I’m not sure if I find this honesty to be refreshing or not.
Sounds like you’re the one who needs to get over it. You’re the one who has a problem when people say positive things about Indians.
UnuMondo’s jerkdar seems to be more refined than mine in this case.
I’m still trying to wrap my head around this!
Someone HAS to use that as a sig. Beautiful!
Yes, because what I said was vague at best. People twist shit around to fit what point it is that they’re trying to make. One more instance of what I said being taken out of context.
Libertarian provides a link to a letter that Amerigo Vespucci wrote about “native americans”. This link does nothing but support that these people were thought of as barbarians and savages.
Vespucci says that he had these people believe that they were sent from heaven. He goes on to say that each tribe waged war against the next, they were naked, lived in huts, thought gold as useless, used rudimentary tools, had no currency, ate their enemies and left their sick to die.
Great fucking culture you hypocrites. If they were so great then whay aren’t you guys out there trying to save the indians? Trying to restore the wonderful outdoor life they had? Give me a break.
and…listen for it…here it comes…“unga bunga”
Ah, Rooves. It’s not your fault, really. That one culture does not value that which another culture holds in high esteem, and that this does not dictate inferiority nor superiority of either, isn’t something that’s taught with any regularity until at LEAST the 9th grade.
If a Medieval European said it is must be true! Because they weren’t prejudiced or flatout ignorant, were they. Are you visiting our century from another time, Rooves? I feel like a mini version of that encounter is taking place in this thread - the ignorant, prejudiced white guy meets the native and shows he just doesn’t get it.
The buzzword here is “sophisticated”. Stop trying to assign value from one culture to the next. Sophisticated means complex. They were less complex than those who destroyed them.
And if I’m the jackass then why are you guys throwing the insults around instead of defending your positions?
I don’t know where you people are from but my point is that if you’re “white american” and own real estate in this country then you condone the stripping of land from the “indians”. Whynot start by giving your own personal land back. Put your money where your mouth is.
Defending them from what…you?
If you’re not a jackass, why did you apologize for being one?
Still a relative construct and concept.
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Stop trying to assign value from one culture to the next.
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Follow your own fucking rule! That’s EXACTLY what you’re doing!
Because there has been no assault on our position.
How’s that?
Ah, I can see it now: Rooves is the antichrist! Or maybe, everyone else is just overreacting (and hey, I like to make sweeping generalizations as well, heh).
I called you an idiot, but after reading your subsequent posts, I believe that an apology is in order. I should not have called you an idiot. I therefore apologize to all the idiots of the world whom I offended by lumping them with you. You are not an idiot. You are a colon polyp.
For failing to discern the many ironies in Vespucci’s letter to the Gonfalonier, you’ve demonstrated that you have the reading comprehension skills of a dead tree stump. Words are wasted on you and your pearly hooves. I therefore request that you find someone who can read and explain this post to you, lest you mistake it for a paean to your stunning intellect.
When Vespucci calls the Indians savages, you see, it is ironic because while they eat those whom they defeat in battle, the civilized white man seals his conquests by raping women, pillaging property, enslaving children, torturing survivors, and displaying heads on top of poles. The white man burns people at the stake, and doesn’t even have the decency to eat the flesh he has cooked.
You see, when Vespucci notes the intelligence of the Indians, praises their athleticism, compares their villages to Venice, marvels at their architectural skills, calls their women handsome, and gushes over their generosity, he is complimenting them. You have confused compliments with insults, but that is understandably easy to do given that you have the discernment of a blind man judging a beauty contest.
When Vespucci complains that the Indians fight wars over ancestral heritage as though the European system of fighting wars over wealth, culture, and religion is somehow superior, the proper reaction is to raise an eyebrow at the irony. You instead choose to fall in line with Vespucci and assume a smirky faux superiority that just oozes with irony. Vespucci and you are like Dumb and Dumber.
When Vespucci mocks the Indians for living “in their own liberty” and pledging allegience to no King, the proper reaction is to rejoice over the advanced democracy that the Indians enjoyed, something that white men would not enjoy for several more centuries. You instead choose to call those who get it “hypocrites”. That means that you have the brain of a dung beetle.
