1421: The year the Chinese discovered America

[lmalave]

Originally posted by Phil Of Mac


As a part-Native American myself, I agree that while there were injustices, and while the greatest injustice, that of the reservations, continues to this day. However, the "extermination" of the Native Americans was due to a series of wars largely started by the Native Americans. The killings went both ways. It was a terrible, terrible race war, but that's what it was--war. Nothing noble about it, but it was mutual.

Oh, come ON! If you're part Native American, then, please, stop with the self-flagellation. Apparently you are Phil of Mac and you have been assimilated

So the Native Americans started the war, eh? So fighting back when someone moves into your land is "starting" a war? Hey, man, can I take over your house? If you fight me I'll call the cops and claim self defense

C'mon dude, you're not making any sense.

 

[Phil Of Mac]

Originally posted by lmalave


Oh, come ON! If you're part Native American, then, please, stop with the self-flagellation. Apparently you are Phil of Mac and you have been assimilated

So the Native Americans started the war, eh? So fighting back when someone moves into your land is "starting" a war? Hey, man, can I take over your house? If you fight me I'll call the cops and claim self defense

C'mon dude, you're not making any sense.

The problem with that metaphor is that a Native American wouldn't acknowledge the idea that it was "his house". The Native Americans at that time didn't have the concept of ownership or property. It wasn't "their land" because they never claimed it as such. In many cases, they simply killed the white settlers instead of trying to coexist. In many cases, the white settlers killed the Native Americans first.

I'm not denying that there were atrocities committed by the US government against Native Americans. But I'm also not going to deny that there were atrocities committed by Native Americans against American settlers. If that's "self-flagellation", then I'll take it over self-deception any day. (And it's not "self-flagellation", because I was not personally involved in any of this, and I refuse to accept inherited guilt for sins that I did not commit.)

 

[macktheknife]

Originally posted by Phil Of Mac


Nothing in American history with the possible exception of slavery can even compare to Tianenmen Square, the persecution of the Falun Gong, Chinese summary executions, and routine torture. Amnesty International has all the details:

http://web.amnesty.org/ai.nsf/countries/china?OpenView&Start=1&Count=30&Expandall

The decline of Europe doesn't surprise me.

As for "overpopulation", my point was that a strong economy can support any degree of population possible. The world today produces more than enough food to feed the entire world. It is only dictatorships in North Korea and Africa that steal the food and feed only their armies, and poor, weak economies like China, in which starvation is a problem. The population density of Europe, Hong Kong, Japan, or American coastal regions is as dense or denser than China, yet only China feels they need forced sterilizations and forced abortions to enforce a "one child policy". The reason China is "overpopulated" is because they have an oppressive economic system that does not have the purchasing power to feed all their people. Economic growth does not depend on surgical rape, EVER.

In the late 18th century when the Americans won their independence from the British, China by then had a population of more than 400 million. How many countries today have a population of more than 400 million? That's right two--China and India. Starvation of course, exists in China (as it also does in the United States), but there are no mass famines in China nowadays. The buying power of the average Chinese nowadays is more than enough to meet their basic needs of food and shelter. Your assertion that China has "an oppressive economic system that does not have the purchasing power to feed all their people" was only valid before 1978 when Deng Xiaoping finally decided to liberalize the economy.

As for your assertion that "nothing in American history with the possible exception of slavery can even compare to Tianenmen Square, the persecution of the Falun Gong, Chinese summary executions, and routine torture" is also off the mark. Anmesty Internation does an admirable job to bring to light the human rights abuses committed by the Chinese government, but it is decidedly a one-sided view. Read AI's reports on the United States and you would think the US is a barbaric, racist, and execution-happy country. What the reports don't say is that the economic policies of the Chinese government has lifted hundreds of millions of people out of poverty and starvation--a not-so-insignificant human rights accomplishment in itself.

The Tiananmen Massacre is horrific incident in Chinese history, but it is no more horrific than other similar incidents in American history--the Haymarket Riot of 1886, the suppression of the Draft Riots in NYC during the Civil War, and let's not forget the attrocities committed against the Civil Rights protesters during the 60s and 70s. Also, the the Tiananment Massacre must be placed in its context--you can view an excellent documentary from Frontline here.

