Physicist Robert Bacher Dies at 99!

Jim Oberg wrote:

"Pat Flannery" wrote in

Why don't you ask the Native American people how well the American
people treated them? :-D


Far, far better than they treated each other --
I guess your 'history' has been PC'ed too...

Of course it isn't just a matter of intent, it's a function of intent
and capacity. Given the relative size and power of the US, even honest
mistakes and minor deviations can have devastating effects.

I once used the analogy (from Pierre Trudeau I think) of the US being an
elephant in your living room. It could be the nicest elephant around,
but it's still going to be dangerous.

My friend suggested maybe killing the elephant, but of course then you
have a great big stinking elephant carcass in your living room, which
isn't really an improvement. Not to mention what happens if you fail
and have a ****ed of elephant running around in your living room.

Hmm...I'm pretty sure I had a point when I started this email, but it
seems to have escaped me.
MSH

In article ,
Hop David wrote:
There used to be two great powers with Mutual Assured Destruction
holding each in check.
Now the U.S. is the single great military power. The gap between the
U.S. and the 2nd greatest power is large...
What then would be the deterrence to prevent the U.S. from abusing its
power?

M.A.D. never did restrain superpowers from abuse of power very much. Both
meddled constantly in the internal affairs of other countries. As witness
Afghanistan and Grenada, even invading independent countries was perfectly
possible, if you were a little bit careful about *which* country you
invaded. (Grenada was fine, Cuba was not...)

Restraints on the abuse of power by the US, in particular, really have to
come from within. Constitutional restrictions like habeas corpus, the
right to a speedy trial, the need to justify a search warrant in detail,
the right to legal representation, the requirement that only Congress can
declare war, etc., are too important to be set aside indefinitely by a
President, no matter what excuses he makes. They are, if anything, even
more important in wartime than in peacetime.
--
"Think outside the box -- the box isn't our friend." | Henry Spencer
-- George Herbert |

Jim Oberg wrote:
"Hop David" wrote in message

After our war with Mexico, the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo gave property
rights to those Mexicans who had homes and ranches on what then became
U.S.A. territory. These property rights were thrown out the window to
accomodate the influx of fortune hunters during the California Gold
Rush. In my opinion, this crime against Mexicans was a repetition of the
same crime commited many times against the Native American people.


ROTFLOL!

So those Anglos (few of them the ancestors of today's Americans)
were thieves for not preserving the 'ownership' of the thieves
who had stolen the land from the Navajo [snip]

I would guess that every piece of real estate on this planet has
exchanged hands via conquest. If it's OK to steal land from thieves,
then nobody has any property rights.


--
Hop David
http://clowder.net/hop/index.html

MSH wrote:



Hmm...I'm pretty sure I had a point when I started this email, but it
seems to have escaped me.
MSH


"One morning I shot an elephant in my pajamas. How he got in my pajamas,
I don't know."
Captain Spaulding- "Animal Crackers"

Pat

Hop David wrote:


I would guess that every piece of real estate on this planet has
exchanged hands via conquest. If it's OK to steal land from thieves,
then nobody has any property rights.


Except one piece....come on now...which one?
Hint: It has penguins on it. ;-)

Pat

On Mon, 22 Nov 2004 11:58:09 -0700, in a place far, far away, Hop
David made the phosphor
on my monitor glow in such a way as to indicate that:


What then would be the deterrence to prevent the U.S. from abusing its
power?

What it has always been--the American people.

Rand Simberg wrote:
On Mon, 22 Nov 2004 14:25:44 -0700, in a place far, far away, Hop
David made the phosphor
on my monitor glow in such a way as to indicate that:


I would guess that every piece of real estate on this planet has
exchanged hands via conquest. If it's OK to steal land from thieves,
then nobody has any property rights.


The aboriginal Americans, for the most part, didn't even have a
concept of property rights when it came to land.

What's your point?

--
Hop David
http://clowder.net/hop/index.html

On Mon, 22 Nov 2004 13:50:02 -0600, in a place far, far away, Pat
Flannery made the phosphor on my monitor glow in
such a way as to indicate that:

What then would be the deterrence to prevent the U.S. from abusing its
power?



What it has always been--the American people.


Why don't you ask the Native American people how well the American
people treated them? :-D

A stain on our history, unlikely to be repeated. Now we prevent
genocide, and are abused for doing so.

