Massacre, War and Colonialism – a Blast From the Past From August 2nd 2017

Posted on by Sarah A. Hoyt

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Massacre, War and Colonialism – a Blast From the Past From August 2nd 2017

So I’ve been reading this mystery.  Yes, yes, “It came from KULL” [kindle unlimited lending library] I know, but it’s actually decent.  I mean, it’s not exactly setting my world on fire, but it’s pleasant enough.  Until…

The book is set in the nineteenth century. One of the characters is reading her father’s diary, and her father was a scientist/explorer (who has disappeared.  This is sort of the background to the whole series, not the mystery) and she’s enthralled by his adventures, until…

Until his party is attacked by neighbors, and they fight back, killing a bunch of the natives.  The author then refers to this as a “massacre” and proceeds to act as though this tarnished the main character’s view of her father forever.

Then to make things clearer, this woman’s bone-headed brother in law comes in to say that the savages should be glad we bring them civilization even if we have to kill them.  And in case you know, the reader might be tempted to sympathize with this opinion, blusters about how men and women shouldn’t work together, because they might become — horror of horrors! — friends.  Then he huffs off, shedding straw as he goes.

[Sarah puts thumb and forefinger on either side of the bridge of her nose, closes her eyes and inclines her head.] Where to begin?

Let’s start with the fact that the attitude of the main character is seriously a-historical.  A woman of the time might be horrified by the “barbarous” doings, but would certainly not think it constituted a massacre.  To consider this a massacre takes knowing that in these clashes the white men would ALWAYS win and were disproportionately equipped to do so, and KNEW they’d survive and kill all the others.

Reality check, okay, even in this book that’s given the lie, since her father was almost certianly killed by natives.  But beyond that, the world is strewn with the corpses of scientists/explorers, even those way better armed than hostile natives, but at a disadvantage in the landscape.

Then there’s the brother in law’s opinion that colonialism is good for you.  You know… for most of human history it was.  Now, it wasn’t particularly good for INDIVIDUAL humans.  Being invaded and more often than not reduced to the position of serfs or slaves purely sucks. But when the colonialists bring with them a higher level of production/wealth creation/security… well…  I’d hate for it to happen to me or my kids, but in the long run future generations might be much better off.

Now this isn’t always true, of course.  Colonialism, like other Marxist buggaboos, has no existence in itself.  It is the abstract isolation of a phenomenon that can be good or bad or indifferent, depending on who is colonizing whom.  (It is also not, btw, a characteristic of white men.  All humans colonize. Which is why there are humans on every continent.)  Europe being invaded by the Moors might very well, on the whole, have redounded to the worse.  Some things were gained from the invasion, sure (almonds and the artesian well were among the ones we were forced to memorize in school) but had it not been thrown off, the level of individual happiness and wealth would probably have ended up lower (as it did in Africa) and it can be argued it left behind habits of mind that are at odds with modernity (which they didn’t know would come) as well as regressive treatment of women.  It’s far more complex than that, though, since each invading civilization brings both good and bad, and also changes while it’s occupying the land.

That change, btw, accounts for a lot of the disastrous effects of European colonialism in much of Africa: as Europeans embraced Marxist thought, the leading minds of Africa came to Europe to study it.  What communism, socialism, and its cousins have done to Africa doesn’t bear contemplating.

The author, btw, as though aware she’s being crazy and imposing her crazy on the story, goes on about how her father was “trespassing” and that’s why these young men attacked.

[Does sinal salute again.]  She never actually tells us what moral behavior in those circumstances would be.  Letting themselves be slaughtered when they were attacked, even though they aren’t doing anything wrong (objectively) but merely looking for specimens?

Look, I’ve described this type of encounter between western civ and tribal mind set before.  To an extent our current confrontation with Islam is that, writ large.  There is a tribal mind set that is very old, is probably built into our genes, because we were tribal long before we were anything else, and which goes something like this “strangers in our territory” (however defined, since most tribes lacked the concept of land ownership.)  “We’ll commit atrocities against them, so they leave us alone.  The greater the atrocities, the less trouble they’ll be.”

Unfortunately western civ interprets/ed atrocities as “these savages can’t be tamed/integrated.  Kill them all and let G-d sort them out.”

This is a problem, because in the language of violence (and violence, between human groups is a language, intended to convey a message) what is “said” and what is “understood” are completely different.  And it will escalate violence until the stronger civilization destroys the weaker one.

It’s a tragedy, but it’s unavoidable.  It’s been happening for centuries or millennia — alas, Cartago! — and absent the ability to telepathically communicate with a tribal civilization to make them back off, I do not know what the author thinks could be done to avoid the “massacre” of people who were trying to kill a scientific expedition.

But more importantly, speaking to the mindset behind this, the mindset that thinks colonialism is somehow evil, and can only exist from whites/Europe versus everyone else, and also that SOMEHOW Europeans are so powerful that when they kill EVEN PEOPLE ATTACKING THEM it’s always a massacre:

1- All humans are colonialists.  All humans are territorial.  Before we had anything as complicated as tribes, if our understanding of our nearer evolutionary relatives is right, we had family bands, who had territories.  Clashes occurred at the bands of these territories.  The band that was successful in taking over the territory and aggregating the other band, eventually became a tribe.  The tribe most successful in conquering others, eventually became a nation.  You can beat your chest and cry, but it doesn’t matter  We’re not angels.  We’re uppity apes and this is how we function.  All your scolding won’t change it.

2- Violence will always happen when two very disparate civilizations meet.  Why?  Because even when they talk, even when they learn each other’s language, the concepts will be different.  Take martyrdom.  In Christianity this means entering the Arena singing Hymns and acting happy, because overtime that will convert the spectators.  In Islam it means blowing yourself up killing the infidel.  You can talk martyrdom, but it doesn’t mean the same thing on either side.  Violence is also a language, and when even your violence is misinterpreted, it means you don’t have a language in common.  And violence WILL happen and someone will win.  If you feel that your civilization should never be the one to win, there might be something wrong with you.

3- Someone will win from this violence.  All the scientific/exploration parties that died and disappeared means that sometimes the tribal humans win over those who are contributing to the species knowledge of the world.  Those are sad occurrences, but they count for nothing, except that it encourages other tribal humans to fight and die trying to take down something they CAN’T take down.  It’s an escalation of tragedy, if you will.  In the end, killing the tribal band that first attacks you (instead of what?  Lying down and dying, to expiate ‘privilege’?  In a land where the privilege is obviously with the natives?) is the best thing you can do.  It sends the message “fighting is futile” and will encourage the local tribe to try to protect itself by other means, be they negotiation or trade.

4- In a clash between civilizations, if you decide that your morals require you not to fight/lie down and die, you’ll be the one colonized.

There is no option between human civilizations for ‘we’ll each go to our little territories and stay there’.  That’s not how humans work or ever have.  Population pressure; desire for goods; desire for a certain land; conviction of one’s superior civilization, will keep us fighting and trying to expand (and btw, that last applies to ALL human civilizations.  Yes, Islam believes they’re superior to and more powerful than the west.  They have Allah on their side, after all.)  Your choice is never “let’s all live in harmony.”  Your choice is colonize or be colonized.  Think carefully of where you’d rather live, and which mind sets and conditions you’re willing to encourage.

And stop mouthing pieties about “massacres” when someone fights in self defense.  Western Civilization is not always the winner, and will not always be the winner.

The fatal oikophobia you’ve been taught is the worm gnawing at the heart of the civilization that’s lifted most humans out of poverty.  Examine carefully how you’d like to live before your throw your weight behind the supposed victims.  They’re just another set of aggressors.  And if you wouldn’t like to live under their rules, that’s not the side you should be fighting on.

No humans are angels.  Some are just more accomplished warriors than others.  That doesn’t make them bad.  It all depends on what you’re fighting for.

