|
I generally don’t read hit blogs – right or left – and was unaware of the Anti-Strib post on Native Americans or that some bloggers were demanding that I respond to it until I got an email about it last night.
For the record, it’s ignorant, and in the character of “dump” blogs, it clouds an issue more than enlightens it. It is more embarrassing to the conservative audience it would support than to the people it attacks or the liberal left. Racist? I tend to reserve the “R” word for people that take action based on race, but the post certainly violates the conservative principle of judging individuals and not aggregating people by ethnicity or some other characteristic.
As to the responses that included my name, they are worthy of the original post – they do the same thing, aggregate everyone associated with the MOB with an ignorant idea that, in fact, violates conservative principles.
If anyone were interested in really busting the Anti-Strib post, he might have started a conversation about the Iroquois constitution.
The Iroquois constitution predated the American constitution in the new world and incorporated the best and the worst of the U.S. Constitution. It proscribed a three-branch government with executive, legislative and judicial functions and defined the powers of the ruling classes.
Does that make the Iroquois noble?
The Iroquois constitution also stated how conquered tribes would be incorporated into the Iroquois nation, but only as second-class citizens. It also described how property was to be divided when a conquered people refused to sacrifice their freedom and had to be eliminated. Essentially, the Iroquois solved the problem we’re having today over the constitutionality of torture by justifying genocide in their constitution.
Does that make them savages?
At the time of the French and Indian war, the Iroquois Nation was, in North America, a nation on par with France and England, not simply a tribe of savage mercenaries. Had they chose to side with the English, the division of North America after the war would have been far different and so would American history.
Does that make them noble?
Of course, those questions and delving into historical interpretation aren’t as much fun, at least for some people, as playing with photo shop or seizing the opportunity to indiscriminately throw around dirt. That’s one of the reason’s I shrugged and put my blog on hiatus. The gutter isn’t even a nice place to visit. |