As for the one-child policy, I will only say that it is a brutal policy in some respects, but considering the overpopulation problems China faces, the one-child policy is a lesser of two evils.

 

[Phil Of Mac]

Originally posted by macktheknife


In the late 18th century when the Americans won their independence from the British, China by then had a population of more than 400 million. How many countries today have a population of more than 400 million? That's right two--China and India. Starvation of course, exists in China (as it also does in the United States), but there are no mass famines in China nowadays. The buying power of the average Chinese nowadays is more than enough to meet their basic needs of food and shelter. Your assertion that China has "an oppressive economic system that does not have the purchasing power to feed all their people" was only valid before 1978 when Deng Xiaoping finally decided to liberalize the economy.

As for your assertion that "nothing in American history with the possible exception of slavery can even compare to Tianenmen Square, the persecution of the Falun Gong, Chinese summary executions, and routine torture" is also off the mark. Anmesty Internation does an admirable job to bring to light the human rights abuses committed by the Chinese government, but it is decidedly a one-sided view. Read AI's reports on the United States and you would think the US is a barbaric, racist, and execution-happy country. What the reports don't say is that the economic policies of the Chinese government has lifted hundreds of millions of people out of poverty and starvation--a not-so-insignificant human rights accomplishment in itself.

The Tiananmen Massacre is horrific incident in Chinese history, but it is no more horrific than other similar incidents in American history--the Haymarket Riot of 1886, the suppression of the Draft Riots in NYC during the Civil War, and let's not forget the attrocities committed against the Civil Rights protesters during the 60s and 70s. Also, the the Tiananment Massacre must be placed in its context--you can view an excellent documentary from Frontline here.

As for the one-child policy, I will only say that it is a brutal policy in some respects, but considering the overpopulation problems China faces, the one-child policy is a lesser of two evils.

If China can feed all their people, then why do they need to restrict population growth? The entire concept of "overpopulation" is only due to a flawed economic system or flawed economic thinking. Overpopulation simply does not exist. As long as more people are born, and those people are productive, they will generate wealth and demand for food products, and that demand will be met. The only limits to overpopulation are real estate and natural resources. Real estate is no big deal. If you took every person on Earth and moved them to Texas, they would all have, approximately, a dorm room to live in, and the entire rest of the Earth would be free for development. Granted, more is needed to support a human being than housing, but the point still stands: real estate is no real concern--China is many times larger than Texas, but has one sixth of the world population.

What about natural resources? It would certainly be erroneous to suggest that the amount of food we have is insufficient. We have more than enough food now to feed the entire world population, yet we're only using a fraction of all the farmland that is there. If there were to be a sudden demand for food, that demand could easily be met. If China had 3 billion people, and they all produced, on an average, the same that they do now, they would be able to afford the extra food that would be grown for them.

Does China have a large population? Yes. Is this an issue? Not at all. You see, at least in a "free economy" such as that China supposedly has, people only have children if they can afford to support them. If there were economic conditions that made it difficult to support children, people wouldn't have them. China has no "overpopulation problem"--but out of the mistaken belief that they do, they commit systematic surgical rape on their women, taking from them by force their very capability of reproducing.

In China, people are routinely executed without trial, arrested for their religious or ideological beliefs, and tortured. In China, this is the rule, in America, this is the exception. The same is true with Tiananmen Square. Hundreds, if not thousands of protestors were systematically slaughtered by the Chinese army--because it is the stated policy of the People's Republic of China to execute political dissidents. In the United States, when protestors are attacked by police, it is an incident of police brutality. In China, it's due to direct orders from the dictator. Yes, American troops and police have shot into crowds to stop protestors. But that does not begin to compare with the systematic and complete slaughter of protestors with the stated goal of killing each and every one of them. Is it an atrocity when it happens here? Yes. But it's an isolated atrocity, caused by lower-ranking policemen or federal agents (Kent State, Ruby Ridge) or simply poor strategy (Waco). An American president has never ordered the mass murder of protestors, but a Chinese dictator has.