220 thoughts on “Massacre, War and Colonialism – a Blast From the Past From August 2nd 2017”

  1. So, the protagonist’s father was “trespassing” on native land and therefore got what he deserved. Man. I wonder if this author would feel the same way if a burglar broke into someone’s house and got shot by the homeowner? Or would that answer depend on the socioeconomic status difference between homeowner and burglar, as well as other traits? If there were more than one burglar who was gunned down, would that constitute “a massacre” since the homeowner used an evil firearm, even if he was outnumbered five-to-one?

    1. Indeed that seems to be the current mindset on the east and west coast of the US. Defending your home and stuff is evil and worthy of criminal charges.

      1. Yeah, it’s a strange mindset, at least to me. I guess they’d rather have a “virtuous victim” than a triumphant defender. Personally, I’d rather there not be a need to defend oneself at all, but we live in a fallen world. And as such, at times we must take up arms to defend ourselves, our families, our neighbors, and our property.

        Stay safe out there!

      4. There are “feminists” who say that taking precautions against rape is saying, “Go rape someone else.”

        1. It sort of depends on the specific preventative methods.


          Doesn’t it?

          HT: PowerLine Week in Pictures 09-07-19

          1. I believe it was the redoubtable Robert A Heinlein who once said “An armed society would be a polite society.” That would be especially true if someone had to back up their boorishness with their tender body on the dueling sands.

            1. It was indeed. “An armed society is a polite society”. I’m pretty sure it was in “From the Notebooks of Lazarus Long” in the novel “Time Enough for Love”.

    2. There’s already a cottage industry in “how dare you execute* my son/grandson who was robbing you at gunpoint.”

      Although part of that might be to avoid prosecution for straw purchases as well as for financial gain and emotional protection– a friend with reason to know pointed out that most of the time, mom or grandma bought the goblin his gun to “keep him safe.”

      *successfully defend yourself with a firearm

      1. “How dare I execute your son?”
        Madam, had you succeeded in raising your son correctly in the first place, this wouldn’t have happened. Consider this your final grade as a parent.

        1. Which is what the activists that use those poor idiots want– they encouraged the situation that resulted in the young idiot thinking his behavior was somehow acceptable, and if those-who-refused-to-be-a-victim respond unkindly, they’ll use that, too.

          1. I suppose I don’t really expect the Black and Brown underclass to ever wake up to how badly they have been used by the White Progressive Elite and their Black Quisling minions, but if it ever happens there’s going to be much breakage and blood in the streets and lampposts bearing strange fruit.

      2. Yeah. And sensible folks would not want that to change the consensus towards executing the guardians of a drugged up minor killed in commission of a felony.

      3. That woman saying that yeah her son was breaking and entering and committing burglary, but ‘that didn’t deserve him getting shot and killed.’

        That’s assuming that’s the only thing he’d do, once he found the woman living in the house with her toddler…

        1. I am sure folks will think me a terrible person for this, but I am unconvinced of that boy’s mother’s status as moral exemplar.

        2. *shudder*
          Given that they’ve already come out and said that a victim should accept a beating because that’s just an “ass whuppin’,” I won’t make that assumption.

            1. That’s roughly my reaction, but it hinges on the assumption that the guy attacking feeling offended is thus justified in teaching the victim a lesson in manners (ie, do what the bully says or get beat up), and to respond with fatal force is ‘cheating’.

              In this case:
              I am to misbehave.

  3. And excellent points on colonialism and how all peoples and all tribes and all nations do it. Some are just more successful at it than others. And some are a lot more brutal about it than others. And violence between disparate peoples will always happen in some capacity because, as you said, there will always be misunderstandings and miscommunications. And that’s been the case ever since Babel.

  4. That “Islam thinks itself superior because it has Allah on its side” is an interesting thing. I saw some commentary one time, don’t recall where, that a good portion of the issues we have now with the Islamic world is that it has been on the retreat pretty much continuously since the Siege of Vienna was lifted. And that had followed several centuries of continuous expansion that had not been successfully contested.

    A culture that feels under attack—especially one that has its superiority inevitability as one if its basic tenets—and is *losing*, will lash out. Combine that with a Western civilization that feels guilty because of it’s own success?

      1. Very well said! Our roommate works in higher education and has to keep quiet about her conservative views because she knows she’ll be targeted. Many on the left cannot coexist with anyone the least bit to the right of their positions, and that seems to be getting worse by the day.

        1. I was reading the blog of somebody with some story ideas I actually like pretty well, but the things they said about Christianity and even some of the people broadly on their own side….

          …So thoroughly wrongheaded that even unpacking everything wrong with two sentences was an exhausting prospect. I came to the disconcerting realization that spending too much time around leftists and seeing so much of that kind of thing was eating away at my belief in redemption and reconciliation. Which would be bad enough for stories, but I need to maintain perspective better in terms of philosophy.

      2. Yes.

        This insight, this viewpoint, is in many ways about the closest thing we have (that I know of) to an all-in-one ‘unified field theory’ to explain all the recent crazy — the escalating, infectious, intensifying pure *craziness* (as just about anyone *outside* the “subculture” would see it, and so many do).

        Not just leftism, Marxism, or any other kind of politics *alone*; but a (more or less) coherent sub-culture or anti-culture, which is different from, often quite antagonistic and/or hostile to, the bedrock ‘consensus Americanism’ that has been so much of the practical foundation “that hath made and preserved us a nation” — or even in a sense defines and constitutes ‘America’ as such, itself.

        And it really does look as if that culture’s now-apparent ‘core beliefs’ have long (or always) *included* a belief that they, not us, are not only somehow the ‘real Americans’ (e.g., “These Truths We Hold”), but are fated, “Manifest Destiny” style, to triumph over any opposition, or any difference or “diversity” of belief.

        Uh, no. But of course *any* such culture *would* mis-interpret our ‘tolerance’ or our indulgence of them as “Lost Boys” who never grow up (see yesterday’s comments), or forbearance or slowness to anger — as weakness, as silence giving assent or capitulation, as ongoing proof of their Manifest Destiny.

        I won’t put it as eloquently as John Ehle did (in his “The Trail of Tears”) — but once upon a time a tribe called the Cherokee (Tsalagi, but close enough in sound) found “their” land was being encroached on by Scots-Irish settlers. So in their classic way, they started in on raiding, looting, killing the invaders.

        This just kept on. Until it stopped.

        That was no surprise to them, it was expected. But what *was* a surprise was the way these suddenly-militant ‘invaders’ kept on coming, past and long past the point the newcomers had done as much in return.

        Because the Scots-Irish, themselves being used as something like frontier shock troops, were not going “tit for tat” but handling a now-intolerable problem. Thet weren’t playing any game, but reluctantly doing a job of work.

        We *have* to win. Reality itself demands it. But it would also be nice if we could minimize the losses and collateral damage along the way. *Both* of those done against the best efforts of the counter-American subculture… and their tragic confusion.

        1. “… it really does look as if that culture’s now-apparent ‘core beliefs’ have long (or always) *included* a belief that they, not us, are not only somehow the ‘real Americans’ (e.g., “These Truths We Hold”), but are fated, “Manifest Destiny” style, to triumph over any opposition …”

          Hardly the first time.

          Turning and turning in the widening gyre
          The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
          Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
          Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
          The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
          The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
          The best lack all conviction, while the worst
          Are full of passionate intensity.

          Surely some revelation is at hand;
          Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
          The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
          When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
          Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
          A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
          A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
          Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
          Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
          The darkness drops again; but now I know
          That twenty centuries of stony sleep
          Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
          And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
          Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

          “The Second Coming”
          W. B. Yeats, 1919

          2. And I’m *quite* sure these two bold lines have been on the minds of more people than two, or three counting our Sarah (see above), through… recent events.
            And also pretty sure “everywhere the ceremony of innocence is drowned” came to stroll through the thoughts of *way* many more than myself, when that multi-dozen-page Locker Room Transgenderism Memo got sent to *every school district in the country* a few years back (and see Sunday’s insta-vignette on that).

