Happy Indigenous People Day

[LDAHL]

I would start with giving back the Black Hills. No treaty was ever signed, we just took it.

So buy some land and give it to whoever you think deserves it. Just keep me out of it.

Everyone is where they are because “we just took it”. Native American tribes displaced one another with the same vigor the great barbarian tribes of Europe did. Why pick and choose certain historical instances as more deserving of our remorse than others?

[Rogar]

So buy some land and give it to whoever you think deserves it. Just keep me out of it.

Everyone is where they are because “we just took it”. Native American tribes displaced one another with the same vigor the great barbarian tribes of Europe did. Why pick and choose certain historical instances as more deserving of our remorse than others?

Would you choose to eliminate certain other Eurocentric reminders of guilt, like say, Holocaust Museums?

[Yppej]

Tribes displaced others LDAHL? At least some absorbed others, and adopted captives as full fledged members of the tribe. It's quite different from genocide.

[JaneV2.0]

There's conjecture that Columbus was glad to remove himself from Europe because he was a crypto-Jew at a time when the Inquisition loomed large, and people were told by the almighty Church to convert or die (later changed to "just die.") The West has a long history of persecution and genocide.

[LDAHL]

Would you choose to eliminate certain other Eurocentric reminders of guilt, like say, Holocaust Museums?

No. I don’t wish to “eliminate” anything. People should be free to memorialize whatever they wish. I’m happy to leave the cancel culture stuff to others.

I just decline to participate in picking certain historical periods to be outraged over. History is too complicated to be of much use as a morality tale, however attractive that may be to grievance politics.

[LDAHL]

The West has a long history of persecution and genocide.

The West is hardly alone in that.

[Rogar]

I just decline to participate in picking certain historical periods to be outraged over. History is too complicated to be of much use as a morality tale, however attractive that may be to grievance politics.

LDAHL, I respect you personal choices, but with due respect I think you are not seeing this in it's true perspective. In the past, we have memorialized Native Americans on our currency along with buffalo, bald eagle, and the slave owners, Jefferson and Washington. The Dakotas have huge rock sculptures of of presidents and also one of Crazy Horse. Western art has portrayed Native Americans both romantically and realistically. They are a part of our national heritage, some good and some bad, but each worthy of recognition for their own reasons. I favor a specific day to remember these things and find more value in that than Columbus, who really was never an American by any respect.

[JaneV2.0]

The West is hardly alone in that.

That's very true, but Western culture is the only one I have to apologize for.

[LDAHL]

That's very true, but Western culture is the only one I have to apologize for.

How far back in history do you feel your apology for the West needs to extend? The Thirty Years War? The Norman Conquest? The destruction of Carthage? The massacre at Melos?

I will take responsibility for my own actions, but I feel no need to take on the guilt of my bloodline or the culture I was born to. I view whatever wealth or privilege you may think I acquired through the sins of the past as mere luck of the draw. My realm of moral responsibility is limited to my conduct in the present and future. I don’t believe in inherited guilt.

[JaneV2.0]

How far back in history do you feel your apology for the West needs to extend? The Thirty Years War? The Norman Conquest? The destruction of Carthage? The massacre at Melos?

I will take responsibility for my own actions, but I feel no need to take on the guilt of my bloodline or the culture I was born to. I view whatever wealth or privilege you may think I acquired through the sins of the past as mere luck of the draw. My realm of moral responsibility is limited to my conduct in the present and future. I don’t believe in inherited guilt.

That was said mostly in jest. I find my progenitors' crimes interesting, but not heritable.