Pro Gun Rights Billboard Angers (some) Native Americans

[KyJim]

lcpiper --

You quote a portion of a Wikipedia article:

On September 27, 1830, the Choctaws signed Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek and the first Native American tribe was to be voluntarily removed. The agreement represented one of the largest transfers of land that was signed between the U.S. Government and Native Americans without being instigated by warfare. By the treaty, the Choctaws signed away their remaining traditional homelands, opening them up for American settlement in Mississippi Territory.

But, you conveniently overlook what happened as part of this same process:

While the Indian Removal Act made the relocation of the tribes voluntary, it was often abused by government officials. The best-known example is the Treaty of New Echota. It was negotiated and signed by a small fraction of Cherokee tribal members, not the tribal leadership, on December 29, 1835. While tribal leaders objected to Washington, DC and the treaty was revised in 1836, the state of Georgia proceeded to act against the Cherokee tribe. The tribe was forced to relocate in 1838.[9] An estimated 4,000 Cherokees died in the march, now known as the Trail of Tears.

In the decades that followed, white settlers encroached even into the western lands set aside for Native Americans. American settlers eventually made homesteads from coast to coast, just as the Native Americans had before them. No tribe was untouched by the influence of white traders, farmers, and soldiers.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_assimilation_of_Native_Americans#Indian_Removal

I'm not going to bother with refuting every other out of context quote.

 

[Wyoredman]

Not getting into political and racial arguments like some of the above, but I would like to add:

I am not Indian. I am married to an Indian woman. My child is considered Indian by her Tribe and the Federal Government. I live on the reservation. I work for the Tribe. Most people I encounter daily are Indian. (And they all call themselves Indian).

That being clear, the picture on the billboard that the OP has posted here, has been circulating amongst my family and friends for years. They post in on their FB pages and twitter accounts with pride. Many of the Tribal members here are very liberal, but at the same time, very protective of their 2nd amendment rights. Their own Tribal history is not confused with their current gun freedoms. This picture does not offend them.

I would bet that the persons protesting this picture have other motives than standing up for Native rights.

 

[lcpiper]

Ok, I am done with this BS.

I make a simple statement and I keep referring to it. I keep getting challenges to back support and back up the justifications to the examples to the junk you guys keep dragging back up.

I didn't conveniently leave out anything, I pointed to what I had referenced as asked.
I am not making an argument for anything except what I said to begin with and what I keep repeating.

I will repeat it again.

A group of people, of another culture, move in and are not assimilated by the host culture. Instead the new culture refuses to be assimilated. Instead this new culture will make some small adaptions but only enough in order to continue to gain traction and reach a point where they can actually influence change in the host culture. Some in the host culture will resist, there will be conflicts fondly remembered as the battles and struggles of the conquered and the conqueror.

 

[MLeake]

lcpiper, the problem is that history does not agree with you.

Little Big Horn resulted, ultimately, from the US not honoring treaty terms. To wit: gold was found in the Black Hills, so the US reneged on terms that had set aside that land to the Sioux and other tribes.

 

[lcpiper]

Edited: Forget it, forget all that stuff I let myself get drug into. I said what I said it the first post with this statement.

A group of people, of another culture, move in and are not assimilated by the host culture. Instead the new culture refuses to be assimilated. Instead this new culture will make some small adaptions but only enough in order to continue to gain traction and reach a point where they can actually influence change in the host culture. Some in the host culture will resist, there will be conflicts fondly remembered as the battles and struggles of the conquered and the conqueror.

I am done with people reading stuff into what i say and then demanding I prove what I didn't say is correct.

 

[MLeake]

Now the issue becomes that in your quote, the minority avoiding assimilation is the newcomer, as opposed to the group being forced from its home.

 

[lcpiper]

I am unsure what you are saying. I am aware that somewhere back there, while being accused and people reading into things about how they take exception to what I never said, I got turned around and found myself on the wrong side of my own statement.

If you apply my statement to the Native American history then the new culture that was not assimilated was the European culture. The Indians didn't absorb these people and integrate them into Indian culture.

Then over time the European culture gained enough power to effect changes and it was the Indian Culture that was force to change instead.

 

[MLeake]

This premise assumes that "influencing" the host culture was a goal of the Europeans.

Generally, this was not so, aside from Catholic and other missionaries.

The Spaniards typically viewed the host culture as a source of slave labor; the Anglos looked at them as savages to be fenced out, run off, or wiped out. The French sometimes viewed them as pawns to use against Anglos.

None of the European powers seriously tried to gain political influence that did not originate from a gun barrel.

 

[lcpiper]

No it doesn't. I tell you what MLeake, you start with my statement because that is where I started. then you debunk it if you can.

Please don't do like these others and layers stuff on top like a bull fighter with a cape then go after the stuff extraneous to the statement.

In fact, please reread my initial post on this in it's entirety if you need a refresher as to what i am saying, then decide if there is something to argue over.

OH, and influence takes many forms. Remember that statement by Clausewitz that "War is the continuation of Politik by other means"?

 

[spacemanspiff]

I don't get it at all Spiffy. That image you posted says to me, The Indians are the Homeland Security Force not the other way around. Maybe it's got something to do with perception but I see them as the good guys in that pic

Thats exactly what it is saying. Except it is not accurate. They did little to secure their homeland. Perhaps I am one of the few who claim Native heritage that is offended by the 'original homeland security' image, but not offended at all by the billboard originally referenced.