            The one single most effective antidote, or antagonist, to this whole Second Coming Syndrome (I have to maintain on the facts known) has been… one Donald J. Trump. Much as some of us (me very much included) misdoubted him considerably at the start.

            “Boldness to our host and confusion to our enemies!” (Yes, that, indeed.)

    2. Currently, Islam IS better at colonizing the world. It’s already half taken control of Europe. And thanks to Barry & Co, their colonists have a strong foothold in America.

      2. Islam is in a position such that it THINKS it is better at colonization. And it may be right, but the ballots aren’t all in just yet. The commons throughout Europe are getting restive. Political leaders like that fellow in Italy are discovering that power can be had by running AGAINST the Received Wisdom of the EU Elite. From some points of surveillance it looks like Mr. Johnson of London is on the point of mashing his opponents’ elitism into all points and giving them a VERY painful suppository. Yes, the Jihadidiots have been running amok for a while. If, for example, the Germans decide they have had Enough, life for a refugee feral is likely to be filled with in incident and interest.

        1. “life for a refugee feral is likely to be filled with in incident and interest.”
          But briefly. Very briefly.
          I think in the next five years it will all be so different, we won’t recognize the world or possibly our country.

        2. I admit, I cheered when the Bulgarians and Hungarians said, “Horses and four-wheelers are fair” and didn’t stop people from chasing “refugees” across their private property and arresting trespassers while using same. The “refugees” fussed about being hunted, and the local authorities suggested that if they’d come in the proper way, it wouldn’t have happened.

        3. The BIG Problem is do the Germans, French, Swedes, etc. have what it takes to win. Just stopping the invasion will do little, the Muslims are NOT going to assimilate. They will have more children and expand and will before be in the Majority and will Rule.
          The only way for the Europeans to WIN is to FORCE the Muslims OUT.
          I don’t believe that they have what it takes to do that anymore.
          Most Europeans will NEVER be able to even consider forcing the Muslims to leave.

      3. Yet in Africa, by all reports, real honest-to-Christ Christianity is reportedly spreading like kudzu.

        I gather it is big enough in China that they’re quite worried.

        1. Interesting. And not something the Lamestream Media would be interested in reporting, which would account for my not hearing about it. Not being Christian myself, I have no tap on Christian new.

          If true, that would be good news for Africa, or could be anyway. Societies with a Christian base are clearly preferable to the common alternatives. Protestantism is preferable to Catholicism, but Catholicism’s major flaw seems to be a tendency to divide the flock into Important People and Peasants, and is worst where there is a European class system, or the leftovers of one.

          Socialism we all know about. Islam needs a Reformation, and maybe a 30 Years War to teach it to not shed blood over minor details. The Hindu religion has that gawdawful Caste system. The Jews seem to be doing OK in Israel, except for their Islam problem, but they are iffy on accepting converts and don’t look for them. And while Buddhism sounds swell if you listen to the West’s questionable understanding of it, the societies it produces range from ‘feh’ to awful.

          My hope for the 21st century is that wee will see Chang and Juan and M’boto put third world brown feet up the behinds of the White Elitist shills that have been reinforcing the tendency towards tribalism, revolutionary bushwa, and foot dragging on industrial development. And the spread of a modern Muscular Christianity might help.

          1. My sources on this are not immediately available, so allow some windage, but my understanding is that it is largely Episcopalian — with the current schism in the Anglo-American Episcopalian Church being driven by the more conservative (i.e., those who actually read the Bible) American factions switching to the African Synod. The old “Mainline” churches, where Christianity is more a fashion than a doctrine, have been losing congregations to the Evangelical (i.e., Bible-believing) churches for years, holding many of their members in line only because under their bylaws the church buildings belong to the Church Authority and are forfeit when a congregation switches allegiance.

            I am confident any here with more direct knowledge will hesitate to correct any misimpression if which I may be guilty.

            1. From what I’ve seen, you have it right. Unhinged behavior in the more liberal churches (search on “lutheran minister purity ring” for a classic), and schisms from congregations concerned that the overarching authority isn’t left enough are pretty common now. Does wonders for membership…

                1. The ELCA church in town shows signs of sanity, but with *that* as a shining example, I don’t think it will last. Either they will split from the ELCA and join one of the more normal synods (low odds–I’m pretty sure the synod owns/controls the real estate) or eventually they’ll get sucked under (my bet).

      4. Muslims don’t immigrate they colonize.
        Always have, always will.
        Best not to let them in.
        In Europe their only option for survival is to push them out.
        Muslims must leave or die.
        Or the Europeans must submit, leave, or die. Binary choice.

    3. well, said religion also preaches expansion and they are having severe problems coming to grips with being at the limitations of said expansion- namely, that expanding into China and into western civ isnt working too well..

      1. I would say that their expansion into Sweden, France, Germany, etc. is going rather well for them. The Governments are lying as hard as they can to protect the Muslims no matter what they do.

  5. “That’s not how humans work or ever have. Population pressure; desire for goods; desire for a certain land; conviction of one’s superior civilization, will keep us fighting and trying to expand (and btw, that last applies to ALL human civilizations…”

    That leads my brain straight to China. If we don’t abjectly surrender, “things” are going to get unpleasantly interesting. (If we were to surrender, the ensuing unpleasantness would be much less interesting.)

    3. China is a different case. Your “trying to expand (and btw, that last applies to ALL human civilizations…” doesn’t really work for China. They sent the fleet out, got back nothing they were interested in and destroyed the fleet as useless. As far as I know China hasn’t done colonies. They haven’t expanded. Unless you want to call Tibet an expansion. 1 example in the last 1000 years.

      1. Not arguing that China isn’t different, but isn’t there a history of China trying to absorb Vietnam, Korea, and Thailand? And somewhere in there is the propensity for Chinese expats to form ‘Chinatowns’ and not just in the US.

            1. The Chinese, or at least the Chinese rulers and their courtiers and scribes, have always had a good line of justification for whatever beastly thing they were intent upon.

        2. Why would the Chinese with a Civilization that has worked for many thousands of years assimilate into a Civilization that is less than a few hundred years old????? Also they don’t think the Round Eyes are even civilized, Round Eyes are barbarians with pretentions.

        3. China tries to absorb EVERYTHING. The pretense was that trade was actually foreign nations bringing tribute and getting back gifts.

        4. Yup. China has historically tried to expand its borders whenever the opportunity presented itself. Sometimes it succeeded. Sometimes it didn’t. And sometimes it lost control of areas it once held sway over (such as Korea).

          Remember that China used to be a *lot* smaller than it is today.

      2. China has a habit of insisting anyplace they take over was already theirs.

        The stuff going on in the South China sea, where they have literally argued “but it’s the China sea, that means it all belongs to us”? Pretty standard.

        We are rather fortunate, though, that China’s rulers have a habit of getting scared of their own military and gutting it– so they frequently try to take over a place and fail.

        Wikipedia actually has a decent list–
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Chinese_wars_and_battles

        Berma, Vietnam, Tibet, various areas that are currently inside of China but don’t wanna be, Mongolia, “areas of the border with Russia,” part of Sri Lanka…..

        1. It’s worth remembering that China’s last war was over 40 years ago… and Vietnam won (or rather, didn’t lose, which is all that the defender really needs to do). That particular campaign was meant to get Vietnam out of Cambodia, where the Vietnamese had been crushing the Khmer Rouge. China hasn’t fought a battle of note since then. That means two things. The first is that there likely isn’t a single person outside of flag rank (or spec ops; China sent special forces to fight against ISIS) who’s seen combat. The second thing is that China has lots of shiny military gear and new tactics. But they’ve no idea how well any of it will work in an actual shooting war.

      3. China is doing a different form of colonization, more like economic imperialism loaning to 3rd world nations and then loan sharking them into obedience.