Try to understand that just because Vespucci thought the Indians were barbarians and savages does not mean that they were in fact what he thought. Like you, he was a lost soul who had no idea where he was nor with whom he was dealing. He imposed himself and his crew upon a people who had never done him any harm, bringing them his diseases and the trinkets of gold over which his culture fought and died for eons. Like you, he thought that holding gold as more valuable than life was being civilized.
He sailed to Spain with 222 people whom he had maimed and captured, having murdered many more. He sold his captives as slaves in the markets of Calis. And like you, he was too stupid to know when to stop: he returned to wreak more havoc and ruin more lives.
Surely, you can understand why calling people “Native Americans” in honor of that murderous thug is insulting and insensitive beyond measure. But on second thought, you probably can’t.
It is pretty damn funny that Lib has written such an eloquent post to respond to the Unga Bunga Man. 
I’ve got to leave this thread before all the irony becomes too much. Rooves as the arbiter of sophistication… god help us all!
This is what I originally said
Some jock strap got all up in arms about it.
So seeing how easily agitated you people get I said
This is an opinion on how I feel about present day Americans and It is just an opinion. The reason this whole thread got started was because some oversensitive prick thought I was making fun of “Native Americans”.
Libertarian, I quickly glazed over the Vespucci letter and interpreted it the way I saw fit. Now you nominate yourself the authority on how to interpret what he wrote even to the point of claiming the he himself didn’t understand what he wrote as much as you did. Good for you.
I still think they were less SOPHISTICATED than those who led them to their demise. Bill Gates might eat small children for breakfast but if I decide to go up against him in the business world, I’d better be more sophisticated than say, oh I don’t know, a dead tree stump.
To keep track, this has been said about me so far (so nobody uses the same insults twice)
- an idiot
- a jackass
- a colon polyp
- reading skills of a dead tree stump
5)I have hooves - a blind man judging a beauty contest
- I have a smirky faux superiority
8)dumb and/or dumber
9)brain of a dung beatle
10)the ignorant, prejudiced white guy - having not yet reached the ninth grade
This is what Miller said:
But it was too late. All the boys who spent all that time studying native americans were unleashed. I just validated your lives for giving you a reason to impart your vast overshadowing knowledge into the dark abyss that is my dung beetle brain.
The Aztecs ( or any of the other major Mesoamerican or Andean civilizations ) were less sophisticated?
A little less technologically advanced in certain respects ( though certainly not all ), yes. Less resistant to Old World disease, definitely ( and sadly ). But less sophisticated? I guess it depends on your definition. I assume by sophisticated you meant, ‘highly complex, refined, or developed’. By that standard those societies were quite sophisticated - For example the population of Tenochtitlan in 1500 is estimated at ~150,000-300,000, comparable to ( probably larger than ) Paris and several times the size of London. Unsophisticated societies do not develop ( and cannot maintain ) large urban centers.
- Tamerlane
Rooves: Your lengthy posting above proves you’re fairly unaware of the variety of cultures–and what their standards were–present in the Americas prior to the Europeans’ arrival.
Libertarian: What do you have against dead tree stumps?
Rooves
Add liar to your list as number twelve. I never said that Vespucci didn’t understand what he was writing. He understood very well what he was writing; he just didn’t understand what he was seeing. It would seem that you and he are soul mates.
Monty
I am in the unfortunate position of insulting almost anything that I might use in a metaphorical comparison to Rooves. My apologies to dead tree stumps and to swine who stomp on pearls. I might have to mine Stormfront for some references.
See, now Tamerlane makes an eloquent argument that I can respect because although he could have, he didn’t resort to personal insults as his main tool. He used facts to support what he was saying and never twisted what I was saying. You guys should look up to him/her as what to strive for as a debater. Your constant resorting to insulting my intelligence only undermines any point you can possibly try to make.
I never studied Native American culture at all. I made a sweeping generalization that I think they were less sophisticated. My reason is that they were less technologically advanced therefore at a disadvantage. To me that makes them less sophisticated. It doesn’t mean that I don’t respect their culture. That’s my opinion, which I’m entitled to. Maybe one day I’ll change it.
I find it funny that I was accused of being a supremacist and haughty, yet most of you are openly condescending toward me without provocation. Condescending people complaining about oppressive people.
It’s funny that you call Vespucci and me soul mates because I am Italian. Who knows, he could be a distant ancestor of mine.
Good. Kindly spit on his grave for me.