Jim Oberg wrote:



ROTFLOL!

So those Anglos (few of them the ancestors of today's Americans)
were thieves for not preserving the 'ownership' of the thieves
who had stolen the land from the Navajo (who, the Hopis point
out, stole it from them -- but the Hopis don't want to talk about
the humans who were in the land first, but as DNA shows,
contributed nothing to current gene pools -- something 'Hopi'ed'
to them, perhaps).

So whose land are today's Americans in the process, or in the
threat of, stealing?

Let's see...well we do want a certain Mideastern country's oil, not
that we've had much luck getting it yet.


Too bad for the ravaging plagues among the New World nations,
a tragedy that would have followed any sustained contact, either way,
by any sea-faring culture. Fortunately in the balance of ethical results,
European medicine has saved ten lives for every life lost in that
epididemiological holocaust. That's a better balance sheet than
any other culture anywhere on this planet.


I'm sure they give blessings to the Great Spirit each morning when they
consider their luck in having met the white man.
I don't know how the Native Americans are doing down Texas way, but
here's a nice slice of life from up here in North Dakota; alcoholism and
inhalation of fumes from aerosol products are so prevalent on the
reservations as to be at pandemic levels.
A not-at-all-uncommon way of death is too get completely drunk and
simply lie down in a field to sleep... in subfreezing weather... and die
of exposure. Then of course there are the car accidents from driving
while intoxicated; a Native American co-worker of mine lost a total of
six members of her extended family in five separate DWI accidents in a
period of two years. She herself also later died in a DWI accident.
If anyone is now going to say "Well, then leave the reservation and make
a life for yourself." I'll tell you how that works- a Native American
concept (at least up here in North Dakota) is that all property is
shared among the group (this is far closer to the concept of Communism
than the Soviets ever achieved; ironically, it is also quite a Christian
idea, and far closer to Christianity than Christian Americans are ever
liable to achieve...)- so if a member of the tribe leaves the
reservation and gets a job that they prosper at, they can expect other
members of the family and tribe to arrive at their abode in short order
to "share the wealth"...this in short order reduces the individual who
left the reservation to debt; then follows the despair and drunkenness,
and the loss of their job. Of course the person can just tell the other
family and tribal members to leave...at which point they effectively
become an outcast from both their family and tribe- too Native American
to be accepted in mainstream society, not Native American enough to
return to the reservation...in short, a lonely minority of one. Then
often follows the despair and drunkenness phase.
Yes, there was a great deal of intertribal warfare in Native American
history, much of it carried on in a very merciless way... and greatly
aided in its efficiency by the introduction of first the horse and later
firearms to a group of tribes that were existing at the level of stone
age technology and oral-tradition society (without even a true written
language in the case of the tribes north of the Mesoamerican region)
equivalent to what one would have expected in Europe around 3000 BCE.
What happened isn't a thing that can be said to reflect well on us, even
if the total numbers of those who can claim Native American ancestry is
higher than when we arrived; the culture is pretty much dead, and only
encountered now in tourist trap shows and charitable gaming casinos.
Although I do know of someone white who now claims that he is a member
of the Lakota tribe; I would assume that the "Lakota Tribal
Representative" offered him this honor in exchange for getting a keg of
beer for the members of the tribe that were present at around midnight.
Anyway, he now paints animal skulls with strange designs, which I'm sure
is the the very woof and warp of Lakota society.
You know what they say about white Lakotan's...there's one born every
minute. ;-)

Pat

Rand Simberg wrote:

The aboriginal Americans, for the most part, didn't even have a
concept of property rights when it came to land.

What's your point?


That it's meaningless to say that we *stole* it from them. We
committed some regrettable crimes against them, including the
occasional mass murder, but taking their land, which even they didn't
consider theirs,

Um, reread this subthread. "Stolen" was Oberg's word. He seemed to be
saying that it was OK to take land from the Mexicans because the
Mexicans stole from the Navajos.

In this case "they" (the Mexicans) sure did have a concept of property
rights. They were well aware the Treaty of Guadalupe Hildalgo granted
them such rights.

isn't one of them, and they were hardly innocent
themselves.

Most of us have ancestors that have committed crimes. I would guess even
you. So does that make it OK to take your property?


--
Hop David
http://clowder.net/hop/index.html