        1. There are also Chinese enclaves with workers in a number of 3rd World countries. I would imagine that they’re like the foreigner districts that China had imposed on itself over a century ago where each district was essentially under the control of a different foreign country. These enclaves occasionally turn up in the news when the locals decide to “demonstrate” against them.

  6. A cold eyed look at the levels of peace and prosperity in Africa during the 19th century and now might suggest to the un-brainwashed that a return to good old fashioned Colonial Paternalism would be A Good Thing.

    1. Maybe. Maybe not.
      One of the problems with these comparisons is that they almost always involve the Congo at some point–Belgian if attempting to disparage colonialism, independent if attempting to praise it.
      As near as I can tell, when comparing the same countries, it’s a mixed bag. Which shouldn’t be surprising.

      1. Well, since nobody today has the mindset to do British Colonial Paternalism right (and most others were at least one step worse) it’s going to get real nasty when the West decides it has had enough Sharia, thankyouverymuch, and decides to sort out the Odds and Sods in the Middle East. It isn’t going top be good for us, but the Islamopests will like it even less.

  7. Whenever I hear someone (usually a lib/prog) waxing eloquent about the bucolic paradise which existed in North America prior to the coming of the “white man” several things come to mind. One is the gosh-awful area the Apaches lived in prior to their being “pacified”. One looks at that area and asks why any sane person would choose to live there. Short answer is, “They didn’t!” Once upon a time the Apache lived in what we now call West Texas. The only reason they left is because the Comanche bleeping well DROVE them out – and apparently not peacefully!

    The other thing which comes to mind is the fortresses the Pueblo tribes constructed and lived in. One pueblo which always comes to mind is the one constructed by the Acoma. The Acoma pueblo is typical, with thick adobe walls, two stories with entry on the upper story and no windows on the “ground floor”. It would be difficult to break into such a dwelling at best. Unfortunately for the attackers, Acoma pueblo (called “Acoma Sky City”) was constructed atop a sheer-walled, 367-foot sandstone bluff. When the Spaniards first traveled through modern day New Mexico, the commander of the troops whose job it was to protect the friars called Acoma the most strongly held position he had ever seen. This coming from a veteran of wars in Europe is quite significant. I submit that nobody constructs a fortress atop a 360+ foot high bluff unless they believe it is necessary. “Their attackers?”, you ask? It was the Navaho; you know, those friendly, round faced people who sit in front of their quaint “hogans” and weave beautiful southwestern rugs. Except that a few centures back the Navaho were NOT such “friendly” folks. They were the “baddest” fighters around. They looked upon the Pueblos as “those people who make stuff” and whom they raided to get such “stuff”. Naturally the Pueblos didn’t exactly wish to just give their stuff away. Some “peaceful paradise”, huh?

    The bottom line? The “indigenous”peoples” of the Americas were human. So far as I am aware, The Creator only ever made one model human being. Now people come in various colors, body styles and trim packages but they’re all just plain old MK1 human beings. They, like ourselves were no more or less noble or venial or whatever than we are.

    1. The “indigenous”peoples” of the Americas were human.

      Yep.

      My obnoxious uncle has a habit of pointing out that the Irish and such were no slouches in the creative homicide department, too. ^.^

      1. While the British were hardly blameless in Ireland, the Irish made a habit of waiting until the British had their hands full with something like a war on the continent, and then trying to rise.

        Now, that’s good strategy…if you win. But if you lose, you shouldn’t get to whine about how abrupt the winning side was. They were BUSY. You blindsided them. The elbow you got through your nasal cavity is YOUR freaking fault.

    2. Oh yeah. Even a cursory reading of Southwest history will make it very clear that the Navajo were very much the villains in that area for a long, long period of time. “Navajo” means “the People” and everyone else, then, was “Not People”…which tells you how they treated their neighbors.*

      *And that’s hardly unusual, since I most human cultures have done that whole “We’re real people, all those other folks are not real people, so it’s totally okay to kill them and take their stuff.”

      (That said, I’m glad the Navajo turned that energy to textiles. Dang, but they make some beautiful stuff.)

        3. That’s the case with most tribal peoples though, isn’t it?

          I imagine a great deal of trouble was created when the Europeans went through the Americas.

          “What are your people called?”
          “We are the People. The tribes over the hills are the Hated Enemy.”
          (Explorer goes over the hills)
          “Hello, Hated Enemies!”

      2. In classical Japanese thought, “gaijin” (the Japanese word for foreigner – literally “ourside person”) did not equal human. Apparently that was a pretty common policy.

    3. The “Simple Pastoral Natives’ nonsense has been going on essentially since Columbus came back. It waxes and wanes, and it is always rooted in the Academic Intellectual types, but like shower mold, nothing seems to get rid of it.

      1. Speaking of, I can’t remember the details, but I believe someone here mentioned research that showed one of those famous “pastoral people who were living off the land, in harmony with nature, three girls for every boy, then the horrible Europeans killed them all off over XYZ years” villages had their graveyard checked out– and it turns out that the women weren’t part of the tribe. It was a colony they’d made with slave women they’d raided from neighbors, which was pretty standard practice– one guy can have a lot of kids that way. The village withered away because the colony-attempt failed due to much more powerful folks in the area.

        1. Would you please give me the ratios of the ingredients, and does it need to be gin, or could I use something like vodka if it’s cheaper?

      3. Hmm — depending on how you analyze it, either from the Arcadian poetry of the Roman Empire, or from Tactitus’s Noble German Savages.

    4. “I submit that nobody constructs a fortress atop a 360+ foot high bluff unless they believe it is necessary.”

      It was necessary: to preserve the scenic beauty of the countryside. Their respect for Mother Earth was so great they willingly extended themselves to great inconvenience in order to place their dwellings where they would minimally despoil Gaia’s beauty.

      BTW – anybody contemplating moving please contact me. I can offer you some great deals on Ocean Front property in the Bahamas, preserved in their natural state.

    5. The Apache moved into a vacuume caused by decades-long drought in the early 1400s-late 1300s (Little Ice Age strikes again). They hunted and gardened (as had the earlier residents). The people later called Comanche, once they had horses and left the Great Basin, waited at those gardens and beat up on the Apache. Then the Spanish used the Comanche to get rid of the Apache in Texas and New Mexico, because they thought the Comanche were a lesser evil.

      They were, after 1804, when a New Mexican governor beat the [crud] out of them in a night battle. The Comanche respected New Mexico and raided Spanish Texas instead.

      1. Isn’t that funny. Tribal people who have the (crud) beating out of them seem to respect and fear the tribe or people who do so and will go out of their way not to piss those people off.
        But if you are nice, only kill some when they attack you. Let them make fun of you to your face and they KNOW that you can only attack them under certain very stick conditions, seem to NOT really respect or fear such people.
        I wonder could that have any effect or consequences in todays world???

        2. Other cultures look at the West with its constant talk of “peace” and think us weak. The fact that we at least try to “walk softly but carry a big stick” signifies, to a more demonstrative culture, a type of weakness. To their great misfortune, when they attack they discover that Europeans – and especially NORTHERN Europeans – make war with a vigor and single-minded ferocity that sometimes has us climbing up someone’s bayonet for the privilege of ripping their throat out with our bare hands.

          I have read that there are three major groups in the U.S. that if someone pisses off 2 of those groups the U.S. will go to war. On 7, December, 1941, the Empire of Japan managed to piss off ALL THREE! The attack on Pearl Harbor so enraged the U.S. populous as to make it ready to (in the words of JFK) “pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe”. Bush demanded. Saddam’s culture emphasized bluff, bluster and show. Huge set piece forces would be arrayed like male animals vying for a female and one side or the other would expected to back down. Why else position his weakest forces just north of the berm. Unfortunately for Saddam, when Northern Europeans set a price for something, it is “pay up or else”. My son was driving one of the first vehicles NOT a tank when coalition forces breached the berm and DROVE OVER the poor sods just north of the berm.

