CARAVAN heading to The U.S.A ( POLL )

[HarryStotle]

HarryStotle:

Remember away.

The problem here is that you are promoting a precedent.

This means your principle (The Robin Hood Principle) implies that anytime someone considers themselves poor or disadvantaged they have a divine right just to take it from anyone they perceive to be richer than they.

Just remember that RHP when you walk down a street and a poor fellow decides you are richer than he and is determined to equalize things. Don’t put up a wall or attempt to thwart his Robin Hood proclivity regarding you and your wealth.

When Robin Hood is taken out of story books, the reality is very ugly.

If I recall correctly, Robin Hood wasn’t merely taking from the rich to give to the poor. He was actually practicing restorative justice in the sense that the rich who were his targets had gotten illegitimately rich by taking money through taxation from common citizens, thereby making them poor.

He was restoring to “the poor” what had been rightfully theirs, in the first place.

 

[vz71]

It is disgusting to suggest that there have been no nations wiped out on US soil. They didn’t all die from innocent transmission of European diseases, but were driven out of existence by purposeful action that intended to blot out those nations.

I’ll just leave this here…

https://www.pbs.org/gunsgermssteel/variables/smallpox.html

Disease was by far the biggest killer of the native american population.

 

[PetraG]

If I recall correctly, Robin Hood wasn’t merely taking from the rich to give to the poor. He was actually practicing restorative justice in the sense that the rich who were his targets had gotten illegitimately rich by taking money through taxation from common citizens, thereby making them poor.

He was restoring to “the poor” what had been rightfully theirs, in the first place.

Name a time that has worked, outside of legends. It is a recipe for anarchy, because the “poor” can be just as grasping and have a sense of their due that is as disproportionate as anybody else.

If people are taking justice into their own hands, justice has failed.

 

[PetraG]

I’ll just leave this here…

Guns Germs & Steel: Variables. Smallpox | PBS

Disease was by far the biggest killer of the native american population.

The contention was: Lol there’s never been a genocide on US soil.

LOL?!?! OK, that’s just wrong in so many ways. Yes, without argument there have been acts of genocide on US soil. It is undeniably in the public record. This mythology that we can say “thank you, Lord, that this nation is not like other nations” is a very harmful bit of self-delusion, particularly if it is extended to the “soil” of our territories as a whole since 1492 (or even before that, as there were undoubtedly stronger nations swallowing the weaker before that) and not just the official acts of the US government herself. Yes, we’ve been like other nations. We have some things to be proud of, but freedom from any acts or intention of genocide is NOT among them!!

No, the tragedy of unintentionally-imported smallpox doesn’t get that comment off the hook.

For the record (and back to the topic of the thread): Freedom from bouts of irrational fear of immigration is not among them, either. That one also makes its regular rounds in the minds of the populace. It can be demonstrated that it is doing so right now: that is, total fabrications about immigration are made up out of whole cloth, and people rush to swallow them, hook, line and sinker.

 

[vz71]

No, the tragedy of unintentionally-imported smallpox doesn’t get that comment off the hook.

One cannot commit genocide without an intent.
Please show how the spread of a disease among the population was intentional.

 

[PetraG]

One cannot commit genocide without an intent.
Please show how the spread of a disease among the population was intentional.

Spreading small-pox was unintentional.
Attacking native villages and killing all who were found there, whether armed or not, including women and children down to and including the mere infants? That is an act of genocide. That the bodies were desecrated by some of the soldiers afterwards, sometimes with body parts of the murdered taken as the most perverted kind of personal trophies, only shows it even more for what it was.

So: NO LOL. It happened. It is undeniable. It was shameful. Smallpox isn’t a cover for it, either.

 

[HarryStotle]

HarryStotle:

If I recall correctly, Robin Hood wasn’t merely taking from the rich to give to the poor. He was actually practicing restorative justice in the sense that the rich who were his targets had gotten illegitimately rich by taking money through taxation from common citizens, thereby making them poor.

He was restoring to “the poor” what had been rightfully theirs, in the first place.

Name a time that has worked, outside of legends. It is a recipe for anarchy, because the “poor” can be just as grasping and have a sense of their due that is as disproportionate as anybody else.

If people are taking justice into their own hands, justice has failed.

I am not disagreeing with you here. The tenth commandment is pretty clear that unequal distribution of goods isn’t an evil thing, in itself. Nor that justice requires turning goods over to those who covet them.

It isn’t a case of justice failing, either. There were times in history when social order was maintained by individuals “taking justice into their own hands” before systems of governance were developed.

It might even be argued that good governance is a balance between all individuals acting on their own behalf and the state acting on behalf of all. It certainly beats placing all power in the hands of the state or the opposite of everyone for him/herself. The tension in balance leads to the codifying of principles of justice – at least, that would be the hope.

 

[PetraG]

It isn’t a case of justice failing, either. There were times in history when social order was maintained by individuals “taking justice into their own hands” before systems of governance were developed.

That wasn’t the case in the legend. In the legend, it was garden-variety abuse of governing power by which the wealthy oppressed people without the power to stop those whose established duty it was to protect them. It wasn’t that justice was in its infancy. It was that justice was bound, gagged and thrown out into the darkness.

Those being held down only endure that situation for so long before they give up on justice ever raising a finger on their behalf. Then it gets ugly.

 

[whichwaytogo47]

Doesn’t matter. Illegal is illegal. While we have the responsibility to take care of the poor who are among our midst, we don’t have an obligation to take in everyone from the world at the expense of our own population.

That said, I support any charity that wants to support them while they’re having their case heard at the border.

 

[vz71]

So: NO LOL. It happened. It is undeniable. It was shameful. Smallpox isn’t a cover for it, either.

