Guns, Guns Guns

PeterZ wrote:

gcomeau wrote:"You will Do well to try to Innoculate the Indians by means of Blanketts as well as to try Every other method that can serve to Extirpate this Execrable Race."

Now... do you or do you not speak English?

For Heaven's sake, the US engaged in a brutal war for territory.

The point of contention is whether the spread of smallpox was deliberate or accidental.

Mad's original fucking ridiculous claim was it was accidental and NOT attempt at genocide.

gcomeau wrote:

PeterZ wrote:
For Heaven's sake, the US engaged in a brutal war for territory.

The point of contention is whether the spread of smallpox was deliberate or accidental.

Mad's original fucking ridiculous claim was it was accidental and NOT attempt at genocide.

My only rejoinder here is that had that attempt truly been the goal of the US government, they would have succeeded in wiping out all the native peoples. Rather, the horrific tactic was acceptable to the US government, but it did not sanction a true genocide. Had that been the goal, the Native Americans could not have stopped it. That there was enough mercy in the American people and American government to stop that suggests there was no systemic genocide planned for Native Americans. What we did was bad enough.

The sorry racist bastards that carried out that tactic may well have had dreams of killing all the native peoples. The US government was not ready to ensure that ALL native Americans were killed. Small distinction, I know, but perhaps a significant one.

PeterZ wrote:

gcomeau wrote:The point of contention is whether the spread of smallpox was deliberate or accidental.

Mad's original fucking ridiculous claim was it was accidental and NOT attempt at genocide.

My only rejoinder here is that had that attempt truly been the goal of the US government, they would have succeeded in wiping out all the native peoples. Rather, the horrific tactic was acceptable to the US government, but it did not sanction a true genocide. Had that been the goal, the Native Americans could not have stopped it. That there was enough mercy in the American people and American government to stop that suggests there was no systemic genocide planned for Native Americans. What we did was bad enough.

The sorry racist bastards that carried out that tactic may well have had dreams of killing all the native peoples. The US government was not ready to ensure that ALL native Americans were killed. Small distinction, I know, but perhaps a significant one.

Of course an important distinction, but one that is relevant only to the question of the character of the US (and British before them) governments as a whole and not to the intent behind the actual smallpox release and spread.

Within that limited scope, I totally agree with you that intentional genocide is an appropriate charge.

gcomeau wrote:

PeterZ wrote:
My only rejoinder here is that had that attempt truly been the goal of the US government, they would have succeeded in wiping out all the native peoples. Rather, the horrific tactic was acceptable to the US government, but it did not sanction a true genocide. Had that been the goal, the Native Americans could not have stopped it. That there was enough mercy in the American people and American government to stop that suggests there was no systemic genocide planned for Native Americans. What we did was bad enough.

The sorry racist bastards that carried out that tactic may well have had dreams of killing all the native peoples. The US government was not ready to ensure that ALL native Americans were killed. Small distinction, I know, but perhaps a significant one.

Of course an important distinction, but one that is relevant only to the question of the character of the US (and British before them) governments as a whole and not to the intent behind the actual smallpox release and spread.

A) I did not say the act was 'accidental.' I said the act was directed at the besieging army/warrior mob - not the general 'civilian' population. They had no idea the blankets would even be effective, much less that it would spread back to the villages.
B) The statement was the opinion of 1 officer and does not represent proof of a general attitude of racial genocide by the population or government.
C) It was in 1763, if you bothered to check your dates, the United States did not even exist yet - it was a British Officer & there are plenty more better known examples of racism in the British army history than this, none of which are anywhere as bad as those of the Spanish army and Catholic Church. Some of the Caribbean islands have NO native populations left due to the racist/religious intolerance inflicted upon them! Often manually, mass events where natives were drug out bound up, hung by the neck from a scaffold (not hung to death - just hung by the neck), and slow roasted over an open fire! Multiple incidents, men women and children, just because they didn't understand Latin or the Catholic bible. Don't see you whining about that?
D) Those are neither misspelled or grammar errors, they are misuses of homonyms - sorry if I am a Math & History major not an English major & pressed for time. I didn't have time to go back and consult the thesaurus. (as you with the dictionary I guess - stalemate? )

MAD-4A wrote:A) I did not say the act was 'accidental.'

You, a few posts ago. Just going to bold that part right down there...