    1. Hey, I’m sick of hearing about the ‘Department of Defense’. Let’s start a movement to change it to ‘The Department of Massacre, War, and Colonialism’. Then we can compromise on going back to ‘War Department’.

      1. Navy would bitch. And State has no legitimate grounds to complain about being disbanded and replaced with a department of Genocidal Imperialism.

        Fuck the Paris Accords sideways Project Plowshare style.

          1. During the German occupation, their plans for holding the territory were not entirely incompetent.

          1. The Hague Convention on ammunition makes sense when fighting another ‘civilized’ foe whose soldiers, when injured, tend to take themselves out of action in order to be treated. This also puts a drain on the resources of the foe in order to attend to the injured. When in conflict with a ‘warrior’ culture where the injured often keep coming on regardless and who, if incapacitated, are left to tend to themselves it admittedly makes less sense.

            1. I’ve always wondered; exactly what “terrible consequence” would accrue if the U.S. just quietly decided to ignore The Hague Convention and started issuing ammo to our troops that would actually put those flip-flop wearing hadjis on their ass instead of just wounding them? The whole reason we allegedly went from 7.62×51 (.30 cal.) to 5.56×45 was that the smaller round (a .22 on steroids really) would merely “wound” the enemy troop and result in removing (at least temporarily) 4 men from the battlefield (wounded, 2 litter carriers + a medic). Nice idea (OK, NOT!) but since the round’s adoption how many times have our troops faced an OpFor that takes care of its wounded? By my count the answer is ZERO!

              As for that damned “Hague Convention”, I recall reading (don’t remember where or when) that the country that pushed for the ball ammo restriction already had a hollow-based projectile which would swap ends once inside the target and essentially act like a hollow point.

              I kinda wonder what a 150 gr jacketed hollow point doing 2,700 ft/sec would do to a human body. Nothing pleasant, I suspect. You know, Stoner originally designed/built the mechanism used in the AR-15 around the 7.62×51. IMS, it was called the Armalite Rifle Model 10. Wouldn’t mind one of those with all the operational improvements the modern AR-15 family has. Whatcha think, folks? As easy to operate and clean as the AR-15 family with the stopping power of a .30 cal round. Don’t sound half bad, now does it? Now all together, “SCREW THE HAGUE CONVENTION!!!!!”

              1. Been thinking about picking up an AR-10 myself, as the last bolt .308 I fired did a number on my shoulder. You can also get a 6.8 Creedmore upper for some nice 1500 yard shots if your eyesight’s up to it. Been trying to decide if Palmetto or Brownells is going to get my money.

                1. My PSA works, but then, I’ve replaced the gas block with an adjustable one. I got it in 7.62 because Creedmoor doesnt have cheap practice/stockpile ammo.

      2. There’s other options, like Department of Offense, Department of Imperialism, or even the Department of Killing People and Breaking Things.

        1. At least your 3rd option would represent truth in advertising. The way I heard it, armed forces exist to break things and kill people.

          Hower, TheOtherSean, I strongly disagree with your 2nd suggestion. But, each to his/her/its/whatevers own.

  9. “The author then refers to this as a “massacre” and proceeds to act as though this tarnished the main character’s view of her father forever.”

    This makes quite a bit of sense.

    First off, the MC is a 19th Century female, so not particularly well-educated in the fields of Reason and Logic; she may have a native talent for such arts but it would be primitive, unshaped.

    Second, she both adores and resents her father. Adores because of the romantic image of him as bold explorer (in both scientist and explorer roles) and resents him for abandoning her — although this is suppressed because “good” girls don’t hate their fathers, with the emotion that much greater for having been suppressed.

    Third, upon learning of something disrupting her illusions about her father and his work she transfers the romantic idealism to the natives who attempted what she secretly longs to do herself: murder her father.

    Thus is she delivered by those natives to vent her long-simmering anger toward her father, free to condemn him for his abandonment even if she must still conceal from her conscious mind the true basis of her condemnation by clouding it with moral indignation on behalf of the “noble savages” who attempted the patricide she yearned to commit.

    It is all quite simple. It may even be a case of the author’s projection of her own deeply buried anger toward her father, but it requires more data before we can engage that issue.

    1. RES, are you now taking or have you ever taken college lit?

      That’s a very disturbing skill, and I suggest you could probably use said analysis to get on at most English departments in the US.

      Go. Subvert.

    2. It’s only a massacre in the third person (they massacred our people).
      In the first person it’s Heroic Victory or Stout-Hearted Defense.

  10. Then there are the idiots who “hate” the conquistadors for destroying the Aztec Empire while knowing how nasty the Aztecs were. 😦

    1. The conquistadors didn’t destroy the Aztec, the conquistadors and their many many allies did. With the Aztecs being such bad guys they would NOT have had the allies and would NOT have done that well.
      ‘Karma’ is a female dog.

  11. The confluence of the various South-Central American ‘civilizations’ and the Conquistadors is one of the strongest arguments I know for ‘Karma’. Or, OTOH, for a God with an NASTY sense of humor.

    2. Of course God has a sense of humor. The Guy made the giraffe, camels, elephants, platypus, and dodo to start with, and then made man as His magnum opus. So either the Creator is either a really funny guy, or He was drunk as a skunk.

      1. Pshaw. Man his magnum opus? Nonsense. He realized He needed an audience and made man for that role. We all know with what contempt Artists view audiences.

        No, for His magnum opus He created the Wallaby.

      2. I think there’s a good deal of evidence that God used evolution like a teenager uses photoshop; “I wonder what’ll happen if I push this slider as far as it’ll go?”

        *poof*; Stag Beetle

        Or “These wasp things are kinda nasty, but kinda cool too. Let’s see what I can make ‘em do.”

      3. I’ll go with the sense of humor. Life experience has convinced me of this…

        I really don’t know what the cosmic version of a Joy Buzzer is, though a Seyfert galaxy is a good bet.

        I *don’t* what to know what God uses for a Whoopie Cushion.

        (Is a tsunami His version of a dribble glass?)

  12. “To consider this a massacre takes knowing that in these clashes the white men would ALWAYS win and were disproportionately equipped to do so, and KNEW they’d survive and kill all the others.”

    Nowadays we call this sort of behaviour “Suicide by cop.”

    Except, of course, when the suicides are Palestinian and the cops Israeli.

    Or when the “Cops” are American and then the suicides become “Some people did something and Americans over-reacted and stripped people of their civil rights.”

  13. “All humans colonize.”

    Yep. Rome colonized the Greeks and the Greeks did it to the Romans in turn. To colonize is as natural to humans as it is to begat.

    The Lord made Adam.
    The Lord made Eve.
    He made them both,
    A little bit naive.

    They lived as free
    As the summer breeze,
    Without pajamas and without chemise.

    Until they stumbled
    on the apple tree.

    Then she looked at him,
    (hum, hum)
    And he looked at her,
    (hum, hum)
    And they knew immediately
    What the world was fer…

    – He said give me my cane
    – He sais give me my hat.
    – The time has come,
    to begin the begat.
    – The begat!
    – The begat!
    – That’s it!

    So they begat Caine.
    And they begat Abel,
    Who begat the rabble
    At the Tow’r of Babel.

    Does it seem that the left, with its denunciations of “colonization,” “cultural appropriation,” and the elevation of ethnic/cultural “authenticity” are betraying an unhealthy obsession with purity, both genetic and racial?

    1. So they begat Caine.
      And they begat Abel,
      Who begat the rabble
      At the Tow’r of Babel.

      I could be misremembering my Biblical history here, but as I recall, the “rabble at Babel” were begat by neither Caine (whose descendants all died in the flood*) or Abel (who died before he could do any begetting) but by Seth.

