Redstate

You want to tell me that US Government did not slaughter and locked up in reservations hundreds of Native American tribes?

Explain how your post is on-topic to this discussion.

Methinks that your inability to proceed logically from one point to another will soon be fatal.

The part about acts of terrorism 500 Indian Nations. I do not know of any terrorism against Native American's in US short of exterminations and removal of them from their land by the US government. Check any U.S. History textbook if you doubt that it happened.

If the colonists had been Buddhists we would indeed have a United States (see Fischer's comments), but instead of a United States founded on acts of terrorism against the 500 Indian Nations, we'd have, perhaps, a true union of states and peoples.

Wow, now Christians who after politely sitting through a speech by the Dalai Lama and disagree with him are the equivalent of Al Queda terrorists. This is Mr Caswell's attempt to spread hope and light instead of vengeance.

I just missed the part where he denied that Native Americans were treated shamefully.

I also missed the part where the people in the audience, or Mr. Fischer, had anything to do with that. Nor how the Lubbock writer's comments, or yours, are apropos to the discussion at all.

sure are making some crazy connections. Sounds like they don't really know what they're talking about.

The ACLU is relevant here how?

Here's the connection:

America was, at its founding and before its independence, a heavily Christian and, but for Maryland, a Protestant nation.  The Puritans, as you know, named the places they founded here after places in biblical Canaan:  Salem, Shiloh, etc.  They clearly saw this as their new Israel- no historian worth half his salt would dispute that.  

Here's the problem with that.  When the Israelites reached the end of their 40 years of wanderings and arrived at the land of milk and honey, THERE WERE PEOPLE ALREADY THERE THAT THEY HAD TO KICK OUT.  Being very literal about their scripture, the Puritans took that message to heart, and that was the moral basis, crudely put, for three centuries of subjugation, exile, and extermination of the American Indian on the part of white, Protestant America.

Given all this, it's not unreasonable to suggest that early America's Christianity is at least partially to blame for this atrocity.  Might it have been different were the first colonists Buddhist?  It's a totally ahistorical claim, and one that doesn't deserve evaluation as more than a thought experiment, but it almost certainly couldn't have been much worse for the Native Americans.    

I kept reading the diary for a while waiting to discover that Joyceann Fick is the secret leader of some Liberal occult bent on destroying America.

I stopped reading when I realized that it looks like she is just some disgruntled letter to the editore writer.

But hey, it was the Idaho Statesman. A widely read newspaper, from what I understand.

Who knew that Mr. Fischer was a colonial Puritan?

Thanks for clearing that up.

is entirely too pat, though it fits very easily into the "white guilt" narrative of American history, that is, to the extent that it does not simply come fully-formed from the a priori acceptance of same.  It ignores the many decades of - admittedly often tense, sometimes hostile - co-existence between New England's whites and Indians, the continued existence of Indian polities well after the initial settlement of New England, and wide religious and cultural differences between the different English colonies.  Did, for instance, the Virginia colonists think they were founding a new Israel, or did they just want to get rich?  Where did their history fit into this supposedly Biblically-motivated campaign of genocide?  It would probably be more accurate to describe the settlement by whites of the United States as a slow process of demographic displacement and assimilation, with the occasional massacre, war, or "population transfer" thrown in for good measure.  The Indians were swamped.

Clash of cultures. Indian Tribes fought, slaughtered and enslaved each other before Europeans arrived. And Indian tribes also attcaked settlers.

They lost. And because we prevailed, neither Hitler nor Stalin were able to take over the world.

But the same liberals that despise everything about America except that they would rather live here than anywhere else, decry admiration for the courageous warriors that we defeated.

Its priceless to watch aging hippies tell Seminoles what should offend them.

The State of Idaho actually spent tax dollars on the event and took kids out of school to see the Dalai Lama. Here's another portion:

Should they so choose, Idaho children have an opportunity to hear messages of compassion every Sunday -- it's called church. I guarantee, that if the pope would have come to Idaho and all the schools held an essay contest to determine who was granted an audience with him, Jack Van Valkenburgh of the local ACLU would have had a seizure. Apparently, though, it's OK if it's a member of the Lamaist faith.

By the way, I'm enjoying browsing your blog, despite (or perhaps because of) the differences in our political beliefs.

