Christianity ruins families.

[giblets]

In the Beniverse a foreign invader who is able to take advantage of local rivalries and conflicts is "collaborating with the natives"

I guess the British were collaborating with the people of India. Brilliant.

[Ben Kenobi]

If I settled on someone else's land, I would expect to have it challenged.

Fair enough.

I talk to tribe A, the Comanches. They say it's their land.

I talk to tribe B, the Apache. They say it's their land.

I talk to the Mexicans. They say it's their land.

Who's land is it, rah? Apache, Comanche or Mexican?

[Ben Kenobi]

Here's what happened in most of the US, and a lot of the americas: Native Americans were living in their ancestral lands when newcomers, backed by superior military power, uprooted them, killing many of them and relocating the rest to wastelands.

Quite false.

Here's how it worked. Europeans achieve contact with Native american tribes. Smallpox rips through these native american tribes, killing around 90 percent of them. Tribes pass it on through warfare and conflict to each other.

Europeans return. Native tribes slaughter them. (Jamestown).

Europeans return again, some of the tribes support them. Successful colony founded with cooperative trade between tribes and europeans. War between colony + natives vs other natives who are enemies of the other tribe.

More europeans show up, form colonies, associate with the native tribes and trade with them.

Fast forward 200 years, and you have America form. Stuff happened in that 200 years which is very important.

If that's not conquest then conquest doesn't exist.

All I'm arguing is that the Americans didn't conquer anything. They bought the territory from others who did in fact conquer these lands.

It's sick that Ben puts so much effort into arguing semantics in order to whitewash the despicable actions done for temporal gain by people who called themselves Christians.

Ain't whitewashing anything. I've see how different tribes react towards each other up here. It's not pretty. Conflict was not just between Europeans on one side and natives on the other. Successful colonies collaborated and traded with the natives.

[rah]

That's never stopped you in the past.

[Ben Kenobi]

Person buys a newly built home in suburbs. He owns it for several years and then sells it to another person.

Second person is now owner of the home. Thieves break into his house, and violently attack the owner. Thus in the Beniverse, the crime was committed against the first owner, not the current owner of the house.

I'd argue against this, except this is some strange tangent that has nothing to do with the point I was making.

[rah]

If I settled on someone else's land, I would expect to have it challenged.

[giblets]

Here's what happened in most of the US, and a lot of the americas: Native Americans were living in their ancestral lands when newcomers, backed by superior military power, uprooted them, killing many of them and relocating the rest to wastelands. If that's not conquest then conquest doesn't exist. It's sick that Ben puts so much effort into arguing semantics in order to whitewash the despicable actions done for temporal gain by people who called themselves Christians.

[Ben Kenobi]

No he'll probably argue that since the Indians where more nomadic that the settlers weren't encroaching, they were settling lands that the Indians weren't currently using.

So if you were one of these settlers, you'd consider it self-defense to get slaughtered? I sure wouldn't.

[Ben Kenobi]

Follow gribbler's wiki link to the California conflicts in nineteenth century, BK - there's information there about the atrocities that white settlers committed against the native inhabitants of California

Why does everyone assume that because I argue it wasn't this black or white, that I'm unaware of these.

[Ben Kenobi]

I'm not arguing that the Hawaiian monarchy was representative of all native Hawaiins.

Yes, you are arguing that the Hawaiian monarchy was in fact representative of native Hawaiians. I find it rather amusing that you are having to defend Kamahamaha in order to paint the US as the bad guys.

I guess Native Hawaiians voted for their King too.

2) I'm not arguing that Native Americans were/are a monolithic group. I'm well aware of the diversity of Native Americans from what I have learned over the years. Once again, you're either hopelessly dense or a compulsive liar.

Then you have to acknowledge that wars between native tribes played a significant role. That's all I'm saying. I'm not saying that the Americans were perfect. I am saying that they weren't the bad guys you make them out to be. You can't reduce history of the west to the Americans as the great Satan and everyone else as a-ok.

And the fact that you think Native Americans did not act in self defense and that the conflicts were purely about U.S. military coming to help protect non-violent, hapless settlers is laughable.

I don't think they did act in self defense in most cases. Most of these were precipitated by attacks on settlers prior to the intervention of the US Army. The last, and the biggest of all of these was touched up by such an attack.

And no, I'm not saying that white settlers never suffered atrocities from Native Americans - that's not my point here.

Thank you. It's not just a one way thing. Many of these conflicts were in fact precipitated by Native Americans.

[rah]

Native Americans try to stop the settlers who are relentlessly encroaching on their lands, US soldiers come in to kill the Native Americans, Ben blames the Native Americans. Priceless.

Up next: Ben blames rape victims for tempting men.

No he'll probably argue that since the Indians where more nomadic that the settlers weren't encroaching, they were settling lands that the Indians weren't currently using.

[MrFun]

Native Americans try to stop the settlers who are relentlessly encroaching on their lands, US soldiers come in to kill the Native Americans, Ben blames the Native Americans. Priceless.

Up next: Ben blames rape victims for tempting men.

Or, how about this.


Person buys a newly built home in suburbs. He owns it for several years and then sells it to another person.

Second person is now owner of the home. Thieves break into his house, and violently attack the owner. Thus in the Beniverse, the crime was committed against the first owner, not the current owner of the house.

[giblets]

Native Americans try to stop the settlers who are relentlessly encroaching on their lands, US soldiers come in to kill the Native Americans, Ben blames the Native Americans. Priceless.

Up next: Ben blames rape victims for tempting men.

[Wezil]

Ben should shut up about subjects he doesn't know anything about.

But what would that leave for him to talk about?

[MrFun]

Follow gribbler's wiki link to the California conflicts in nineteenth century, BK - there's information there about the atrocities that white settlers committed against the native inhabitants of California.