Cheesey you benefit everyday of your life from what was done to the Indians Slaves Chinese Mexicans. That's my whole point in this whole series of traveling down memory lane. Without all those atrocities and suffering there is no America as we know it full of wealth and prosperity. A lot of people had to suffer to make this country. My question is do we owe something back because our Constitution has laws against murder seizure of property enslaving people. Or do we beneficiaries of the past sins get by as easily as saying ah fuck it I didn't do anything wrong why should I have to pay anything back. You can bet your ass there are attorneys working on Reparations against our government and we just might see this in our lifetime.
Originally Posted by: DakotaT
What I love about all this is that it requires some sort of divine knowledge about what would have happened if the white man HADN'T come. Sure, I'm guessing that for at least 200 years or so the natives would be chilling in about as much peace as they had at the time, but if not Europeans, what if Russia had come over? China? Australia? An African nation? Someplace in Asia? Surely, with your knowledge of the inner workings of the universe you can guarantee that today, native americans would be better off if we wouldn't have come over.
It's about as idiotic as people ranting about dumb football calls... Gee, if the ref wouldn't have called that holding penalty in the 2nd quarter which resulted in an "unmanagable" third down, we would have scored and then won! Surely, that wouldn't have set into motion an entirely new set of variables and changed the entire complexion of the game and thus future possessions!
Sure, it wasn't fair. It was brutal, and sick, and unhumane by today's standards, and in some ways even by the standards of the day. But guess what? I had nothing to do with it. My parents had nothing to do with it. My grandparents had nothing to do with it, nor any of my ancestors before that. I benefit from the atrocities of the past merely because I live here, but I didn't choose to be born here any more than I chose to commit any of the aforementioned atrocities. The fact of the matter is that we'll never know what WOULD have happened if we never would have came, or if we would have treated them more humanely or fairly. Maybe things would have worked out better for them, maybe not... I hate to bring up the H word, but in this alternate timeline of yours, if Hitler still rose to power how do you think World War II MIGHT have turned out if European settlers didn't take complete advantage of the land and its resources up until that point? Do you think America would have been that strong militarily? If that came to pass and Hitler succeeded in taking over Europe, what do you think would happen to all the not-so-Aryan people in North America?
To punish me for a MAYBE, that I had absolutely zero part in... How arrogant do you need to be to pretend to know how things would have turned out? We can talk about WHAT IFS all day like I just did above, but unlike you I don't pretend to have any sort of special abilities that allow me to change something about the past and be able to determine every possible ramification, past present and future based on that change. Why don't you use your magical powers to do more good for humanity than wagging your finger at people on the internet?