schmendeler said:1981 Monte Carlo said:schmendeler said:1981 Monte Carlo said:schmendeler said:
You don't have to hold the natives in high moral regard to think it was wrong to treat them like slaves and just an obstacle blocking your access to natural resources.
It was christians that did that.
Meh, atheists by far hold the higher body count in the last few centuries...congrats..
But counter to your statement, tens of millions of people exist south of our border than otherwise wouldn't. History is metal across the board, I just find it funny how euros are always the ultimate villains. With the information they had at the time, can you not kind of see how they would have viewed a bunch of people sacrificing each other and drinking human blood and eating lice out of each other's hair as "not fully human"...given the ignorance of a 17th century euro who had never been exposed to primitive peoples before?
You are probably 100% convinced you would have been the noble "voice of reason" back then. That's kind of the main beef I have with liberals blasting people from hundreds of years ago...how are you so convinced you wouldn't have followed the herd?
You can acknowledge that bad things were done in the past without wanting to tear everything down that was built on top of it.
I don't know that i would have been any better than the people back then. I'm trying now, though.
Agreed. Hindsight is weird. On one hand, western slavery was an abomination...no debating that. On the other hand, how many black people are living much better lives than they would have otherwise had it never existed? My black neighbor is very successful, and came up from being a working class farm kid in East Texas...we have it really easy here, all of us.
My main problem, is this dishonest notion that we were basically the only group of people to ever practice slavery. A lot of brainwashed people, particularly younger people, seem to believe that. When slavery is actually going on at this very moment in many third world places throughout the world.
I mostly agree with your first paragraph.
Your second paragraph is a bit of a red herring, imo. The only people i ever see saying that "we were the only group to ever practice slavery" are people on the right that trot it out to react to as a weird way to deflect blame from the truly horrific practice of chattel slavery in the new world. As if this pre-supposition then allows them to point out that "everyone else was doing it".
Discussing the evil of slavery and its legacy in the history of the new world and the US in particular doesn't need the addition or mention of Arab slavers or the existence of modern day slavery in other parts of the world.
No, it's important to point out that slavery was a worldwide practice that the Euros brought to the new world. The left hates it when this is pointed out because it blunts their criticisms of the colonial powers as a special kind of evil/exploiter. Yes, it's a "deflection", but it's because the Left only blames Western Christians for slavery. Everyone else gets a pass for their atrocities.
Western Christians have done more good for the world than any other group and it's not even close. Impugning them for holding similar flaws as everyone else is unfair.
