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are the "bad guys" ever wrong ?
Topic Started: Nov 25 2003, 09:24 PM (378 Views)
Dandandat
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Time to put something here
Quote:
 
So, why don't we just give them what they want in the first place ? History seems to indicate they'll get it anyway and that they usually were right in the first place.


So what number of people constitute a group, in order to seen as good or bad, and worthy of giving them what they want?

If all the pedofiles in the world unit and a few of them blow them selves up in a crowded market place or a school. Should we then by your logic, give them what they want? Because they after all are a minority that wants something the majority wont let them have correct?

Why even wait for a conflict to give the minorities what they want. Why not just let every group in the world have what they want even if the majority do not see it as a reasonable idea.
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Admiralbill_gomec
UberAdmiral
nztrekkie
Nov 26 2003, 04:51 PM
38957
Nov 26 2003, 03:48 PM
[The South Vietnamese (the ones we supported) did not get what they wanted, the communists eventually overran the South and Vietnam is communist to this day.

The Koumentang (Nationalist Chinese) eventually lost all of China (except Taiwan) to the Maoists.

The American Indians, you'd probably consider them the good guys.

The Confederacy in mid-19th century USA were eventually conquered by the Union.


Well, at last some examples to mull over.

thanks.

BTW - I would have thought the American Indians example would have been fairly clear in favour of my argument. Just as in my country, the displacement of indigenous peoples by colonising powers was done in good and bad ways, alot of it bad.

Would not most American's think today that there are wrongs to be righted in this area too, just as there are in other parts of the world ? Canada has already given back large tracts of land to native tribes hasn't it, just as we have done in NZ ?

Again, if it were not for the agitating activities of a few "extremists" over time in NZ, this issue may have simply faded away,and the settlement sslowly being enacted here might never have happened.

Let us not forget the treatment of the Maori by the New Zealand settlers... weren't there two Maori wars?
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nztrekkie
Lieutenant
38957
Nov 26 2003, 05:41 PM
Quote:
 
Would not most American's think today that there are wrongs to be righted in this area too, just as there are in other parts of the world ? Canada has already given back large tracts of land to native tribes hasn't it, just as we have done in NZ ?


The past is the past. What can be done?

To whom would we give the land? What land? How do they have claim to it?

We aren't just dealing with one all-ecompassing indian nation here, but thousands of separate tribes, many of whom no longer exist others that have been displaced. Many of the tribes were nomadic.

We already have large reservations in the USA. We have special taxation priveledges. We have government give away programs.

Do we find out who the land belonged to before tribe A pushed tribe B off of it and before that.

It wasn't pretty in every instance, but the fact is that today this country belongs to the USA and there isn't anything that can be done to change the past. And in the past (before European colonization) this country didn't belong to anyone in particular, but there were countless tribes here and there from time to time over the course of thousands of years. Who is to say what belongs to who?

That is reality and it is several orders of magnitude more complicated than New Zealand and the Maori.

I agree your situation is much more complicated than here, especially as our Maori people actually signed a treayy with Queen Victoria which helped things along a bit.

However, my real question interest lays in what the average American thinks today about "indigenous" issues - are people more aware than say a decade or two ago ? are indigenous people simply seen as bludgers on govt handouts, like they were / are seen here by some ?

Another difference in our two colonsing experiences is that we were done alot more recently than the US; also, may of the Maori claims originiate only from War time. So it was still fresh in some people's memory.

As I have said before, about $1 billion worth of land and assets have been returned to tribes here and after initial concerns and some fear, guess what ? no one really noticed the difference.
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Hoss
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Don't make me use my bare hands on you.
I don't think that the average American gives more than two minutes of thought per year to the indians.

What does indigenous mean anyhow? Everyone everywhere except some part of Africa is not indigenous. I was born in Texas, USA, North America, that is where I am native, indigenous and so on. And that is where I belong.

I don't feel like I owe anything to indians for anything.
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Admiralbill_gomec
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Those American Indians who haven't incorporated into our society still live on reservations, and they depend on the federal government for everything. I visited the Pine Ridge reservation in South Dakota back in the early 90s (a shipmate came from nearby Rapid City). All I could think of, after seeing the people lolling around there, was "GET A JOB!"
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Swidden
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Adm. Gadfly-at-large; Provisional wRench-fly at large
nztrekkie
Nov 26 2003, 01:51 PM
BTW - I would have thought the American Indians example would have been fairly clear in favour of my argument. Just as in my country, the displacement of indigenous peoples by colonising powers was done in good and bad ways, alot of it bad.

Would not most American's think today that there are wrongs to be righted in this area too, just as there are in other parts of the world ? Canada has already given back large tracts of land to native tribes hasn't it, just as we have done in NZ ?

Well, when one considers just how successful some tribes are becoming by opening Casino's on reservation land (or in some cases any land owned outright by a tribe) the Native American's may just end up with the last laugh... They were a big factor in the recent recall election here in California (scared the heck out Govenor Schwarzenegger's campaign!)
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