Quote (bogie160 @ 22 Apr 2015 23:02)

What makes what the Europeans did any different from any single atrocity in history? Do you think the African tribes weren't warring against one another? That the West African kingdoms weren't established through conquest? That China didn't spend the better part of a thousand years trying to vanquish Vietnamese sovereignty? Do you believe that North America was a peaceful place before the Europeans arrived? That the Aztecs weren't despised by the tens of millions they oppressed?

The end result of Alexander the Great's genocidal exploits was Hellenization that brought enormous prosperity to Central Asia and the Levant. The unification of China was terrible, and yet it brought about a civilization that contributed in a large part to the modern world.

You're trying to apply a modern conception of morality to a time in which it didn't exist. Colonization was brutal, but it undeniably brought about a world in which the poor in large swathes of the globe no longer have to worryabout dying of starvation and a myriad of equally terrible diseases.
You expect better of Europeans because you've internalized a certain image of how Europeans act. That is racist.

Quote (Valhalls_Sun @ Apr 23 2015 01:05pm)

By taking the prime hunting grounds and pushing the natives further away from the lives they had learned and had worked to feed them for centuries. .

Quote (bogie160 @ Apr 22 2015 11:02pm)

What makes what the Europeans did any different from any single atrocity in history? Do you think the African tribes weren't warring against one another? That the West African kingdoms weren't established through conquest? That China didn't spend the better part of a thousand years trying to vanquish Vietnamese sovereignty? Do you believe that North America was a peaceful place before the Europeans arrived? That the Aztecs weren't despised by the tens of millions they oppressed?

The end result of Alexander the Great's genocidal exploits was Hellenization that brought enormous prosperity to Central Asia and the Levant. The unification of China was terrible, and yet it brought about a civilization that contributed in a large part to the modern world.

You're trying to apply a modern conception of morality to a time in which it didn't exist. Colonization was brutal, but it undeniably brought about a world in which the poor in large swathes of the globe no longer have to worry about dying of starvation and a myriad of equally terrible diseases.

You expect better of Europeans because you've internalized a certain image of how Europeans act. That is racist.

Quote (cambovenzi @ Apr 23 2015 07:35am)

Quote (Skinned @ Apr 24 2015 04:43am)

You're really stretching it. First off, no matter how much you would like to think this, European isn't a race.

We had the same obligations to one another then as we do now.

By your logic we shouldn't have pursued war crimes after WW2, or ever, because anything goes in this godless world. I mean humans are fundamentally the same now as they were 500, 1000, and 2000 years ago.

You are saying there are no standards for behavior. I never took you for being such a nihilist.

Quote (duffman316 @ Apr 27 2015 06:12pm)