Quote:
Originally Posted by lifer
Ahh the arrogant prick who argues points that were never made so that he can feel like he is winning a debate has something to say. Many European settlers moved to native colonies and admired certain things about them? I don't care. I didn't compare those 2 societies. I said the natives are better off now than they were then. But just so you feel like you didn't waste you energy typing that stuff, I will respond. Obviously there were things the natives admired about European colonies, or else they woudln't have traded for European goods.
I'm sorry I said infinately though. I mean they are better off by a factor or 14.87. I'm sure you can interpret this on many levels, but why don't you consider it in terms of the things that you use in your daily life that make it easier.
Do you have a car? Do you take the bus? Have you ever flown anywhere? Do you buy your food from a grocery store? Are you using a computer? Is your home heated? Do you utilize electricity? Do you have access to hospitals? Did you go to grade school? University? Do you have running water? Can you communicate with people all over the world in real time? Must I continue?
Does anything mentioned above make your life easier?
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This is the ethnocentrism I'm talking about. Did europeans have running water, cars, computers, a grocery store etc. when they landed in the 'new' world? Assuming that if left to their own devices, natives would be running around calgary with bows and arrows is insultingly white-supremacist.
Maybe the 1 percent of Natives left in Canada have a better standard of living than 500 years ago (which I would disagree with strongly, but if we're going to dispense with reality...). How does that benefit the 99 percent who are all dead?
If you need evidence, I can give it to you, but it should be pretty logical that a society with a plentiful, predictable, renewable source of nourishment, no native diseases and a democratic social structure would be healthy. I mean, if that doesn't make sense to you, ok, I feel bad for you, but ok.