Samclem - why was the "How many US Presidents have killed someone" thread locked

How many US Presidents have killed someone -
No, I’m not mad about it, but I am wondering.
Why was the GQ thread How many US Presidents have killed someone closed.

Your post

seems to imply that because there are old threads about it, and because you don’t want to read about it, it needed to be closed.

Standard board policy says that the 2 old threads shouldn’t be reopened (they are from 2000 and 2002), and common board response to “I don’t want to read it” is usually, “Then don’t open the thread”.

So what was so heinous about this thread, this time?

Did the other thread referenced give a numerical answer to your question? If so, then the thread’s question being answered, it was time for it to be closed.

The question was fine. It was the wild hijack argument that got it killed.

Read it again and remember it is in GQ and not the Pit or even GD. It could have been moved but a dead horse is so cumbersome.

And look who is responsible for the hijack.

Oh no, not another **Liberal ** related Hi-jacking. I though he swore off of those?

Jim

I take responsibility for that shut-down. I should have stayed away from the thread. My apologies to all who were affected by my actions.

Very cool of you to apologize. I hope you took my post for the humor it was intended with. It was a riff on the old SNL original cast skits.

Jim

No problem, What. :slight_smile: It is a legitimate accusation against me in this instance.

For some reason, when there’s discussion about him — that monstrous savage war-whore with his thorny cock stuck in his cursed mother’s throat — I sometimes get just a bit riled up.

“Just a bit.” :smiley:

Just for my own personal curiosity can you explain the strong emotional reaction to the subject? I don’t mean your intellectual reason for thinking he was a bad guy, you made those clear. The way you react it seems like the guy kicked your puppy or stole your lunch money. He died in 1845. I can’t get that worked up about Hitler and he only died 20 years ago (in Argentina of course). I’ll understand if you don’t feel like going into it.

I won’t presume to speak for Liberal but pretty much everyone knows that Hitler was a bad guy but not so for Jackson. A lot of people think that he was a war hero or at least that he must have been a good guy because he is honored on the twenty dollar bill.

My guess would be the whole genocide angle. Nothing brings up someone’s anger like genocide. I get the same way about Hitler, Nazi’s, the Confederacy trying to protect the rights to perpetuate slavery and the Armenian genocide that gets denied.

Jim

I get that. Doesn’t explain the raw emotion.

I could see spittle starting to fleck .

My understanding is that Liberal is of Cherokee ancestry. That should explain it.

I honestly don’t know whether people could understand it without living my life. Hearing the stories my grandmother told me that her grandmother told her. Seeing my father being disrespected when he was an honorable man. Reading the poems and letters from our ancestors who witnessed events over time. Like this one, from an unidentified Cherokee woman in 1818:

Beloved Children, We have called a meeting among ourselves to consult on the different points now before the council, relating to our national affairs. We have heard with painful feelings that the bounds of the land we now possess are to be drawn into very narrow limits. The land was given to us by the Great Spirit above as our common right, to raise our children upon, and to make support for our rising generations. We therefore humbly petition our beloved children, the head men and warriors, to hold out to the last in support of our common rights, as the Cherokee nation have been the first settlers of this land; we therefore claim the right of the soil.
Sometimes I feel like I should walk the Trail. I’m too old to do so now, but old people were forced to do it then. Many people have done so in recent times, including Sarah Vowell, who expresses some of what I feel when she composed this passage while on the Trail:

Most Americans have had this experience. Most of us can name things our country has done that we find shameful, from the travesties that everyone agrees were wrong, the Japanese internment camps or the late date of slavery’s abolition, to murkier partisan arguments.

World history has been a bloody business from the get go, but the nausea we’re suffering standing on the broken promises [to the Cherokee] at Ross’ Landing [in Chattanooga, TN] is peculiar to a democracy. Because in a democracy, we’re all responsible for everything our government does.

Meanwhile there are little kids literally walking over these words, playing on them, making noise, having fun. I sort of hate them for a second. We ask a teacher who’s with a group of fourth graders why she isn’t talking to them about Cherokee history and she says normally she would but it’s the end of the school year and this trip is their reward for being good. Sounds reasonable. I ask Amy if she thinks these kids should share our sadness. “Well, I think it’s a sad story. It’s … sort of like the Holocaust. You don’t have to be Jewish to think that’s a sad part of history and I think the trail of Tears is … America’s version of genocide … it started right over there.”

Still … I envy those children … I want to join them. I’m an IMAX person … I feel really haunted by this … I feel very weighed down by the pain. … The more I learn [about the Trail of Tears/Cherokee History] the worse I feel and the more hatred I feel toward this country that I still love. Therefore the more conflicted.

In the trail of Tears Saga, if there’s one person you’re allowed to hate, it’s Andrew Jackson, the architect of the Indian removal policy. … The person I most empathize with in this history is John Ross, the principal chief during the Trail of Tears, because he was caught between the two nations. He believed in the possibilities of the American constitution enough to make sure the Cherokee had one too. He believed in the liberties the Declaration of Independence promises and the civil rights the Constitution ensures.

And when the U.S. betrayed not only the Cherokee, but its own creed, I would guess John Ross was not only angry, not only outraged, not only confused, I would guess John Ross was a little broken hearted. Cause that’s how I feel. I’ve been experiencing the Trail of Tears not as a Cherokee but as an American.
“Trail of Tears,” This American Life, July 3, 1998

I wish I could do or say more to impart to you the experience of seeing bigotry as an unheralded people with practically no political clout or sympathy, scrounging for whatever crumbs of redemption might fall from the table of those who dole out civil rights. My passion is born of this experience, and until you’ve experienced it yourself, I can only paint you dim pictures with weak words. I can’t reach into your chest and squeeze your heart until you cry.

Liberal, I understand the pain that you feel because of the suffering your ancestors endured. However, your claim that “The land was given to us [Cherokee] by the Great Spirit above as our common right …” is just as narrow-minded as the claim of the White people that it was theirs by divine right.

The Cherokee took the land from its previous inhabitants the same way that they lost it - by force of arms, by killing and driving out the previous inhabitants. Perhaps you could comment on that earlier tragedy, and figure out who among your people should take the blame for that, before you get too passionate about Jackson.

w.

:::looks in::::notices the OP has been answered correctly::::::goes back to work.

Liberal: Great post, I really love Sarah Vowell’s writing. Of course I always think of her as Violet now.

intention: That is pretty weak. The Cherokee were invited into the US, They were “Civilized”. They actually tried to assimilate to some degree and for the machinations of what really consisted of some European descended Land owners they were betrayed and forced on a march that was cruel and verged on genocidal.

Whatever the Cherokee’s did to gain their land is likely to pale in comparison.
Though I do agree “The land was given to us [Cherokee] by the Great Spirit above as our common right …” has no value in the discussion. He was simply quoting a woman of 1818. He was not invoking the spirit himself.

From here: http://ngeorgia.com/history/nghisttt.html

Jim