      * = That’s what I recall at any rate, though I’m skeptical that, even if Noah had direct male descent from Seth, none of Caine’s genes crept in via the female line.

      1. I think the “Who” who begat the rabble is a collective noun, referring to the offspring of Adam & Eve rather than one child in particular.

        I also suspect that learning one’s history — Biblical or Revolutionary — from Broadway musicals is probably a poor substitute for actual scholarship.

        1. What? You mean that A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum is *not* an accurate description of Roman history? I’m shocked! Shocked! I say.

          OTOH Big River might possibly have a nub of truth, considering the source material. Maybe.

          1. Given the the Book for Forum was based on ancient Roman theatre

            Inspired by the farces of the ancient Roman playwright Plautus (251–183 BC), specifically Pseudolus, Miles Gloriosus, and Mostellaria, the musical tells the bawdy story of a slave named Pseudolus and his attempts to win his freedom by helping his young master woo the girl next door. The plot displays many classic elements of farce, including puns, the slamming of doors, cases of mistaken identity (frequently involving characters disguising themselves as one another), and satirical comments on social class.
            https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Funny_Thing_Happened_on_the_Way_to_the_Forum

            it is probably more reliable than most.

            Which is to say, not very.

  14. “The tribe most successful in conquering others, eventually became a nation.”

    An important point, that. Look at the clash between the Gauls and the Romans: the Gauls may have been (probably were) greater warriors, but the Romans were soldiers. They fought as a unit and thus defeated the Gauls. This ability to work together for a purpose was the basis of civilization and essential to being a nation rather than a tribe.

    Of course, the Identity Politics of the Left has the effect of reducing nations to tribes. I leave it for others to speculate whether that is the left’s goal or merely a “happy” byproduct of their animus toward Civilization.

    1. I wonder how many families/tribes joined each other willingly when they saw their neighbors defeated by larger forces?
      Even though I’m pretty sure most expansion involved conquering other groups, I am left to wonder how much was voluntary.

    2. The Gauls may have been great warriors…but their history comes to us through a filter, and the various Roman generals who fought them would have gained scant fame for ploughing over a bunch of damp eyed Nancy-boys.

      Somewhere in BLACKADDER GOES FORTH George asks Blackadder about ‘M’Boto Gorge.

      “Ah yes, that was a bit of a nasty one. Thousands of natives armed with kiwi fruit and guava halves..”

      One gets the impression that George has heard a rather different story…

      I don’t insist that all accounts of military victory exaggerate the prowess of the losers. But the temptation must exist.

    3. that is the left’s goal or merely a “happy” byproduct of their animus toward Civilization

      As is said, embrace the power of “and”.

  15. “…even when they talk, even when they learn each other’s language, the concepts will be different.”

    This also applies within a culture, as any attentive observer of interactions between Men and Women will realize.

    Yeah, I know: but Trans Activism is inherently predicated on an assumption of stereotypical Male/Female differences — else one could not be born in a “wrong” body.

    1. Similarly, we can see the communication problems inherent in different cultures by examining the practice of gift-giving.

      A Transactional Culture views gift-giving as demonstrating wealth, generosity and the benefits of trade. A Dominance Culture interprets presentation of gifts as appeasement, as submission, as acknowledgement the giver has no rights which the recipient is bound to recognize.

      Failure to recognize the different cultural orientations is simply the worst kind of unsophisticated provincialism.

    2. Yeah, I know: but Trans Activism is inherently predicated on an assumption of stereotypical Male/Female differences — else one could not be born in a “wrong” body.

      And this right here is ultimately why radical feminism and trans activism cannot co-exist. And based on current trends, the feminists are going to be the ones who find themselves out in the cold.

  16. “Someone will win from this violence.”

    But the Left always cries that “Violence never solve anything!” and “Violence is the last resort of the incompetent!” and “Nobody ever wins from violence!”

    Which is why they support Antifa and engage in mass political action, stamping their feet, shaking their fists and chanting “This is what Democracy loos like!”

    As for that last, they provide evidence why this nations’ Founders detested Democracy and established a Republic with explicit recognition of individual rights as sacrosanct against the temper of mobs.

    1. “Violence never solves anything!” But, you know, problematic outbreaks of murderous fascism in Germany.

      “Violence is the last resort of the incompetent!” Because the competent resort to it earlier, when it might do some good.

      What they mean is “Violence produces solutions we don’t like.”, and “We hope you won’t resort to violence in time.”

    2. That’s speech. Especially when they conduct random racially motivated beatings. Violence is when we speak.

  17. “In a clash between civilizations, if you decide that your morals require you not to fight/lie down and die, you’ll be the one colonized.”

    ??? Well, then, bugger that!

    1. Agree. The future belongs to those who show up, not those who lay down and die. Some of the latter have reproduced, but their genes will fade away out of the stew of humanity if they choose to emulate their ancestors. I don’t see the current crop of conquerors allowing the rest of us to live, not long term. I may not survive, but I will fight for the chance for my son and his generation to survive as long as I have breath to do so. It might mean taking to the skies and the stars to survive and thrive, like the examples of the Apache, and even the Navajo (their stomping grounds isn’t exactly paradise either).

      2. “One day in the pavilion at Karakorum he [Genghis Kahn] asked an officer of the Mongol guard what, in all the world, could bring the greatest happiness.

        “The open steppe, a clear day, and a swift horse under you,” responded the officer after a little thought, “and a falcon on your wrist to start up hares.”

        “Nay,” responded the Kahn, “to crush your enemies, to see them fall at your feet — to take their horses and goods and hear the lamentation of their women. That is best.” ”

        Harold Lamb, “GENGHIS KAHN: THE EMPEROR OF ALL MEN”, 1927.

        4. I would disagree. The officer was right about under what conditions one might feel the greatest happiness.

          The Khan’s answer is simply what establishes the preconditions required for the state of affairs described by the officer to occur.

        5. Conan, what is best in life?

          To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and hear the lamentations of their women.

      3. Yeah, “What if they gave a war and nobody came” is all fine and good, provided that NOBODY comes. Because if your side is the only one that doesn’t show, then it’s 1939, and YOUR name is Poland.

        1. I must respectfully disagree. Poles fought hard, bravely, and made a good account of themselves against impossible two-front odds. They held out longer than anyone expected or believed. The Polish Underground “Home Army” was the most effective Resistance of that war. Their use of horse-cavalry with light anti-tank weapons gave the Germans absolute fits, made life difficult for the Soviets, and greatly influenced subsequent Soviet anti-armor doctrine.

          They “showed up” alright.

          The “ineffective Poles” crap was Reich propaganda.

          1. My point is twofold:

            1) People who lie back and think of Socialism will get treated like Poland.

            2) Poland had the expectation that Nations that later fought the Nazis would turn up…and they didn’t.

            I grant the parallel is imperfect, but it has punch and makes its point.

            1. Poland also had the expectation that those same nations would help them against the Soviets as well… and they didn’t.

              1. I don’t think Poland really had the expectation that England would be much help against Russia. There was a secret protocol in the Anglo-Polish Agreement of 1939 that said it was really aimed against Germany, and in the event of an attack against by others the British were only required to consult on “measures to be taken in common.” Would have been nice if the British had been able to push to get the Soviets out after the war, but I think FDR put paid to any realistic expectation of that happening.

                1. FDR deserves blame for a lot, but he knew good and well that Stalin would fight another war rather than give up his conquests in Eastern Europe, and that the American people wouldn’t stand the resultant casualties, and no one else could, at that point. The British were disbanding divisions in order to keep their armies in the field at combat strength, and the rest of the Commonwealth wasn’t much better off aside from India. The French had but ten divisions in the field.

                  Admittedly, the Soviets were starting to scrape the bottom of the barrel for their manpower reserves at that point, but you’re still looking at possibly another two years of war just to liberate Eastern Europe, and probably two to three more afterward to defeat the Soviet Union.