 

[Plumbnut]

Are the three guys in the picture the ones doing the complaining?

Thats what I thought....so whats the problem?

 

[MLeake]

lcpiper, your first post in this thread was about new groups taking over established groups from within.

You have since then offered other arguments.

If you are getting refuted, piecemeal it is because you throw out branching arguments, piecemeal. That is not due to sneakiness on the part of those on the other side of the debate.

 

[lcpiper]

Perhaps the Homeland security image is meant to be negative and demeaning. I can easily see that as a possibility. If so, it a fail and it' in bad taste.

 

[lcpiper]

lcpiper, your first post in this thread was about new groups taking over established groups from within.

You have since then offered other arguments.

If you are getting refuted, piecemeal it is because you throw out branching arguments, piecemeal. That is not due to sneakiness on the part of those on the other side of the debate.

You are now my poster boy example.

I never said anyone was being sneaky. You just did, i didn't.

My problem is I let myself get suckered into a debate and I am not a good debater. This does not however prove my original statement false.

In fact, even when specifically asked, it seems you have read and understand my statement, but have in no way challenged my statement, but still don't address the statement.

 

[MLeake]

lcpiper, your initial statement was about groups holding separate, yet politically manipulating other groups to influence the actions of the other groups, to include via infiltration.

My refutation was that the European powers really did not care about influencing the natives. They worried about enslaving, disposessing, relocating, or eradicating the natives. They were not worried about influence.

Had the natives wished to peacefully assimilate, they would not have been able to do so.

Those groups that tried, were abused anyway.

Those groups that took a half-way approach, and signed peace agreements, were double-crossed overtly by the federal or state governments, or covertly by corrupt agents.

Just look at Arizona, where Tucson area ranchers diverted the river, starving out agriculture in the Phoenix area for the Pima and Maricopa.

Your premise is flawed, in all the incarnations you have tried to give it in this thread.

 

[btmj]

When English colonists first came into contact with Native Americans in the Massachusetts bay region, they were not interested in enslaving them, fencing them in, or manipulating them. The English found the Indians to be skilled negotiators, politically sophisticated, and just plain smart. The Indians rapidly learned English and French, and yet the English had a very hard time learning the native languages.

Indians and English would go on to live through periods of relative peace, interspersed with war. Often the English and some Indians were at war with the French and some different Indians.

The oppression came much later, after the wars had mostly played out and the English-Now-Americans were victorious in the wars.

Don't confuse the wars with the oppression. Wars between cultures happen, and there is plenty of blame to go around in regards to who instigated the various Indian wars. The Indians were not saints, and when they had the upper hand they often slaughtered civilians including women and children. The oppression of each tribe almost always occurred AFTER the war against that tribe was won. It is a horrid bit of our history, but as I pointed out before, the way the Indians were treated between 1800 and 1900 is not really any different than what was going on in the Caucasus, or Egypt, or Ireland, or Armenia, or anywhere in Africa or South America.

 

[Alabama Shooter]

It is a horrid bit of our history, but as I pointed out before, the way the Indians were treated between 1800 and 1900 is not really any different than what was going on in the Caucasus, or Egypt, or Ireland, or Armenia, or anywhere in Africa or South America.

Thank you. That is the point of the sign more or less (I think). The problem is that some people are in denial that even happened or could ever happen again. Both these are badly flawed ideas.

 

[lcpiper]

Your premise is flawed, in all the incarnations you have tried to give it in this thread.
MLeake is offline Report Post

No it's not. My premise is validated exactly and precisely by everything you have been saying yourself.

Your definition of influence is way too limited Mleake and you are still taking my general statements about a process and trying to apply specifics to it.

They worried about enslaving, disposessing, relocating, or eradicating the natives.

No, these are actions, not intentions. The intended came to America looking for a better life. No one was going to give it to them. Usually they met each other peacefully but conflicts happened and problems had to have solutions. The solutions, the actions became the enslaving, dispossessing, relocating, or eradicating.

The European culture arrived in the new world. The European culture was not integrated into the existing tribal Indian culture. The European culture exerted influence on the Indian culture and it was virtually destroyed.

Even if it were done peacefully the same thing could still happen as the end result. Over time, one culture will prove dominant and they other will become a foot note.

BTW, did anyone wipe out the Greeks? Where is the Greek culture today that is what it was back during the Empire? The Greek Culture is gone, some of it was absorbed by and influenced others, notably the Romans, but the original does not exist anywhere today as it was then.

 

[SPEMack618]

The problem is that some people are in denial that even happened or could ever happen again. Both these are badly flawed ideas.

That is something that I have a hard time trying to comprehend is house people can think that modern day genocides don't happen. Or that think by merely wearing a green wrist band or changing thier Facebook profile picture, they will stop them.

The worst of the bunch are those who propose disarming everybody in Africa and then sitting back and enjoying the peace.

Mind boggling. I'm a non-interventionist as the next guy, but sometimes I agree with the NRA, the only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun. And sometimes when I look at the world, I think that good guy needs to wear an American flag patch on his sleeve and carry a M-16A4.

However, in regards to history, it certainly is always the aforementioned "white guys in funny hats" who get the lion share of the blame for all the world's genocides.

Dare I say, history repeats?

 

[Alabama Shooter]

The worst of the bunch are those who propose disarming everybody in Africa and then sitting back and enjoying the peace.

I guess they plan to collect up all the machetes too.

Some people are deliberately obtuse.