m0002a wrote:
I do not want to diminish whatever injustices were done to American Indians, but I believe you overall perspective is not correct, and your facts are wrong. But the main point is that comparing accidental deaths caused by European diseases, or accidental deaths during in the Trial of Tears, should not be compared to what Nazi Germany did in attacking other countries and conducting the holocaust. There was more than enough land to support both the Indians and settlers, but being a nomadic society the Indians were unable to live in peace with others, including other Indians (which is why they were great warriors before the Europeans arrived). The cultural conflicts were too great.
Ok, so since when do the foreigners get to decide if there is enough land? What if Canada said "well, you aren't using this land here" when it is part of a park, or just sitting fallow for a year for rotation or whatever? If they sent in a couple of million settlers, (to make the numbers a little more in line with today's number.) America would get pissed. Why would they get to pick what land is in use? Generally speaking, the people who live in a place get to say who moves there.
Here is a quote from Wikipedia with a more balanced view:
“On the 2010 census 0.9 percent of the U.S. population identified themselves as being Native American (or Alaskan Native). [that would be about 3 million people.] No conclusive evidence exists to determine how many native people lived in North America before the arrival of Columbus. The Library of Congress uses 900,000 as the total number in its educational article "Destroying the Native American Cultures". By 1800, the native population of the present-day United States had declined to approximately 600,000, and only 250,000 Native Americans remained in the 1890s. As the direct result of written and broken treaties, warfare, and of forced assimilation, the Indians were virtually destroyed by the European immigration that created the United States. Scholars believe that among the causes of the overwhelming population decline of the American natives were new infectious diseases carried by Europeans. Native Americans had no acquired immunity to such diseases, which had been chronic in Eurasian populations for centuries. For instance, some estimates indicate case fatality rates of 80–90% in Native American populations during smallpox epidemics.”
A lot of current scholarship indicates that by the time much of North America was contacted by Europeans, disease from Central America had already reduced their numbers greatly, and that much of the "virgin forest" that the Europeans encountered was actually tended and controlled with, for example, periodic burning. Some estimates have up to 100 million living in the America's overall.
Here is a statement about how many were killed as a result of direct combat between Indians and the US government:
“According to the U.S. Bureau of the Census (1894), "The Indian wars under the government of the United States have been more than 40 in number. They have cost the lives of about 19,000 white men, women and children, including those killed in individual combats, and the lives of about 30,000 Indians."
All I am saying is 1491: 100% Native Americans, 2010: 0.9% Native Americans. Seems like someone got their country taken. Also comparing numbers today to numbers then is silly. Let's use some round numbers. Let's say there were a million Native Americans in what is now the US in 1491. That is about a third of the population of England at that time. (quick google found that out.) So assuming that they could have industrialized in a similar fashion if they had been provided with the knowledge and know how in a modern free-trade, open market way, seems likely they would have the same rate of increase in population that England has had. England currently has about 50 million people. An increase of about 17 fold. So while their are comparable numbers of Native Americans today, if they had truly just being living and growing in concert with their neighbors, their should be something like 17 million Native Americans, which there are not.
The United States was stolen. Almost all countries in the world have stolen their land from someone. It is how the world used to work. It isn't how it works now.
I don't object to saying that Indians were treated very unfairly, and that many of them died in wars against the settlers, or by disease, etc. But this is not the same as what happened in Nazi Germany and it is obscene to make such suggestions IMO.
So let me get this right:
- The settling of the United States was a continued, multi-generational effort to deprive a people of their land, lively hood, and sometimes lives, so that another group can grow and reach their full potential. It is "obscene" to compare this to the programs and agenda of Nazi Germany.
- Someone having an opinion on a bulletin board makes them comparable to Hitler.
Are these really the two positions you are asserting at the same time?
Here are some little known facts about American Indians in the Civil War:
28,693 Native Americans served in the Union and Confederate armies during the Civil War, participating in battles such as Pea Ridge, Second Manassas, Antietam, Spotsylvania, Cold Harbor, and in Federal assaults on Petersburg. A few Native American tribes, such as the Creek and the Choctaw, were slaveholders and found a political and economic commonality with the Confederacy. The Choctaw owned nearly 6000 slaves.
Lincoln and the American Indians:
As a result of Indian massacres of white settlers, Lincoln authorized the execution of 39 Sioux in December of 1861, and ordered that the others be held pending further orders, "taking care that they neither escape nor are subjected to any unlawful violence." From January to May 1863, there were almost continuous fights in the New Mexico territory, as part of a concerted effort by the Federal government to contain and control the Apache; in the midst of all this, President Abraham Lincoln peacefully met with representatives from several major tribes, and informed them he felt concerned they would never attain the prosperity of the white race unless they turned to farming as a way of life, instead of being a nomadic society.
I don't see how this helps you. Lincoln is even saying "we will out compete you for your land if you don't start farming."
Once exceptions are made to ignore one part of the Constitution, the whole thing is subject to be ignored. IMO, the rule of law is more important than the unfortunate consequences of upholding bad laws.
Ok, so here's the crux. To get back on topic. The actual text is "A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."
First it isn't clear to me that they mean security from invasion or domestic tyranny, however I will, for the purpose of debate, consider that they mean 'from domestic tyranny.'
Note that it does not say "no person shall be deprived of the right to keep and bear arms" (compare the Fifth "No person shall be held to answer....") 'The people' is a collective noun, like 'the herd'. For instance in the preamble the use of "We the people" means the collective group, not the collection of individuals. Compare the dictionary definition of "people" to "persons."
Also, it does not say "for the defense of their home."
So in particular what it doesn't say is "I can have a gun to shoot someone who comes into my house without asking." It seems concerned with the security of the state not the home.
So one reasonable interpretation might be that this means that it should be lawful to form organized militias, at the state level (like the National Guard before it was nationalized) or even at the local level (like volunteer fire fighters sometimes are.) These groups could then be as heavily armed as they would need to be to defend their region against invasion or tyranny. Probably similar to the armament of the National Guard. However, it would still be illegal to just go firing off those weapons for fun or the like, and maybe also for "stand your ground" or home invasion with non-lethal force.
That isn't what we have at all right now. If you think a handgun would actually stop the government from doing something to you, you need to look twice at the size of your weapons and the size of theirs. If the federal government wanted to say, round up American citizens of Japanese ancestry and put them in camps, they could. Oh, wait, they
did. If the president wanted to suspend habeaus corpus, and institute martial law in some states, he could, oh wait, Lincoln
did. Personal firearm ownership did not stop these two instances of tyranny.
Personal ownership of small arms does not satisfy the purpose nor the letter of what the 2nd amendment. Looking at the gun law with a non-NRA, non-GOP approved eye isn't the same thing as "expectations being made to the Constitution."