andyt andyt:
Lot's of people already here long before any of these guys showed up. The diff is that when Columbus et al found the place they were representing a bunch of gold, fish and fur hungry bastards willing and able to kill, rape and pillage to get it and hold the territory, followed closely by people greedy for land and the ability to organize themselves how they saw fit. So "we saw it first" doesn't count for anything, and "we were here first' until recently didn't count for much more.
We can rationalize all we want, be we certainly are only here because our people before us were not very finicky about visiting depredations on the folks already here for millennia. Looks like it may all be coming back to bite us in the ass - sins of the fathers and all that.
Oh please, you make it sound like North America is the only place in the history of the world that was conquered by someone other than the original settlers.
And hell, at least the Natives fought back. Unlike today where it seems many Canadians, like you apparently, would be perfectly happy to roll over and let it happen to us because they'd rather flagellate themselves while wallowing in White guilt.
Should the Mongolians feel collective guilt over the cultures and peoples that disappeared as a result of their empire building?
Should the Italians feel collective guilt over the horrors of the expansion of the Roman Empire?
How about Persians? Greeks? Egyptians? Or are we the only ones horrible enough to deserve suffering for the "sins of our [expansionist] fathers, and all that"?
I swear Monty Python could have done a skit about it.
Representative of the First Nations People's Front: Ok, so besides roads, electricity, medicine, hospitals, schools, various modes of transportation, running water, and firearms, what has the White devil ever done for us?"