good for them, and the rest of us too. (If there are any Quebecois lurking here, please step in.) The Quebecois were some of the first Europeans to settle Canada though, so this makes their situation different from your linguistic minorities, I believe.
Deji: That's context, not a defense. RichRocket: I don't see at all how speaking Spanish to elementary school kids (my mother taught high school ESL in the past, and I can say with some authority that those students are made to speak English or else flunk) destroys our culture. Who knows, maybe everyone will end up speaking Spanish and English and our culture will be all the richer for it. At the very worst, we'll have a population who speaks English badly. Go to any impoverished community and you'll see the same problem. Poverty and bad English is not new, yet American culture has survived somehow. Your illusions about the Native Americans are so preposterous and without basis that I think it would be pointless to argue with you on this anymore. Nobody here has ever said that the Native Americans were perfect. But nobody except you has implied that the violence between whites and Native Americans was all the fault of one side (in your case, the Native Americans). For a person who professes to be a Christian, you seem to have a very flexible approach toward human decency.
Who are the "we", when you say "we" killed them? Why do people insist on feeling guilty about events that occurred before their birth?