          2. Also everyone should remember the Russian Polish war 1919-1921.
            It as the Poles that kept the Red Army from sitting on Germanies boarder and helping the Communists win in the early 20’s. The Communists could have rolled up much of Europe at that time, if they had beaten the Poles. It was a close run thing but the Poles pulled it off.
            Read a little about it. Thank God the Poles won.
            This also explains WHY the Russians had no trouble working with the Germans to divide Poland between them.

            1. There’s longer history there. The Russians, Germans, and Austrians divvied up Poland between them in the 1790s, and the Poles invaded Russia multiple times in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

              Strategic imperatives remain the same regardless of governmental ideology.

      4. The liberals worry about guns… but a friend of a friend owns, last time I was there, *ten* tanks, as well as some lesser armored vehicle. There are Americans who own fighter planes, which are pretty useless without guns and missiles… but there are some who own operational bombers. Even Heinlein never considered dropping pallets full of The Federal Register from 40,000 feet…

            1. Ah, Res, I suspect YOU might be shocked at how few currently on active duty would not even ANALYZE their orders for lawfullness. I try to get pretty much every active duty troop I encounter to go to the OK website and look at the “10 Orders”. Most have informed me that even though a given order might APPEAR to be unlawful, they trusted the chain of command enough that they would not be concerned. They trust the CofC not to ISSUE unlawful orders and thus would willingly follow any order given; no matter how it might appear on the face of it.

              That, sir is a distillation of my direct experience covering over a decade. Remember, while there articles in the UCMJ (or whatever might have replaced it) covering proper submission to orders and failure to obey orders, there is nothing in the UCMJ which DEFINES “unlawful orders”. The only way to determine whether a given order was lawful or unlawful in in a Court Marshal, where the defendant is tried by a judge, jury, prosecutor, and even a DEFENSE attorney who are themselves members of the selfsame power elite threatened by the defendant’s refusal to obey. Now does that sound like something even REMOTELY resembling “justice” to you??? Actually, it is better today, in some respects, than it was when I went into the USAF in ’73. Back then the Area Defense Counsel’s annual Officer Efficiency Reports were written by the Host Wing Commander of the air base. Guess whose signature was on EVERY indictment for every Court Marshall? If you guessed the Host Wing Commander’s then you guessed right. What kind of conviction rate do you figure a local prosecuting attorney’s office would have if every defense attorney worked for the prosecuting attorney’s office?

              Today person is tried:
              in a courtroom in a building owned by – The Government
              Before a judge works for – The Government
              By a prosecutor who works for – The Government
              With security provided by a bailiff paid and armed by – The Government
              And defended by an attorney who holds his license to practice from – The Government!
              Does that sound like a recipe for justice to you? I believe that all criminal defendants should be required to enter a courthouse through a designated entryway over which are the words inscribed in adamantine stone, “Abandon all hope, Ye who enter here.”

              1. Most have informed me that even though a given order might APPEAR to be unlawful, they trusted the chain of command enough that they would not be concerned.

                *puts hand in Time-Out symbol*

                Would YOU announce that you don’t trust your chain in that most basic of things?

                If it gets to the point where ground-level troops are getting unlawful orders, much as seriously gone wrong.

                Things haven’t gone anywhere near that wrong so far.

                So the guy on the ground isn’t expecting them to.

                Should they ever do so, then the confidence would be shaken.

            2. I’m just making a point about the purported versatility of privately owned (largely, 1950s and earlier) tanks.

              Also, a lot of them are technically tank destroyers… (there are a lot of M-18s in private hands for some reason)

        2. Pallets full of The Federal Register is probably okay, but I might argue the Tax Code is more poetically apt.

          I understand the Federal Budget is a war crime.

  18. “There is no option between human civilizations for ‘we’ll each go to our little territories and stay there’. That’s not how humans work or ever have. Population pressure; desire for goods; desire for a certain land …”

    Funny (P, not H) how the Left argues for that but their actions directly refute their asserted philosophy.

    Desire for goods? One would argue this supports free market exchanges, but it is the Left that is always grousing that producers’ prices are too high and that government (i.e., the licensed users of violence) ought force prices down to a “reasonable” level. Odd how rarely buyers think sellers prices are too low.

    Desire for land? The Left would never dream of taking another culture’s land from the native inhabitants. Unless those natives pollute the air and/or water, or build lots of low-price housing alongside the Left’s manors, or block “necessary” development or contribute to Climate Change or otherwise inconvenience the Left’s desires. As people in Appalachia and the Western states learned, the Left desires us to live in a state of pastoral grandeur, maintaining scenic vistas for them to visit briefly or to flyover.

  20. I think it was some Old Testament accounts or maybe just secular history covering the same time period and about the constant wars as one king or another expanded territory across Persia or Iraq and then another expanded back again… and my modern self couldn’t help but wonder at the waste of it all because if everyone just respected borders and didn’t spend so much fighting then they’d be so much richer.

    Which is TRUE.

    But that is SO modern and weird and simply wasn’t something that even a “good” King could have done because even if he was at peace with his neighbor the next country over wasn’t and would expand into and overtake his neighbor and then he’d have a huge problem on his border and over it and marching over and burning his rich fields… so a “good” King was always trying to be stronger. If everyone was lucky it was a happy merger and weddings instead of war, but it was always about getting bigger and stronger.

    1. > respected borders

      Sure.

      “This is the border, right here!”

      “No, the border is over there!”

      [bloody combat ensues]

      Add in the tendency of far too many lines drawn by city-dwellers who think rivers make convenient borders… and they don’t realize that rivers can *move*…

      1. One of my neighbors claimed that the field-expedient benchmark for his property (against another neighbor) was moved. Considering that a relative of the other neighbor tried to falsely claim an acre of my land (“Your fence is on my land!”), I took careful pictures of my fence to make sure it didn’t move.

        He backed down after somebody looked at the plat maps, while I decided that open carry on my land was a really good idea.

        (Those neighbors have a reputation. OTOH, some of them relocated to the greybar hotel for a few years.)

  21. Mrs Hoyt, This is more than a bit off topic, so if unwelcome, do please let me know.

    How do you manage to keep this site so free of trolls? I frequent some other fora, where your opinions would largely fit right in, and those platforms have trolls like a stray dog has ticks. This site seems quite civil and free of crap-tastic behavior.

    My complements. It is refreshing.

      1. But I haven’t been driven off and stayed away yet.

        In all seriousness, ‘good regulars’ are part of it.

        Probably also a fair amount of modding that we don’t see.

        But no amount of modding can replace users who can regulate their own behavior, and choose to do so as a price of staying here and interacting with folks. Those of us who stay mostly behave, because we want to stay on relatively civil terms with many of the other regulars. We have spats and differences, but I only really see the mod hat with those when two regulars are both having a bad day.

        The idiots who come here trying to count coup mostly do not have a fun time of it.

        Some folks are banned.

        1. Mutual respect, coupled with an intense desire to actually provide facts to back up statements, and a willingness to admit, or at least entertain, the possibility that we might be wrong about somethings.

          And nobody likes getting slapped in the face with a week old carp.

        1. Well, you know how it is … give ’em a hard enough kick in the butt and some flounciness is bound to occur.

      3. Well, until we get bored with the chew toy. Then she bans his “It’s just a flesh wound” shouting self and makes it stick.

    2. The trolls are scared of HER. Her displeasure has caused many to change their ways and become good commenters. Well those that survived.

    3. I blocked like a dozen IPs and the trolls vanished. Ten of those IPs are one guy (the aforementioned Chlamydia.) So, 2 IPs blocked,no trolls. Make of that what you will.

        1. Couple possibilities. I remember a time or more when one of the visiting trolls were chewed up, not counting much coup, but still doubling down, and apparently left after being blocked. That hadn’t seemed much like Clamps.

