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Discussion (26)
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(1) "Liked," because I think this ought to be promoted to the Main Feed.
(2) I recommend you delete the AI imagery; it adds nothing to the excellent points you are making, and some readers (like me) find it distracting.
(3) See Herototus' Histories, Book One, Sections 1.86 to 1.87. Herodotus relates the capture and enslavement of the Hellenic Ionian king Croesus by Cyrus the Great.
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Interesting. I guess the Dems are going to have to update their land acknowledgements.
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My only quibble: I don’t think the Comanche, the Pakistani, the Marxist iteration or any other of the tribal societies worried about being the “good” guys. I believe they know that power is sufficient justification. Islam didn’t expand by negotiation and voluntary combination. It expanded by conquest and enslavement.
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I updated the last paragraph to better explain it. You are correct that many people lust for power just for power's sake but I do believe ideology enforces that lust and makes it geometrically more difficult. Islam did expand through power through brutal violence but it theologically justified its violence. Christians and Buddhists can of course be violent jerks but Jesus and Buddha do not justify such brutality.
I will keep my AI art unless a poll comes in and says that it is disliked. I really wish I could do polls on Ricochet.
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There is no question that the European settlers took advantage of Indigenous Peoples in North America. It was abusive in many, many ways. The mistake American History makes is to then assume the Indigenous Peoples were pure as the driven snow, noble, and perfect in every way. They weren't. They are human. Many of the Indigenous Peoples belonged to warrior cultures that encouraged their young men to be violent and unforgiving.
The Comanche nation was particularly vicious. They were so vicious that other indigenous nations despised them and tried to destroy them, The Comanche retreated deep into the mountains, learned horse warfare culture and began to claw their way back to power. Whites pursued them to near extinction again and Quanah Parker (his mother was taken from a white settler community to become a sex slave) wisely led his people into a humiliating surrender but it worked out for them in the long run.
For more information on the Comanches I recommend the book, Empire of the Summer Moon: Quanah Parker and the Rise and Fall of the Comanches, the Most Powerful Indian Tribe in American History.
Like the Japanese warrior culture, it took facing a genocide before a major cultural shift took place and saved their nation. It's horribly unfortunate especially for children when nations take on an intense warrior culture. Other cultures with warrior traditions coupled with strong mercy traditions are also traumatized into what is necessary to curb intense warrior cultures. We have a horrible lose/lose proposition as they have to kill to protect their own children.
Perhaps I am wrong but are there any intense warrior cultures that have peaceably transitioned to more peaceful ways without incredible violence?
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