I like to think the ACLU wouldn't care if kids got to see the Pope, but who knows.

Why, thank you for reading my blog.

Settlers of ... ... ... the Amerind Homeland ... ?

No, those are called invaders, not settlers.

Did Indian tribes never commit unprovoked atrocities? Were the pilgrims invaders? Are refugess fleeing persecution invaders?

No group of people has clean hands. But we have cleanest and we won. Most indian tribes engaged in war over territory before our arrival.

OF COURSE illegal immigrants are invaders.  They're flauting the laws of this country and flaunting their own culture at the expense of ours.

I believe that Indians did, in fact, probably commit murders and rapes and slaughter and what-not.  I wouldn't call anything "unprovoked" until all the facts were known.

Pilgrims invaders..... ?

To enter by force in order to conquer or pillage.

To encroach or intrude on; violate: "The principal of the trusts could not be invaded without trustee approval" (Barbara Goldsmith).

To overrun as if by invading; infest: "About 1917 the shipworm invaded the harbor of San Francisco" (Rachel Carson).

To enter and permeate, especially harmfully.



Yes.

Forgot about the end of my post...

"But we have cleanest and we won. "  Won? Yes, and by a large margin.  Cleanest? No.  That would be like the guys in the Amazon, or the headhunters of Papau or somesuch ;)

"Most indian tribes engaged in war over territory before our arrival."   This applies why?  "They killed each other, so it's OK to kill them!"  seems to be the point of that sentence.

Can you link to Indian immigration requirments from the 15th-16th centuries?

Cleanest of any similar "empire" in history. surely we have used our power for more good than any other similarly situated power

once the manifest destiny reached carmel!

In any event it is ridiculous to base policy today on past sins that would have us consider ourselves unworthy of defense against present evils. One of the lessons of the 7/7 bombing in London is the corrosive effect of self loathing and cultural relativism. Our children need to be imbued with pride and love for america.

how is this an instance of political correctness?  The author expressed his views on the Dali Lama and another person responded to those views with his own argument.  That strikes me as a dialogue, not as political correctness.  Are we to understand that views are sancrosant and beyond criticism once they've been expressed?  It seems to me that the only instance where we should speak of something like political correctness is where someone is actively prevented from expressing themselves, or where they receive some sanction (firing, economic, censure) for expressing themselves.  This sort of exchange just strikes me as free speech in action.

....with the last paragraph.

LEARNING from history allows us not to repeat our mistakes and to better ourselves.

IGNORING history is done at one's peril.

If you meant that "once manif. dest. reached carmel we used our power for more good" then ... I don't think I can disagree with that. :)  However, it doesn't mean we were perfect.  "Strive for perfection, though you never acheive it, for in the striving is perfection reached."  I'm not sitting here wringing my hands over 400-year-old spilled blood (milk being too weak a metaphor), but denying, dissembling, and minimizing what actually happened is counterproductive.

Yeah, let me get that link for you.

I think the relevant portion of the post is the following:

"Now, this is his statement of honest disagreement with the Dalai Lama's views, but Joyceann Fick wrote in letters to the editor to the Statesman:

Fischer seems to think he alone has cornered the market on "acceptable" beliefs. That he would actually criticize the tenets of the Dalai Lama only proves how narrow-minded and intolerant Fischer's message really is."

But I would partially agree that the above is but a mild example, but Fick does meet your expressed definition of beyond criticism.

I think you rightly list the seriousness of unacceptable actions based on political correctness, but I think its definition also includes additional actions, such as social isolation, ridicule and shame.

And, technically, political correctness is a state of mind and belief and not the punitive actions themselves.

Political correctness has its origins with Lenin and his orwellian reduction of language to control thought.

I think in this country it began as a tool to demand polite tolerance by college students as well as a tool to combat racial epithets on campus that could incite violence.

And it soon ran amok.

To the point that it inhibits the expression of truth lest feelings be hurt, unless one is a Christian or conservative.

But I ramble on about what you alreay know.

please forgive insomnia induced rattling

My main gripe with the dominant leftist view of American history taught in most colleges and many if not most high schools and grammar schools, is their denigration of our unparalleled force for good in the world as compared to other nations in history and their blame America mantra excusing other nations for their evil deeds.