"There were literally thousands of tribes all across both continents - constantly]at war with each other. Some joined white settlement willingly, some died due to disease - (and NO it was not 'germ warfare' - they didn't even know about germs back then it was an accident, "


Sorry, what was that you were saying about not trying to claim it was an accident?


The historical recorded statements (plural) provided established that first they damn well knew how to use disease as a weapon so were entirely capable of conducting germ warfare contrary to your claim that they were not... and second that *it was damn well done* contrary to your claim that it wasn't.

I'm just going to ignore your rant about other people in history who were racist because, well, duh? And it doesn't have a damn thing to do with your silly claim that germ warfare was never employed against the Native American population.

Just for clarification, because, I can see that this was mostly my inadvertent fault.

gcomeau wrote:I'm saying that the recorded statement that smallpox was *deliberately transmitted among the native population*...

]

WeirdlyWired wrote:I'm saying that the recorded statement that smallpox was *deliberately transmitted among the native population*... ''one of those recorded statements being[/quote]
.

gcomeau wrote:Did they damn well know HOW TO SPREAD FUCKING SMALLPOX?

WeirdlyWired wrote:Did they damn well know HOW TO SPREAD FUCKING SMALLPOX?

gcomeau wrote:Yes. They wrote down exactly how they were doing it. They took blankets from a smallpox ward that had been exposed to people with the disease and which they KNEW could cause other people to catch it and they distributed them with malice aforethought.

*[quote="WeirdlyWired"]from an army commander who issued the instructions to do it, is evidence it was done and wasn't an accident. [/quote[/b]]

[quote="WeirdlyWired"]Yes. They wrote down exactly how they were doing it. They took blankets from a smallpox ward that had been exposed to people with the disease and which they KNEW could cause other people to catch it and they distributed them with malice aforethought.[/quote


I did NOT say these things. Gcomeau said these things, I was trying to quote him in my reply to HIM.

From: http://bearingarms.com/jenn-j/2016/11/1 ... sletterad=

These are the worst stories I cover. The tragedy of this shooting is only compounded by the fact that instances like this are 100% preventable and should never happen. With good gun safety practices like storing firearms and ammunition separately, gun locks from Child ProjectSafe, gun safety programs like the Eddie Eagle program and affordable quick-access bio-safes, there is just no reason for shooting accidents like this one.

Please – if you have small children in the home, take steps to ensure you are storing your firearms safely and talk with your children about gun safety, the four rules of gun safety and teach them not to touch guns. Teach your children gun safety before they need it.

With every ability comes responsibility. This is very true when the ability can be damaging, whether on purpose or not.

RAH, in "Starship Troopers" made this point. ST assumed a responsible military: I don't think only allowing veterans to vote would work out well in a country with a "conquer and loot" military

gcomeau wrote:The historical recorded statements (plural) provided established that first they damn well knew how to use disease as a weapon so were entirely capable of conducting a damn thing to do with your silly claim that germ warfare was never employed against the Native American population.

So now you're rewriting the entire history of germ science and claiming that germs were discovered a century earlier? Those people did not know what a germ was period. Yes, there were some Scientist and Doctors who had theories about germs, and MANY more who rejected the idea! There is NO WAY some military officer way out in some frontier outpost on a (then) barbarian continent had ANY idea there even was a word, 'germ'. Neanderthals sitting around a fire, in their caves, knew that if someone used items that had been used be a sick person, that there was some chance they might get sick too. Are you saying Neanderthals knew “germ theory”? No, that’s just plain observation. They had no idea what was going on, just that something unseen was going on. That’s where the myth (or at the time – theory) of “evil spirits” comes from. ‘If you touch his blanket, his spirit may get angry and take yours too!‘ That was what this officer was doing. He knew (from his training in military tactics and history – being an officer) that if he catapulted a dead body into the camp of a besieging army that the ailment which afflicted that dead person (whatever it was) might afflict some of those in the besieging army. He decided to try something LESS drastic by offering them blankets from the dead, instead of hitting them with actual dead bodies. Logic dictates that the effects of the blankets SHOULD be less than a whole dead body (whatever the mechanism of the affliction may be). As explained before - He had no way of knowing that the effect would spread back to the civilian population or have as sever effect on them as what happened. He had no knowledge of immunities or immune systems, and likely assumed it would have a limited effect on them (the army hell bent on slaughtering him and every man woman and child under his command).

Mad, none of your post negates the point.

That disease was used as a weapon, even if they had no idea why it worked, and been used so for over a thousand years. (I suspect multiple thousands)

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