Quote Originally Posted by Gandalf View Post
Quote Originally Posted by TitoFan View Post
"De-population" sounds a little cold, Victor. To be sure, in all of the Americas, many indigenous indian cultures were systematically wiped out. But as has been repeated often, this happened over decades and even centuries. It was also the result of warring between colonists from Europe and the indian inhabitants. Indians were not led helplessly in single file into a volcano pit or anything like that. Many colonists lost their lives as well. It was a different time back then. New worlds were still being discovered. This is why I and everyone else disagrees with Miles comparing this to the extermination of the Jews by the Nazis. Europe's colonists and the indian cultures in both Americas were not going to be able to coexist.
Moral truisms then and today are much the same. You know that you shouldn't rape your sister, you know that you shouldn't slit the throat of the neighbor because he gave you a funny look, you know you should respect others. The settlers who commited genocide, were much like the people who lead people to death via governments, military, business and financial abuse today. It's just on the whole we tend to be more subtle or in the case of Panama, Iraq and Afghanistan not so subtle. These days it is control of regions rather than outright genocide. It's not so easy today.They were greedy cunts back then and enough was never enough. You've got to take more and more. Our methods are just more clever now.

Furthermore, the settlers did round up Indians and did incarcerate them in camps and even today the standard of living for natives is considerably lower than that of their bulkier counterparts.


Gotta go. Don't get pissed off like you did the last time. Good argument, I'm sure it'll still be here in the morning.