I am sitting at my normal watering hole on this Friday night.
I have a professional day job. I am also a musician. I decided to sit out on a gig tonight. I’m glad I did.
I packed up my tobacco pipe and headed to my bar. I found a friend of mine as I walked in. He is a very vocal liberal. Hates GEOTUS and everything about him. Fine, whatever.
We talked. It somehow shifted to politics. Weird, since I never bring it up if I know I disagree with whom I am speaking with.
He started ranting about Trump. I listened, as always. I didn’t debate. I just listened.
Then, he did something that flipped a switch.
He called me a racist.
I said absolutely nothing racist. I didn’t defend my political beliefs while he was ranting.
He called me “inherinly racist” for being white. He’s white.
I fucking lost it.
I’m not going to go into what I said due to me not wanting to give too many clues about myself and inadvertently doxxing myself to a fucking leftist. But, I will say that I feel invigorated.
I finally started offering rebuttals to stupid leftist shit on social media.
I’m. Done.
I voted for him in 2016 and (cue Goofy meme) I’ll fucking do it again.
Trump 2020. Let’s Make America Great Again once more, Pedes.
If the amount of white people that they accused of being racist were really racist, there would be no black people, because they would have killed them all. Look at the indians. That was racist.
It wasn't racist; it was a conquering nation, much of it in self defense. Had the natives been white, the same would have happened.
I don’t condone with what the early settlers did and there was undeniably a lot of mistreatment even after the dust had settled, but I’ve come around to the opinion of it being a conquest as well. Again and I can’t stress enough how it being a conquest somehow presents an excuse for something like the Trail of Tears, but it does greatly water down the claims that white settlers captured Native American land purely out of malice and hate towards them. It wasn’t that - it was greed and want. The same greed and want that caused the Romans to conquer many Gallic tribes, the same greed and want that caused Alexander to expand the Greek Empire, the same greed and want that has caused all nations to grow. Race might have been a convenient dividing line to justify it and to provide people with an “us vs. them” mentality, but it’s far from the motivation.
I mean, they had two options.
Live on a tiny sliver of land and let a bunch of literal fucking stone-age cavemen squat on the rest of it forever.
Say "use it or lose it, Tonto" and fucking use that land for something more productive.
Again... not saying I don’t understand it. But that doesn’t also preclude me from being empathetic. It’s the nature of humans to want and build, it’s the nature of nations to seek growth. I get that. But I can also still recognize events or acts that happened throughout history and call them out for being what they are. I can feel sympathy for the slaves of the Roman Republic and Empire that were used to fuel infrastructure and expansion while also still recognizing the greatness and importance of the nation that much of the modern Western world is built on. Do I think the Italian government should send Germany reparations for harm done to the descendants of the original Gallic tribes? No - that’s absolutely stupid. Do I think that the leaders of Rome should propose knocking down the Coliseum or the Pantheon because it was built off of slave labor? Again, a terrible and stupid idea. But it’s just as stupid to also ignore that the nation utilized slaves to do this.
History is history. You can’t cherry pick the things you like and ignore the things you don’t like - you’re no better than these BLM and Antifa rioters if you do that. The United States unquestionably did some very poor things to Native Americans, whether you believe justified or not, it happened and should be acknowledged.
There are a few comments being said against this but I’m not entirely sure what the premises of these arguments are. We can disagree all we want, it sincerely doesn’t bother me and I’m for open discussion on this, I’m just not understanding what the counterpoints are.
From what you wrote, it sounds like you’re arguing acts were justified, because if those acts hadn’t occurred then we’d have witnessed more inter-fighting between themselves and an overall larger loss of life, right? Your stance is saying there’s justification in the force deployed because it actually lowered death counts than if tribes were left to their own devices?
How would that be any different an argument posed by an entity like the UN saying that they should have total control and say across all societies and nations and that they’ll take that control by militaristic force if necessary because, in the end, a single governing body will prevent nations from going to war with one another and will prevent skirmishes between different groups, thus lowering total world wide deaths than had they allowed different nations to exist with their own interpretations on how their society should be structured?
I’m good, thanks though I guess? I’m not quite sure what your point is.
Are you arguing someone isn’t allowed to point out how some events in the past were shitty for a party involved unless they’re also willing to personally attempt to rectify it? Because, I mean, I don’t know own any property in Southern Germany to give to some Gallic tribe and I’m afraid I also don’t know any surviving Gauls from 55 BC to hand this hypothetical property to... (Not to mention I’m also not a soldier from one of Caesar’s legions that conquered that land.) Should I just not be allowed to say “Man, that must’ve been shitty that the Gauls were enslaved by the Romans”?
I get your point and to an extent agree, but they hated Indians for being savages so there was a personal hate there. Justified or not, I’m not here to judge.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Indian_massacres