          There are more persistent geniuses beyond compare, like Mary Kowal and the camel fellator. There’s reason to think that the camel fellator is one Toby Meadows, but the camel denies it, so that must be wrong. 😛

          A lot of the folks with a fixed distaste for a community that don’t have mutual engagement with that community as part of their ordinary routine are mentally bent obsessives. Such people leave lots of evidence behind, such as Fieldsy. As for others, I only see the reflections that show up here, so I dunno, maybe Cora B.? A lot of the trolls coming by MGC seem to have some ties to traditional publishing.

        2. I recall one troll who’d been a nuisance elsewhere coming over to try to harass a regular. The response from everybody was *interesting*; he left after a couple of posts; he was more of a chew toy than a nuisance.

    4. Trolls do not much of a chance when they run into intelligent responses, which this bunch generally provide (almost all are both faster and smarter than ox, usually).

      Then there’s the amphoteric wallaby, some dragons, sharp-clawed cats, and even some slow – but not THAT slow – ox moo-cking them. And if that isn’t enough, Sarah lets at them with the truly scary unrelenting nightmare monsters: humans.

      1. Alright ya scurvy dogs! I have a bull’s back end and I’m not afraid to use it! And if that doesn’t work, I’ll just turn him around until you get the points.

        1. I prefer to use the jawbone of an ass. It’s not only an appropriate pun, it’s a family tradition.

          Which just might indicate what the “S” in RES stands for.

    1. “Rhinoceros” is a great play, which everyone should watch or at least read..but the author of this article seems to see Rhino behavior especially on the Trump and Republican side as opposed to the Democrats and the Left, which I think is dead wrong. The trampling of opponents…shutting down speech, on-line mobbing, getting people fired, physical violence…is in our time largely a behavior of the Left.

      1. I have to agree with David. Ben Hunt shows a leftist bias in his “The Long Now, Pt. 2 – Make, Protect, Teach”. He’s already condemned the GOP of having gone full on atrocity whereas the majority of the GOP as plain old “small ‘c’ conservatives” are usually the last to engage in atrocious behaviors.

        Furthermore, he totally ignores the fact that it only takes one ‘side’ to engage in atrocity, to create ‘The Long Now’ as he calls it.

        Hunt’s a salesman here. He’s trying to get people to buy into a kumbaya utopia with just a dash of tea party in it. He talks about abandoning your political party and starting over at the grassroots. But he forgets his own history; those at the top who go rhino trample the grass. That third party never grows fast enough to gain enough mass to survive.

  24. I remember when Monty Python was silly humor, rather than a guide to modern pieties.

    What have the Romans ever done for us?

    Other than sanitation, medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, a fresh water system, public health and peace…

    I am a bit distracted by the Democratic debates streaming on the tv. If profit is bad, how will anyone be able to pay taxes? Dark days ahead… Of course, I gather the British left were truly fearsome when the Life of Brian was new.

    1. I generally try to assume that incompetence is more likely than malevolence, but this bunch of Democratic candidates are making it very, very hard. I am not certain that they know enough about the 20th century (let alone earlier eras) to realize that TANSTAAFL. Nor do they seem to know that perpetual motion machines are not possible. I am not convinced that it is possible to be that ignorant, given their advanced ages. So then they are pretending, in order to pander to their voters?

      1. I could believe it, given how many persons of truly advanced age seem to be senile, and how many middle-aged people refuse to learn anything that might disturb their worldview.

      2. More likely it’s just the same old “promise anything to get elected” policy, except now they don’t even care if they look foolish. If they even know… I suspect the Democratic candidates are operating in carefully-managed echo chambers, with all incoming information filtered by aides and flacks. The only things they would be permitted to see would be those that showed them in a positive light.

        Take Biden for example. How full of himself would someone have to be, to ignore the flood of reports about his gaffes onstage? And he’s an experienced politician and former VP; following the media is his *job* and his gateway to advancement. Even a self-important dirtbag such as Biden should be saying, “Whoa, dudes, WTF?! The numbers on this look really bad. Do something.” But nope, every week we get a new Mr. Hand story and more crazy-talk sound bites.

            1. I’ve worried the Dems might choose Marianne Williamson, because I’m worried that she a) might beat Trump b) might be secretly a Communist nutjob, unlike all the obvious Communist nutjobs.

      3. Sorry. I no longer buy the incompetence excuse. It’s far too prevalent to be accidental. And the truly incompetent don’t rise to that level of elitism merely on the Peter Principle.

        1. Incompetence is a highly nuanced concept, with many interpretive options. Delusions of competence are a form of it, after all. Scientific Management has a way of elevating incompetence to disturbing levels of functionality.

    2. Fun fact –

      The future founder of China’s Han Dynasty first rebelled against the reigning Qin Dynasty when he was assigned to escort a corvee party, and some of the priso-… I mean, some of the workers ran away (which meant an automatic death sentence for everyone else).

    1. Now they are going to “try” to take our guns. It may not end real well for us; but I guarantee that it won’t end well for them. Any agents of the government attempting to steal the belongings of gun owners will be the first to be lethally resisted (some won’t, they’ll just comply); and those who do so successfully are likely to proceed to lethally remove those officials who authorized the seizures, seeing as they will already have been branded as “murderers”, being hunted by the government, and therefore have nothing to lose by following through to the end. It will be very interesting to see where Frito, err Beto, runs and hides if that happens.

      3. They will not go “drama”, at least at first. They will pick off the occasional non-compliant owner or enforcer, make examples, and thus gain ground on the inevitable rollovers. Informers then yield more. It will be the death of a thousand cuts, and some examples will be made. (Mainly “died of internal blunt force trauma” by cellmate).

        The opportunity to declare wide swaths of ” deplorables” as “convicted felons” thus non-voting, will also tempt.

        They calculate based on the example of New Orleans in 2005. No one yelled “molon labe” and fought the confiscation. The cops complied with orders. (Granted, many were imports)

        Some of them are -counting- on a fight. You do realize that? They plan to utilize it. Your willingness to fight is no longer a deterrent, because they have organized their “security squadrons” and “storm workers”, and they need some ” potheads” and “crazies” as excuses.

        Don’t get yourself ambushed, or lured onto false ground. Be … cagey.

        2. “They calculate based on the example of New Orleans in 2005. No one yelled “molon labe” and fought the confiscation. The cops complied with orders. (Granted, many were imports)”

          And that works, when you have a) a natural disaster as a distraction, b) the confiscation is taking place within a limited geographical area, and c) you haven’t warned the populace in advance that this is coming.

          Beta’s little outbursts have marked the first time since 1995 and DiFi that a Democrat has been that open in a public forum…. and he’s not getting much public pushback from their ranks.

          1. And that works, when you have a) a natural disaster as a distraction, b) the confiscation is taking place within a limited geographical area, and c) you haven’t warned the populace in advance that this is coming.

            And d) you don’t tell anybody you’re not sure will actually DO it to confiscate the weapons.

            There were several different folks down there who never heard of any such order…which I found pretty dang clear indication the order-giver knew it was iffy at best.

          2. Let’s not forget that when Cuomo pushed a gun control regime through the NY Legislature that outlawed the guns used by NY’s police there were sheriffs throughout the state who declared they would make NO effort to enforce such a law. So, context and circumstances matter.

            As for Bob Frank O’Rourke’s stunt — that was no outburst; his campaign had T-Shirts ready and on sale at his website within fifteen minutes. So we’re looking at a pol desperate for attention pandering to the Far-Left base. The MSM is kicking all the sand over it that they can to protect “moderate” Dem politicians from having to straddle the gap between what they need to say to avoid angering their base vs what they need to say to avoid alienating the majority of voters. Sen. Coons put it best when he declared Bob Frank’s remarks, “not helpful.” It is long standing practice for the MSM to eschew asking any Dem a question that puts them between their base and the moderate voter, such as “How do you plan to vote on a tax increase?”

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