Ye Olde Rad Blog

In keeping with the ongoing theme of 'debate' from these last few days .. I was invited to a dinner party last night. A guy there mentioned seeing the movie The Last Samurai, starring Tom Cruise.

I told how him I thought it was interesting how the film alluded to a parallel with the native American Indian, how both groups of noble people got screwed (wiped out) by their respective governments .. not intending to start a political/philosophical argument, mind you. (I have already discussed some of my thoughts on this topic in the post dated 29december.)

This guy's wife immediately chimed in, saying to him, "See! see! I'm not the only one who thinks that." It was obvious they had already discussed the issue, and disagreed. He claimed to be a Political Science major, as if that somehow qualifies one to make such judgments. We did not discuss the issue long, not wanting to ruin the party for others, but I was genuinely curious about how he arrived at his conclusion.

His two, main premises were:

1. This was nothing new. Nations have been conquering other nations for thousands of years.
2. The Indians were fighting amongst themselves for hundreds of years before we arrived.

I tried to point out that precedent is never a valid justification, and is even listed as a logical fallacy known as the Appeal to Precedent, or Appeal to Tradition or Appeal to Common Practice. (If I were king, I'd require every student to take a class in Logic.)

Then I mentioned that the Indians were fighting amongst themselves with bows & arrows & tomahawks, while the government was raining cannonballs on their heads, as cited in the well-documented Massacre at Wounded Knee, where unarmed women & children were also attacked.

To be honest, I am not surprised that our technologically advanced nation had their way with the native American Indian. What surprises me is how badly we treated them. I mean, we could have easily given them land equaling a few states, such a North & South Dakota, and even Montana and Idaho.

Chief Joseph had a saying that captures this idea more eloquently than I could express: "If you tie a horse to a stake, do you expect he will grow fat? If you pen an Indian up on a small spot of earth and compel him to stay there, he will not be contented nor will he grow and prosper. I have asked some of the Great White Chiefs where they get their authority to say to the Indian that he shall stay in one place, while he sees white men going where they please. They cannot tell me."

Anyway, as we all know, you can never talk someone into seeing things your way. Usually it just ends up angering them. So we moved on to more innocuous topics, such as football.