Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Mark Steyn: Before the white man came? War
Macleans ^ | 07/18/06 | Mark Steyn

Posted on 07/18/2006 7:45:03 AM PDT by Pokey78

click here to read article


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-20 ... 41-6061-8081-100 ... 201-209 next last
To: Cheburashka

He along with Voltaire are buried in the Panthéon, which to me is man's greatest work of architecture. I spend many hours in there or in the cafe outside whenever I am in Rome.


61 posted on 07/18/2006 9:05:10 AM PDT by kabar
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 52 | View Replies]

To: redgolum

Eckert's book on Tecumseh is exceptional.

Much of his Shawnee tribe and Cherokee relatives (mother's tribe) revered him deeply in his day.


62 posted on 07/18/2006 9:05:15 AM PDT by xzins (Retired Army Chaplain and Proud of It! Supporting the troops means praying for them to WIN!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 57 | View Replies]

To: PzLdr

Very good points.

Especially important when you consider the relatively small size of the Roman state at the time.

Hannibal killed something like 150,000 to 200,000 Roman and allied soldiers in two years. That's out of a total population of perhaps 5M. That's equivalent to America losing perhaps 12M to 15M in two years.


63 posted on 07/18/2006 9:05:21 AM PDT by Restorer
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 54 | View Replies]

To: Pokey78

Great Article!


64 posted on 07/18/2006 9:07:26 AM PDT by chaosagent (Remember, no matter how you slice it, forbidden fruit still tastes the sweetest!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Cheburashka

Oops, wrong Pantheon.


65 posted on 07/18/2006 9:08:11 AM PDT by kabar
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 52 | View Replies]

To: Pokey78

Great article, as always.


66 posted on 07/18/2006 9:08:55 AM PDT by Alexander Rubin (Octavius - You make my heart glad building thus, as if Rome is to be eternal.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Pokey78
The reality is that "civilization" -- Greco-Roman-Judeo-Christian -- worked very hard to stamp out the primitive within us, and for good reason.

T.S. Eliot, writing years ago about permissive education, said that moderns fear that they are going to "repress" their children - but there are some things that should be repressed!

Another great Mark Steyn - btw, for people who aren't familiar with the Lee Harris book, it's definitely worth a read.

67 posted on 07/18/2006 9:14:28 AM PDT by livius
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Restorer

The great anthropologists like Marvin Harris (as opposed to the intellectual pygmies we find in academe today) were unafraid to tackle the issue of war in primitive societies. In Harris's 'Cannibals and Kings' he devotes a chapter to the "Origin of War". Significantly, Harris found that anthropologists had found only a handful of societies that ostensibly did not make war. However, Harris found that those usually mentioned (Andaman Islanders, Shoshoni, Yaghan of Patagonia, Tasaday of the Philippines) were really refugee cultures. He notes that warfare is as old as time, and even the famous Peking Man had his skull smashed at the base, an indication of warfare.


68 posted on 07/18/2006 9:15:58 AM PDT by gaspar
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 7 | View Replies]

To: Pokey78

That is a great article. Completly true. I have read a lot of James Fenemore Cooper, most notably, "The Leatherstocking Tales," and he portrays the Indians as a bunch of warring saveges.


69 posted on 07/18/2006 9:16:17 AM PDT by edgrimly78
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: xzins

I will have to check that out! Tecumseh was very popular in the area I grew up in, except among the Native Americans. Don't remember exactly why.


70 posted on 07/18/2006 9:17:28 AM PDT by redgolum ("God is dead" -- Nietzsche. "Nietzsche is dead" -- God.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 62 | View Replies]

To: aruanan
Being on top of a mesa was a means of defense.

A small mesa, sure. As at Acoma.

I'm speaking of the large mesas such as at Mesa Verde, which are really more like a plain or plateau cut by canyons. Once the enemy was on the mesa, which was much too large to control access to, the pueblos were definitely not defensible without changing their entire character. Rather than build castles, the Anasazi logically moved into the cliff dwellings.

