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Post by Clint Johnston on Mar 24, 2013 19:51:38 GMT 1
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Post by CAPT Issac R. Madden on Mar 24, 2013 20:46:21 GMT 1
I'm partly of Cherokee/Apache decent, but I tend to agree with you on this one Clint. Yes, the Indian Wars, Trail of Tears, etc were horrible to put it mildly. But that was more than a century ago. I'm not saying forget what happened, but reparations and preferential treatment aren't going to undo the sins of the past.
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Post by Cali on Mar 24, 2013 20:57:51 GMT 1
I'll contribute to this once I'm certain every here promises not to bring up this tired, wrinkly, malignant old term again.
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Post by Mister Buch on Mar 24, 2013 21:20:35 GMT 1
An artist's impression of Buch deciding whether or not to comment on this thread: Please reverse what Iron says and imagine me typing it. I'm not sure what you'd mean by 'enough', Clint - enough to do what exactly? Guilt shouldn't be a motivating factor for government, but neither should 'it was a long time ago' ever be an excuse. Heritage and national culture ought to be preserved and human beings should not be forced out of their tradition. And that's all I've got - enjoy yourselves.
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Post by CAPT Issac R. Madden on Mar 24, 2013 21:41:47 GMT 1
An artist's impression of Buch deciding whether or not to comment on this thread: Please reverse what Iron says and imagine me typing it. I'm not sure what you'd mean by 'enough', Clint - enough to do what exactly? Guilt shouldn't be a motivating factor for government, but neither should 'it was a long time ago' ever be an excuse. Heritage and national culture ought to be preserved and human beings should not be forced out of their tradition. And that's all I've got - enjoy yourselves. Ok. So you think that people should pay for something they had nothing to do with which ended ages ago? In that case, get your ass to New Delhi and start giving your money to all the poor people there whose ancestors suffered under the boot of the British Empire during the Raj. After all, you said to reverse what I said (that people today should not be punished for sins that happened long before they were born).
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Post by Cali on Mar 24, 2013 21:50:40 GMT 1
I'm gonna go have a beer. I hope I don't see any terrible scorch marks, blood stains, or God help me, used condoms on this thread when I get back.
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Post by jklinders on Mar 24, 2013 21:55:22 GMT 1
I think that I am going to use as a starting point the notion that these tribes are entitled under the law to the same provision that other less well off tribes are. If there was supposed to be some kind of safeguard against more financially well off tribes not getting this money, then I would expect it would have been built in. If it hasn't then the law needs to be changed before people get their knickers in too much of a bunch here.
Should they ask for handouts from the steps of multi million dollar casino? Dubious. Under the law can they? Yes. Now I am going to recuse myself from further comment as I am pretty certain the politics of native americans is actually a fair piece different in the US than in Canada (I hear the US ones are better off financially but my source was at best hearsay) so long as I do not need to break up any fights.
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Post by jklinders on Mar 24, 2013 21:56:30 GMT 1
I'm gonna go have a beer. I hope I don't see any terrible scorch marks, blood stains, or God help me, used condoms on this thread when I get back. That was better put than I did. I'm actually not in the mood for bloodshed right now unless I am it's source.
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Post by Lily Ariel Linders on Mar 24, 2013 22:00:41 GMT 1
It seems that 100 year of federal funding, white guilt, and tax-free casinos aren't enough. If this term means what I think it means, then I am not certain that I understand the concept. Yes, it sucks that Natives were treated horribly by White Settlers in the past (if that's the origin of the term "white guilt"), but... why should that affect people (both Native and Non-Native) now, a few hundred years later, when absolutely nobody who was involved in the original situations are even still alive?
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Post by CAPT Issac R. Madden on Mar 24, 2013 22:14:23 GMT 1
It seems that 100 year of federal funding, white guilt, and tax-free casinos aren't enough. If this term means what I think it means, then I am not certain that I understand the concept. Yes, it sucks that Natives were treated horribly by White Settlers in the past (if that's the origin of the term "white guilt"), but... why should that affect people (both Native and Non-Native) now, a few hundred years later, when absolutely nobody who was involved in the original situations are even still alive? I agree with you Lily. Hell, I'm a descendant of two Native tribes and I find the idea that people today should "pay" for what happened over a century ago to be ludicrous at best and fucking batshit insane at worst. It's like going to Austria or Germany and demanding that those countries' inhabitants pay for the sins of Hitler or, if we really want to go back in the atrocity time machine, going to Athens, Sparta, Rome, etc and telling THOSE people that they owe the rest of the world reparations for what their ancestors did millennia ago.
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Post by Lily Ariel Linders on Mar 24, 2013 22:38:01 GMT 1
If this term means what I think it means, then I am not certain that I understand the concept. Yes, it sucks that Natives were treated horribly by White Settlers in the past (if that's the origin of the term "white guilt"), but... why should that affect people (both Native and Non-Native) now, a few hundred years later, when absolutely nobody who was involved in the original situations are even still alive? I agree with you Lily. Hell, I'm a descendant of two Native tribes and I find the idea that people today should "pay" for what happened over a century ago to be ludicrous at best and fucking batshit insane at worst. It's like going to Austria or Germany and demanding that those countries' inhabitants pay for the sins of Hitler or, if we really want to go back in the atrocity time machine, going to Athens, Sparta, Rome, etc and telling THOSE people that they owe the rest of the world reparations for what their ancestors did millennia ago. The Sins of the Fathers, and all that, eh? How can the world grow if old grudges are allowed to fester like that? Anyway... I just think it's weird for there to be two sets of laws for two sets of people in one country - I thought the point of a law was that it covered absolutely everyone?
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Post by CAPT Issac R. Madden on Mar 24, 2013 23:16:04 GMT 1
Ideally, the law would be applied to all people. But what if some people who feel "well someone owes me for my ancestor's suffering" manage to put up enough pressure to get laws passed that give them preferential treatment? That's pretty much what's been happening since Dr. King was assassinated.
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Post by Lily Ariel Linders on Mar 25, 2013 2:00:06 GMT 1
Yeesh.
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Post by Clint Johnston on Mar 25, 2013 6:46:52 GMT 1
What I mean by white guilt is the often pitiful efforts of Caucasians to make up for the mistakes of their elders by offering preferential treatment to those of a different background.
I'm torn. For the most part I support Iron's stance and think bygones should be bygones. Hell, keep the casinos, keep the tax-exempt status, but don't come begging to my pocket when it doesn't work out.
Then again, we owe it to ourselves to learn more about the people around us. People who might never be around us if not for efforts to bring them into our circles. Overall I think Affirmative action is bad, but it's impossible to measure what the ratio of bad to good is.
I think we could do well to learn WHY certain groups do certain things, rather than paying them off to leave us alone.
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Post by A Normal Pathfinder on Mar 25, 2013 14:39:39 GMT 1
I'm part-Indian part Scottish When I was in the third grade my stupid school only talked about the white side of things... they only described the Native Americans as savages...and I thought so too until..I left school to become homeschooled and I learned the RIGHT story...the native Americans wern't savages but an amazing culture...
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