Alien encounter... will we be doomed like the Natives of the Americas?

[NotHardUp1]

Yes, the obtaining of resources. Didn't matter that there were already people there who had first rights.

The "rights" to hold any resource, be that land, timber, labor, women, or water, have always depended upon the ability of a people to defend and protect said resource.

When the America's were conquered, rights were denied. When one European or Asian country invaded another, rights were denied. Much is made of the American conquest because the conquest of "indigenous" peoples elsewhere happened in varying degrees over many more centuries.

Greeks, Persians, Babylonians, Goths, Mongolians, and an endless list of others slaughtered and plundered. Genghis Khan has a hugely disproportionate number of descendants in Asia, not because he was the hottest thing in disco pants, but because he and his men slaughter massive amounts of population and bred the women who survived.

It was the way.

And there were many other armies who decimated villages, raped and left.

The Irish can tell you more about the application of the winner-takes-all principle, as can the Basques, the Tamil, and on and on.

Perhaps the pushback against the American conquest is against the supposed "civilized" people who brought it. But, the Boxer Rebellion happened in parallel, and it was against all the European colonialists for similar abuses and enslavement.

The Native Americans did and do suffer, but the challenge always has been and will be to either retake, coexist, or assimilate. Looking backward is part of the problem in many ways as has been claimed by many young Natives themselves.

It's not a question of justifying, but of figuring out a path forward. Lots of property rights have been abrogated over many centuries. Surprisingly, the ones with the wealth, the weapons, and the lawyers win.

 

[xbuzzerx]

Perhaps the pushback against the American conquest is against the supposed "civilized" people who brought it.

That and the open philosophies like "Manifest Destiny" which more or less flat out said, it's their fate to die out and get out of the way so that we can trade with China n stuff. It wasn't done piecemeal in tiny border skirmishes over centuries in a process so long that no one would look at it and characterize it as a single continuous attempt at extermination. It was more or less a unified goal of popular will, politics, policy, politics, philosophy and even a brand of state pseudoreligion that it was the "destiny" of the United States to do this and spread to the Pacific.

So yes, you are justifying. You've done that every single time this topic has come up for all the years I've been on JUB.

In any situation where one is arguing the behavior of a basically modern state isn't so bad by pointing out that people like Genghis Khan did similar things is making a ridiculously indefensible argument. Genghis Khan is still a dinner table name today because he was one of the most vicious conquerors known in human history... despite the ancient era in which he lived.

The Native Americans did and do suffer, but the challenge always has been and will be to either retake, coexist, or assimilate. Looking backward is part of the problem in many ways as has been claimed by many young Natives themselves.

It's not a question of justifying, but of figuring out a path forward. Lots of property rights have been abrogated over many centuries. Surprisingly, the ones with the wealth, the weapons, and the lawyers win.

Good luck finding one of those Native people to say that part of the process of looking towards the future means going back and revising a gentler view of the past that simply shrugs and says "oh well it always happened" as your post did.

 

[kallipolis]

Theories and opinions are like arseholes, most people have them.

A timely post.

....but there are sufficient here who believe that they hold the monopoly on all truth....for they tell us so.

 

[NotHardUp1]

There is a big difference between justifying the conquest of the Americas and seeing it as just another of the long line of conquests that did the same thing to cultures that lost across the span of human history.

There was a clear technology gap, and it turned two continents over to the invading forces in this case. The disease, divide-and-conquer, and some tactical advantages also played a role, but it's clear that those forging iron and gunpowder and advanced ships had the long-term advantage.

Pissing and moaning about manifest destiny or divine right is just a convenient socio-political gripe. Emperors of old and their armies needed no such rationale: they conquered because they could. Who really cares if these did it in the name of their God? They were not the first or the last to do so, and it didn't make their conquest any less permanent due to raw power.

 

[xbuzzerx]

There is a big difference between justifying the conquest of the Americas and seeing it as just another of the long line of conquests that did the same thing to cultures that lost across the span of human history.

The former is a means of doing the latter, in your case. Consistently. The thrust of this thread nor any other thread I recall discussing this issue with you was about whether or not the conquest of the Americas was the "only" conquest of a people ever. Your need to hurry into the discussion and emphatically point out that it wasn't serves no relevant purpose other than to minimalize or normalize it.

There are no peoples today still living in reserved settlements and under a mass of mixed second-rate legal rights assigned to them by the Mongols, under the same government which originally conquered them. Which also justifies its policy and power and influence on the basis of being predicated on freedom and human rights.

Pissing and moaning about manifest destiny or divine right is just a convenient socio-political gripe. Emperors of old and their armies needed no such rationale: they conquered because they could. Who really cares if these did it in the name of their God? They were not the first or the last to do so, and it didn't make their conquest any less permanent due to raw power.

If the yardstick to which you wish to hold your country is what medieval kings or the khan of the Mongols did, that's up to you. As the white knight of all things smalltown and traditionally American, I would think that would chafe in your undies a bit.

 

[frankfrank]

There is nothing in Hebrew or Christian scriptures that proclaims Earth as the sole creation of God. The Writ is silent to the possibilities of other realms, as planets were unknown to the writers as planets we know today.

The Roman Catholic Church represents the largest population of any one sect of Christianity and it has no teaching that life is unique to Earth.

That's as I've always thought. i believe in God, and in the seven days of Creation (or actually SIX, because the seventh was a "day of rest" or something). However, I also believe the "seven days" have no meaning whatsoever in our Earth calendar, and indeed Earth is the ONLY place we're aware of with its days 24 hours long. Even on something as near as the Moon, the days are nearly 29 days long.

In fact, I believe the "seven days" to all be ETERNAL as we perceive things...AND to be entirely concurrent. Indeed distant objects, stars, life, etc. continue to be created. The third day, the fifth day, etc. are ALL still going on...right now.

If there was no life anywhere else, and it was possible to prove that to definitely be true, and all life that has ever existed happened ONLY on Earth AND NOWHERE ELSE, that would surprise me hundreds of times more than anything else has ever surprised me.

I've heard it suggested before, that if humans ever discover any kind of life on other worlds, it would send religion into contortions and bring the meaning of Scripture into question. I've always had two reactions to this:

1. How?

2. Why?

I think that aliens might have already been here.

Some versions of The Bible (pre-kJV??) talk about the Nephelim, which was a race of giants.

Easter Island (and some other places) have strange, ancient humanoid statues. They were certainly modeled on SOMETHING that was happening at the time...and is it actually KNOWN that humans made them?

How was the "impossible" task of building the Pyramids (to such absolute precision with those massive blocks raised up hundreds of feet) accomplished? So many mysteries.

I think there's been people here from other worlds, indeed.