71 posted on 07/18/2006 9:20:43 AM PDT by Restorer
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 60 | View Replies]

To: Cicero
"No arts; no letters; no society; and which is worst of all, continual fear and danger of violent death; and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short."

Oh, good grief! Why must everything end up having to do with the Palestinians?

72 posted on 07/18/2006 9:22:22 AM PDT by yankeedame ("Oh, I can take it but I'd much rather dish it out.")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 12 | View Replies]

To: sima_yi
Some of my ancestors were the Huron, and the Iroquois did the same to them...

And the Huron were known to be some of the fiercest, and barbarically cruel, of the tribes.

No group of peoples has a lock on inhumanity to man - If only two people were left on the face of the earth, I suspicion they would be at one another's throats...

Why the facts that the aborigines of the Americas warred with another is supposed to be largely unknown is merely the supposition of someone who has not read the histories and documentations.

It always amuses me when someone learns something for the first time themselves, they assume no one else ever knew either...

:o)

73 posted on 07/18/2006 9:25:05 AM PDT by maine-iac7 (LINCOLN: "...but you can't fool all of the people all of the time")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 13 | View Replies]

To: Pokey78
Nonetheless, anthropologists concluded that he was a shepherd who had fallen asleep and frozen peacefully to death in a snowstorm. Then the X-ray results came back and showed he had an arrowhead in him.

Just a freak hunting accident - nothing to see here. /s
74 posted on 07/18/2006 9:27:16 AM PDT by UnbelievingScumOnTheOtherSide (Give Them Liberty Or Give Them Death! - IT'S ISLAM, STUPID! - Islam Delenda Est! - Rumble thee forth)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Poincare

Calling: Donner...party of five...Donner...party of...

...uh, four...


75 posted on 07/18/2006 9:27:50 AM PDT by AmishDude (Posting from Lake Balaton, Hungary.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 33 | View Replies]

To: Pokey78
We've grown used to the biases of popular culture.

There also seems to be an elitist bias that automatically attributes being poor with having been victimized by society. In many cases its the result of their own laziness or shiftlessness. Great article. Thanks for posting.

76 posted on 07/18/2006 9:28:40 AM PDT by Starboard
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Pokey78

I took an anthropology course a while back and had to watch a video serious called, "A Poor Man Shames us all". It was all about how great and good these indiginous tribes were versus our Western hegemoney. It was sickening, and every single paper I had to write about every episode I broke down the BS that the producers of this garbage were trying to sell. I did make some points with the young mush heads in the class with me.


77 posted on 07/18/2006 9:48:20 AM PDT by vpintheak (All other ground is sinking sand.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Killborn
Perhapsyou should sue the Iroquois for reparations? ;)

If there were enough of us left, we would go to war against them, but in today's climate, your suggestion would probably work better.

78 posted on 07/18/2006 9:48:44 AM PDT by sima_yi
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 28 | View Replies]

To: Restorer
The mass extinction of large animals in North America being caused by the Clovis hunters is no longer dogma. It is highly debated.

Debate is good; dogma bad. Let's then just say that the Zooarcheological evidence indicates that the late Pleistocene mass extinctions (in say, the Americas) strongly coincided with arrival of skilled human hunters. Whether aboriginal overkill or ecological change brought on by the burning of fire-sensitive vegetation is the cause of the disappearance of large mammals, it still gives lie to the silly notion that the "natives" live in harmony with Mother Nature.

79 posted on 07/18/2006 9:51:52 AM PDT by Poincare
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 46 | View Replies]

To: Poincare
The Aztecs ate the "sacrifice" victims because they needed protein.

I guess that's what comes of establishing your civilization in a swamp -- shortage of protein.

But we should take a page out of their book, you know, the Noble Savage and all ...

I don't remember any European civilization that practiced cannibalism as a routine matter. But that must be because I'm seeing history through a Eurocentric prism ...

80 posted on 07/18/2006 9:54:03 AM PDT by IronJack
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 42 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-20 ... 41-6061-8081-100 ... 201-209 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson