His Excellency MoebiusLord wrote:
The problem is the US Government is us, personally. At least their checkbook is.
So it goes. Take it up with the esteemed Founding Fathers of our Indian-******** Government, I guess.
Quote:
An honest assessment, though, would put it in terms that don't imply guilt because it would acknowledge and emphasize that the actions taken in antiquity were acceptable at the time in either law or social mores.
But they weren't. There was plenty of opposition to the way the government interacted with the Indians, pretty much from the start. The fact that the people involved in government decision making decided they cared more about the land than their agreements with the natives didn't make it "right", even back then.
Hell, Jackson's forced eviction of the southeastern Indians wasn't even legal by the laughable standard of "their laws said it was acceptable" -- the Supreme Court ruled against it. The same can be said of the hundreds, if not thousands, of broken treaties and agreements ratified by our government.
We shouldn't be "guilty" because we didn't do it. Not because we tell ourselves that it was acceptable to do.