The best history lesson that needs to be learned by the left is that their socialist utopian vision cannot be acheived with better bureaucrats than the Soviets  employed. And they need to get over it and realize that their self worth comes from being created in the image of god, and that only he, and not man's political structures can change man's nature. And it is man's fallen state and separation from God and the purpose for which we were created that is our doom, even of America ultimately.

Our system is the best because it takes man as he is and employs incentives to maximize acheivement. And as the founders said is wholly untenable to govern except that the people be self disciplined thru faith in god.

be shamed and ridiculed in public discourse.  I'm not suggesting that the author is an example of such an attitude that should be so shamed, but I do think that's a part of democratic discourse.

..., it has been argued to death, and in several very good books, SUCK.  (Brief analogy -- Lefties on schoolboards veto 48% of historical material; Righties veto 48% of the material; our children are left with the BLANDEST, MOST GENERIC VIEW of history possible from the remaining "sanitized" 4%.  A true compromise where no one is happy.)

I've never thought that focusing on our "doom," as you put it, was productive, though. Much too much self-perfection to achieve, by my way of thinking. :)

yes, definitely, I am a major advocate for the necessity that shame accompany immoral conduct and obscene speech.

What I don't respect is a right not to be offended enforced thru speech codes and a stifling of academic freedom and taboo subject matter.

For a professor to consider anyone above criticism should disqualify her in her profession unless she teaches at a lama seminary.

It reminds me of that scarlet-like vaporized gonna hurl reaction by a female harvard professor to any suggestion that men and women have different capacities in different functions.

Much as the refusal to discourage pre-marital sex and achnowledge the value of men as fathers and husbands.

A resurection of shame properly applied is necessary to maintaining our civilization.

But I do think that the modern left is mostly wrong and the right, having incorporated most of what was good about classic liberalism, is mostly right.

But I favor abolishing public schools and the inherent compromises you decry, in favor of vouchers and private schools. Our culture was much more homogeneous as to valuess of right and wrong until the 60's and then after a respite as the disciples finished college and gained power in middle age.

A nation is defined by adherence to common values and culture, and a competition between the two would, I think be won by the right.

I favor allowing local majorities, rather than courts misapplying the establishment clause to decide the ciricullum even if the local school chooses to teach that piblic sodomy is acceptable, just as they should allow the teaching of the most influential book in western civilization and prayers inspired by same if they so choose.

And lets see which communities prosper and which descend into decadence.

Can we not forget the indirect deaths of the Native Americans attributed to foreign born pathogens that were carried over by the new settlers?  Throughout history, disease has always played a large role in destruction of races. Many, in modern times, would agree that continental Africans are being wiped out by an AIDS epidemic. And, there are also those moon-bats who believe that once again whites are the cause of it thus reaffirming the guilt ridden version of history that is perpetuated throughout American educational institutions..

be stifled or threatened.  However, as I originally said, I don't think this is an instance of stifling speech, but of someone writing a letter to the editor expressing their problems with the author's article.  The author is free to respond in these circumstances, just as this diary responds.  Similarly, in a college setting, students are free to express their views in the classroom should they disagree with the material being studied.  Professors are also free to point out perceived flaws in students arguments or how they're failing to take into account significant information and studies that tend to undermine their argument.  The line is crossed when a professor gives a student a low grade because of their particular religious or political view.  However, and this is an important caveat, if the student presents a particular view without proper research support and argumentation, the professor is warranted in grading the student accordingly.  For instance, the claims you make about the American indians above probably would not hold up in a history class about the settling of the Americas.  You conflate your value judgments regarding the relative merits of what happened, with the facts of what happened.  The aim of a history class, even if never entirely successful, is to give a factual account of what did indeed happen.  Your remarks seem to suggest that you're bothered by the idea of even talking about the history of how settlers related to indians in the Americas.

are two types of history and that these two types of history are often confused.  On the one hand, there is the discipline of history that strives to give a factual account of what actually happened or how things actually happened, based on historical documents coming from the period.  On the other hand, there is "mythological history" which consists of how a history is related by a group of people in the present to legitimate certain practices and to produce national pride, but which often has little basis in fact beyond the names involved and some of the events.  In this regard, I recall the debates about Christopher Columbus back in the 80's, when piles of historical information began to emerge about what he actually did.  People were outraged, calling historians "revisionist", and claiming that historians were trying to tarnish or slander the good name of a European hero by writing about his treatment of the indians, etc.  It was said that these historians were being politically correct and allowing their bias to color their research.  But it seems to me that they were just doing good historical research, and that our idealized conception of Columbus was at odds with the facts about Columbus.  On the one hand there was a mythology of Columbus.  On the other, there was the reality.  It doesn't seem to me that political correctness entered the equation, but rather that the facts just weren't very pretty.  Often history can be a very disturbing discipline.

I don't want to get into a debate here; I just want to make an observation.

I grew up thinking that guys like George Washington didn't poop. George Washington never told a lie. OK, so it was a 'Santa Claus' story. But what was the harm in it?

This gets back to the business of letting kids be kids. Too many people want to treat them like adults, only smaller.

When 'historians' found out that Thomas Jefferson owned slaves, I could've shot those people. That's something people can learn in college, when they can handle it. For some little kid to be walking around thinking, "My country was founded by slave owners and bigots" has no utility to anyone. Tell me, "Yeah, but it's the truth" and I'll tell you, "Yeah, but that's a kid. We often don't tell kids about all the ugliness in the world. They aren't ready for it."

You also have to realize that we cannot judge Columbus or other historical figures in the context of their society.  We can try, but ours is a guess at best.  Juding historical figures by what is acceptable in our society is not always valid.

Nick mentions Thomas Jefferson.  Judging him harshly because he was a slave owner is easy if you are applying our current moral standards.  However, since he was living by the moral standards of his day, his peers did not condemn him.

That doesn't mean that if we put his ownership of slaves into historical context we are making it mythological.  However, if we condemn him for it using the moral standards of today, we are really distorting his story.

Just knowing that he was a slave owner is not enough.  Facts need some historical coloring.

Polical correctness often judges historical figures by our morals rather than by the morals of the time.  By so doing, political correctness does at least as much to distort reality as the mythology.

"Professor", referring to a college setting.  However, I do think there is a value in presenting the truth at younger ages.  Idealized conceptions of history produce excessive nationalism or the idea that "we can do no wrong", which historically hasn't had a very good track record.  I don't think history ought to simply be a form of narcissistic gratification, but should also give us lenses to act more wisely in the present and have a better understanding of the circumstances in which we exist.  That said, I can't recall being taught in highschool or elementary school that Jefferson had slaves.  This was research done at universities and reported on the news, not taught in the secondary school education.  Or perhaps I'm mistaken.

I'd like to make two quick observations, one on the subject of historicity and the other a personal one.  The former is that during the recent confirmation hearings for Roberts we all saw and heard people from both sides of the aisle, liberal and conservative, speak of the Founding Fathers and their wisdom in almost reverential terms, and I think justifiably so.  If some element of the Founders' wisdom wasnt't worth discussing as such, why would we have have legislators of both political camps bother to talk about them during the nomination hearings?

The second observation is that I agree with you, especially in terms of role models, and especially for males, who need good role models, especially at a young age.  When I was a kid (very young, up until about 10 I would say, when I began to really read extensively on my own) I thought the same way and it was a healthy way to think.  I thought of my father as Superman, literally -- that he could bend steel with his bare hands and make the world stop spinning if he wanted to, and it was a very positive archetype to have, because as it turned out my dad actually IS a very good man, even though, as I later found out as an adult in my most frank conversations with him, when -- as you say, I could handle it -- not without his personal flaws and doubts and Achilles' heels.  But the belief that my father was a Superman -- and I can remember how I thought at the time (age 5 - 6) quite well -- was an important part of my psychological stability and something that I believe strongly has allowed me to live my life trying to uphold those ideals.

An anecdote:  I remember vividly the first time my father was proved wrong in my presence.  It was a trivial episode involving coupons for a movie ticket that he mistakenly thought would entitle my brother and I to free admission a theater where he'd taken us to see a matinee.  But the coupons had expired the previous week and the theater was no longer honoring them -- the clerk handed him back the ticket and he re-read the fine print, smiled and said, "whoops!" and paid for us.  But it was an enormous moment in my life -- I was four years old, and I realized at that moment that he could make a mistake!  If he could make a mistake, that meant I could make a mistake, and perhaps the whole world was a mistake.  

