What do u think about native americans?

[Atalanta]

Originally Posted by truckingbronco

So, according to your logic, we should never discuss history because we didn't experience it first hand?

There is a huge difference between DISCUSSING history, and being a know it all and arogant.

And being as if you know how it was

[truckingbronco]

Originally Posted by Atalanta

There is a huge difference between DISCUSSING history, and being a know it all and arogant.

And being as if you know how it was

People should be allowed to voice their opinions regardless of what you or I think of them. If we allow everything to become watered down PC garbage then we will learn nothing of value.

[Huckleberry3911948]

staying separate seems to work for the indian people.
i think anglo culture is going to either burn out or have to change radically
collective thinking is healthy. much could be learned from the indian people.

[Rickers]

I think we all have a little bit of changing to do. Anyone got any cheese to go with all this whine ! The above poster said there is much to learn from Indian people and that may be true but there is also much to learn from the Chinese and Arabic peoples as well.
Like I said before It may be getting close to the time for us to all start over from scratch because freaking nobody is special over anyone else. I don't know why this thread is even still here ? The tribes here should build water parks rather than casinos. They may make more money without contributing to peoples demise catering to drunks and gambling addicts. Some of my best memories are from hanging out at the old water park on The La Jolla Indian Reservation sliding on the slides and tubing down the little river there next to the slide park. The poison oak I got every year was not fun !

[bics.g]

Here's a thought: In lots of threads on this forum, both in the area-specific and general-US areas, there is recurring comment on immigrants. People coming from afar (overseas or other regions), changing the character of neighborhoods, drving up real-estate prices, taking jobs etc etc etc. Particularly strong is the sentiment directed at "illegals." In general I baulk at the xenophobia, though I understand it.

I wonder if using contemporary illegal immigration , and the fear it generates as an analogy - albeit a very mild one, given the comparatively greater power modern America has to control who comes to its shores than indigenous nations had - might help non-indigenous peoples get a sense of the historical experience of indigenous people. The very things that are feared DID happen to indigenous people, and not just in the US but in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Central and South America...

I would also suggest that the argument that it's not fair to give indigenous peoples (actually, I would say this applies equally to other minorities) "special treatment" is flawed. Because for however many years, these groups have been denied the right to particpate in shaping and creating (for example, how many indigenous poeple can be counted among the Founding Fathers?) society, "society" ends up becoming in effect special treatment for a select group, it just isn't recognised because the select group is the majority.

[TypicalCalifornian]

Bics sez....I would also suggest that the argument that it's not fair to give indigenous peoples (actually, I would say this applies equally to other minorities) "special treatment" is flawed. Because for however many years, these groups have been denied the right to particpate in shaping and creating (for example, how many indigenous poeple can be counted among the Founding Fathers?) society, "society" ends up becoming in effect special treatment for a select group, it just isn't recognised because the select group is the majority.



I think you are mixing two separate ideas. Whether a "mistreated group" deserves special treatment, and whether they should/could have participated in the shaping of a new country? Let's stick to the USA for the purposes of this discussion. The USA was the culmination and logical end point of an entire series of western civilization thought starting with the Greeks, the Magna Charta, wending it's way through the Protestant reformation, the invention of Capitalism and the entire backdrop of elevating the individual over the state.

By the way you structured your statement, it is apparent this was not progress in your world view instead preferring some benevolent, mushy, "it takes a village" autocracy of the majority. It is not even remotely possible the indigenous, victimized groups could have participated in that experiment..frankly and coldly, they don't accept the underlying premises even today.

So what we have devolved in to is the reservation as some sort of living museum with just enough welfare tossed in to allow conventional folks, like me, to sleep semi-guilt free in their beds. American blacks on the other hand were given "40 acres and a mule" and frankly did very, very well in closing the economic gap with the larger society until we (you and folks like you actually) decided they needed preferential treatment, the result of which is a disaster to the black population and culture (I will not bother to list the familial and economic disaster as you can't get there in any case).

Obviously this post does nothing to solve the problem except to challenge your fundamental premises. When something is not working, it is almost always a good idea to check one's assumptions.

[ElkHunter]

I do believe that this thread has run it's course.

Closed.