Re: Individual Rights and Historical Anachronism

Video Cam Direct Upload reply to: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-A599t-0VtQ

http://www.perc.org/articles/article802.php

Category:

Nonprofits & Activism

Tags:

• cultural
• genocide
• native
• americans
• indians
• cowboys
• Ayn
• Rand

[pyrrho314]

btw, when a whole culture is killed off, as happened with many tribes, or totally decimated over and over until only the decimen remains... it is fair to refer to that as genocide not by natural causes.

[pyrrho314]

I think the vision you have of tribal leaders and chiefs is too similar to the fantasy and fiction... tribes are more like groups of near-peers. You know a lot about NA culture, evidently... one, it's very bold to say there was never any principles opposition to that in any of the hundreds of tribes... and it's especially ironic that you are using this to forgive the violation of individual rights that was perpetrated on them.

[pyrrho314]

one, if you want to assert that the NA attacked first... well, firstly, let me refer you to thanks giving... secondly your make a non-sequitur about their lifestyle and how many it could support. Not everybody in the world had a religion that said "go forth and multiply"... and there is no objective criteria I know that says a culture MUST want to reproduce a lot. There were unpopulated areas with resources the NA knew how to exploit... obviously, tribes could have lived in those locations.

[grantsinmypants2]

... It did not. The best it could produce was a group of strong men (tribal leaders) inflicting their whims on everyone else, and pointing to religion as justification. The only reason why individual NA men (to say nothing of their wives and children) had the appearance of liberty was b/c their stronger neighbors didn't have the material resources to prey upon them (or there was nothing to steal). There was never any principled opposition to violating individual rights in any NA culture.

[grantsinmypants2]

If the NA lifestyle could have supported more people, there would have been more when the ECs arrived. If the NA lifestyle could have allowed giving the ECs land, there wouldn't have been NA starvations and EC reprisals for NA attacks (what you irresponsibly call genocide)

As Ive said, if the NA lifestyle could have produced enough material surplus that a legal system, replete with police, judges, lawyers, & jailers could have come into existence, then it would have deserved being spared...

[pyrrho314]

I have no idea why you think that was a reasonable demand. The NA did not insist the colonials adopt a NA lifestyle afaik. Considering their lifestyle also was objectively wrong according to Ayn, it's pretty bold to say they can kill anyone not submitting to such a demand.

The NA let the colonials take space and use the land, for the large part... that was more than they objectively had to do. They actually helped the colonials, in fact, but their reward was not so hot.

[grantsinmypants2]

Only if they adopted a Colonial lifestyle. They violently refused; they were violently dealt with.

[pyrrho314]

it's just ironic that the point at which YOU lose emotional maturity and want to call me names is the point where you claim I have lost emotional maturity. Projection.

Regardless, and I don't blame you, and I don't feel you have been overly blunt, I'm fine with that, please be blunt, I have said why I believe what I believe. I can clarify but there is nothing hidden about it, and there is nothing UGLY about not approving of genocide.

[pyrrho314]

never? really, because you did seem to say just that about killing off the indians, to help the survival of the colonists, regardless of the fact that there was enough room for both.

[pyrrho314]

you were pointing out the tech and philosophy of the colonials, I merely defended that these other humans also had their own versions of these cultural artifacts of tech and knowledge.