Indians Given Christianity

by Justitia Themis 6 Replies latest social current

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  Justitia Themis

  So...I just finished my first week at UW Law School. Indian law is part of our bar exam, so the classes try to include it whenever possible. In Property we read Johnson v. M'Intosh.

  The basic "rule" of that case is that it is legal to obtain absolute title to property by discovery/conquest. This is a very OLD decision and must be viewed through that perspective\

  However, I found it quite amusing to read that the U.S. had compensated the Indians enough because they were savages and 'we taught them civility and gave them Christianity." :)
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  wobble

  Yes and the same thing will be done in Afghanistan, maybe not Christianity, but western culture must prevail because it is the best.

  We can then say we gave the Afghans McDonalds, Pepsi and Wal-Mart, so they don't need no compensation.
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  Justitia Themis

  We can then say we gave the Afghans McDonalds

  You've heard of the Big Mac economic index...right? Yes, it's for real...
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  BurnTheShips

  .....but western culture must prevail because it is the best.

  Is that intended as sarcasm? Is Western culture worse when compared to, you know, a misogynistic totalitarian Islamic theocracy?

  BTS
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  Justitia Themis

  Is Western culture worse when compared to, you know, a misogynistic totalitarian Islamic theocracy?

  Quoting Justice Marshall from Johnson v. M'Intosh, page 61, "But the tribes of Indians inhabiting this country were fierce savages, whose occupation was war, and whose subsistence was drawn chiefly from the forest. To leave them in possession of their country, was to leave the country a wilderness; to govern them as a distinct people, was impossible, because they were as brave and as high spirited as they were fierce, and were ready to repel by arms every attempt on their independence.

  What was the inevitable consequence of this state of things? The Europeans were under the necessity either of abandoning the country, and relinquishing their pompous claims to it, or of enforcing those claims by the sword, and by the adoption of principles adapted to the condition of a people with whom it was impossible to mix, and who could not be governed as distinct society, or of remaining in their neighbourhood, and exposing themselves and their families to the perpetual hazard of being massacred."
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  BurnTheShips

  I am not speaking of Native Americans, I am speaking of Afghanistan.

  BTS
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  Justitia Themis

  1) Wobble was making a comparison between the Native Americans and Afghanistan re: compensation, i.e. "taking."

  2) You made an unrelated comparison ( and logically inaccurate comparison) between the large (Western culture) and the small (the cultures individual nation-states who are Islamice and oppressive)

  3) I posted the info. to that hit on both 1 and 2, and showed the just because a culture might be violent (2) doesn't mean that it is justified to take their land (1).

  ...bye