[Nathan Zachary]

"I apologize for dredging up ancient history, but I cannot resist this one. Although the U.S. did pay $24 for Manhattan Island, we got some terrific deal. At least they paid in beads. Other tribal lands were simply taken by force or treaty. Can one spell hypocrite?"

Those were different times. We overpaid for Manhattan at that time, and other lands weren't "taken". It wasn't theirs to begin with. there were no golden native cities, no constitution, no law, currency, national flags, coinage, borders. They were merely small tribes of nomadic savages who drifted across the land, killing and being killed. Recent liberalism has blurred the truth and created a myth that never existed. Treaties GAVE them land for free.

[HiTech RedNeck]

What’s the ethical thing for a power bent on colonization to do when entering a land peopled, as you put it, with nomads? Even though the nomads had no philosophical structure to support the idea of fixed lands with borders and definite owners (which is probably what brought them to the empty lands of America, wandering over what used to be a land bridge where the Bering Strait now is), we didn’t always live up to Christian principle ourselves.

[Maverick68]

bump