Luckily, I only obsessed about that thought for about ten minutes, and my dad proved to be a very accomplished father overall, living up to most of my other unrealistic expectations.  I know that one of the problems our society faces is that too many children, especially young men, have fathers who make much worse mistakes, and moreover do so deliberately.  And I think that a large cohort of those kids never recover from those experiences.

I don't believe in teaching children about the failures of their elders until they've reached a level of psychological and intellectual maturity that they can handle it and discuss it.  And I especially don't see anything wrong with teaching them about our history in archetypical terms that they will later come to view, in the fullness of time, with much more sophistication.  

You don't build the house before the foundation, so to speak.  Just my $0.02.

They often tell me "The history books are written by the victors" in an attempt to discredit what our founders did.

Of course, following this logic the Nazis were probably nicer than we give them credit for as well.

letter writer's "problem with the author" was that he dared criticize someone that she deemed to be immune from criticism and this is a hallmark of political correctness to remove certain subjects from public discourse for, obstensively, reasons of racial sensitivity and a desire to offend certain groups or beacuse they consider certain matters as settled by all intelligent modern people and any discussion of same to be beneath them.

You seem to want to stifle value judgment speech. How does it feel to have me "seem" to read between your lines, eh?

In english class we read the words not between the lines and so avoid the "seeming."

I was a phi beta kappa, summa cum laude economics and history major graduate from one the most prestgious liberal arts colleges in the South and in the Country, thank you, and so my work held up quite well, and my claims about the Indians are quite well documented.

I in no way shy away from a complete recounting of historical events, including the interactions between all persons on the soil of North America from 1492-2005.

But people do make value judgments, of course, not least of all college professors and any professed attempt at a stale recitation of historical facts devoid of any value judgment in itself is a value judgment by ommision.

Moreover, for one to properly understand the significance of historcal events, and to properly make value judgments concerning same, one must consider same as compared to the whole of human history including the acts of other humans in simlar circumstances, and not as isolated events to be judged against a utopian ideal lest a student be mislead to hate his own country,

especially this country.

The US has never and certainly will never acheive the standard demanded by many leftists who imagine that heaven on earth can be acheived with better bureaucrats, but by the standards of actual human history, we stand as the shining city on the hill, high above all others.

I am in no way "bothered  by the idea of even talking about the history of how settlers related to indians in the Americas" but I would be bothered if one were to suggest that the Indians were morally superior to us beacuse we defeated them in a struggle between incompatible civilizations in which they often did make unprovoked attacks against settlers, or that both before and after our arrival, they did not engage war with other indian tribes over issues quite similar to thsose concerned in our indian wars, and indeed in all war in history.

And certainly, any suggestion that beacuse of the defeat of the indians, that the US today should be in any way be judged as morally equivalent to our present enemies, and that our country has no right to defend itself because of the past, is repugnant.

All nations in history have dirty hands. But ours are the least dirty when on e looks at our enemies since 1776.

see

www.frontpagemag.com

god bless

The Indians fought valiently and lost. I admire them. But they were no better or worse than us on the whole. Some actually were worse.

That we were more powerful and advanced is no sin. The Indians fought. I am from SC. You might find it interesting to look into Jackson's removal of the Cherokee to Oklahoma. The situation in Georgia was that the defeated tribe refused to comply with state law re private property, etc and would have been wiped out by the Georgia militia had Jackson not removed the.

That we fought a war over control of land with a people just as morally if not more so entitled to occupy it as we, but whose people were incapable of re-pelling superior force, is no strike against us in history. Its all a mixed bag. many indians did not have the concept of private property while some claimed the right iof control over vast ares of unoccupied land.

Both sides initiated aggreession in different contexts. The indians sometimes won in mass slaughter on land that they did not control.

We won.

And as providence would have it, had we not, we would all be under Nazi or communist tyranny.

No sir, glad to have America's sins and greatness fully discussed as compared to all human hiatory.

bring it on

guilt and self loathing of tbis country by elitists leading comfortable lives in the freedom that others have died for is very unbecoming, so i hope you aren't disabled from joy at the blessing you hav e to live here due to some unsupported by history value judgment against us.