That atrocities happened is undeniable.
Genocide, however, is not an accurate description.

 

[PetraG]

That atrocities happened is undeniable.
Genocide, however, is not an accurate description.

If an act is committed with the intention that wiping out a nation or a tribe or an ethnic group, or even wiping it out in a particular territory, would be a desirable result, I don’t know what else you call it. That’s straw-splitting.

It is abundantly clear from statements made at the time that the intention was genocidal.

No Indians left: that was the intention. Not just subdued or conquered, but removed and preferably just wiped out. Let’s not try to sugarcoat it, nor the prevailing sentiment that the natives were an inferior race that didn’t deserve to be on the land that the self-anointed superior race coveted for its own exclusive use.

 

[PetraG]

Find one official US document, policy, or law, that stated the complete eradication of the natives was a goal, aim, of desire of the US government.

Ah, so as long as they only say “the only good Indian I ever saw was a dead Ïndian” out loud but without enshrining that in an official document subject to public scrutiny, the intention could not possibly be eradication. (And, by the way, the evidence is that the British and later the US governments did expose native tribes to deadly diseases on purpose, as a way to subdue them.) But look at post 656, and you tell me.

There are entire tribes in California that were wiped out completely…and again, women and children were targets. When women, children, unarmed men, and prisoners are not just unintended casualties but are positively made into targets of lethal attack, that isn’t subduing the enemy. That is an attempt to wipe them out, to rid the land of them.

 

[PetraG]

Conjecture without proof. Neither side was all that virtuous. Both committed atrocities. One side was just better at it, human history repeated over and over.

I’ll repeat what Kit Carson said, since he was there:
His men shot down squaws, and blew the brains out of little innocent children. You call sich soldiers Christians, do ye? And Indians savages? What der yer s’pose our Heavenly Father, who made both them and us, thinks of these things?

So, one more time: The contention was Lol there’s never been a genocide on US soil.
That is false. Period.

 

[PetraG]

Yeah that’s not genocide. Murder, despicable behavior, sure. But it’s not genocide.

If someone invaded, say, Poland and did that to an ethnic group or groups of the Polish people–confiscating their property and killing unarmed people in cold blood, confining the rest to camps against their will, for instance, in order to clear the area for exclusive occupation by a better race of people–I’d call it a genocide.

So would you.

 

[PetraG]

Virtual Jamestown

“
On the day prior to the attack, the Indians came bringing gifts of meats and fruits and shared them with the settlers, thereby disguising their intentions. The following morning they circulated freely and socialized with the settlers before suddenly seizing their own work tools to attack them (See Robert Beverley’s Description of the 1622 Attack). The Indians killed families in the plantation houses and them moved on to kill servants and workers in the fields. The Powhatans killed 347 settlers in all - men, women, and children. Not even George Thorpe, a prominent colonist well known for his friendly stance towards the Indians, was spared. The Powhatans harsh treatment of the bodies of their victims was symbolic of their contempt for their opponents. The Indians also burned most of the outlying plantations, destroying the livestock and crops.”

I think I was trying to prove that the premise “Lol there’s never been a genocide on US soil” is false. Not once did I ever say or imply that no native tribes ever intended to wipe out Europeans settling in their territories.

How does your example prove otherwise?

And really…Jamestown? What does an attack on Jamestown in 1622 have to do with what happened at Sand Creek to utterly unrelated tribe in 1864? That kind of thinking would give an excuse for a present-day genocidal attack on Germany or Japan (see: Rape of Nanjing).

 

[PetraG]

It’s a long history of attacks and counter attack’s. Not genocide. That’s my point.

A counter-genocide would still count as a genocide, if that were what it was, which is was not, since the tribes in Sand Creek weren’t related to the tribes in the American Southwest. You may as well say that what the Germans did would excuse wiping out Denmark.

Kit Carson understood that. Any Christian of 2018 should have even less trouble with the concept.

If your premise is true, than the natives were equally guilty of genocide of the Jamestown population.

When did I ever said they wouldn’t be? The difference, however, is that one group was ostensibly Christian.
(Weren’t they? And aren’t we? I am on the Catholic web site, right?)

 

[PetraG]

Their Christianity is a moot point. Human beings have been killing each other since time began, was their behavior right? No, no ones making that argument. But it does not meet the definition of genocide.

Besides, given that they were Protestants from England they were all heretics anyway, so their supposed Christianity is dubious to start.

Sigh…once again: “Lol there’s never been a genocide on US soil”

The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, Article 6:
http://legal.un.org/icc/statute/99_corr/cstatute.htm

For the purpose of this Statute, “genocide” means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
(a) Killing members of the group;
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
(c,) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

No, US soil is not some Shangri-La where the human race has never committed acts of genocide. Women, children and non-combatants have been killed with the intention of wiping out the presence of a tribe or nation in an area.

The statement “Lol there’s never been a genocide on US soil” is patently false.

Honestly, “the only good Indian is a dead Indian” is about the most proto-typically genocidal statement anybody could ever make.

 

[PetraG]

Besides, given that they were Protestants from England they were all heretics anyway, so their supposed Christianity is dubious to start.

This, by the way, was an entirely repugnant and arrogant thing to say. You’d think Roman Catholics have no blood on our hands, which is also false, and do not try to deny that, either.

 

[Sarcelle]

I remember helping my parish with helping refugees from Somalia, Myanmar, Syria and Iraq.

 

[BoomBoomMancini]

Besides, given that they were Protestants from England they were all heretics anyway, so their supposed Christianity is dubious to start.

I hope this was tongue in cheek because otherwise…oof. Geez, dude. Rein it in a bit.