[PaulS]

I completely missed Columbus Day. It really has little importance for me as I know that his "discovery" was neither the first not the last of its kind.
Native Americans were the third discoverers of the North American continent and they did a good job of not destroying it. It's a shame that the Europeans couldn't learn from them.

 

[PaulS]

In the 5000 years that the native Americans lived here they didn't deforest the land, destroy the rivers, destroy the hunting, or build a single city full of socialists.

Hunting and fishing was free and they only took what they needed. They lived a territorial life and some moved to follow the game. Yes, they had territorial fights with other natives but they obviously weren't as violent as the settlers. The white hunters destroyed the herds of buffalo so they could stave the natives out of existence. They claimed land and clear-cut for farms. Then cities were built.

I think comparisons between the two life styles the way of the settlers was more wasteful and disastrous to the land.

Now we are all trying to get away from the dense population centers and get back to a life of subsistence living. We should have learned from the natives.

 

[PaulS]

And then he proceeded to commit genocide.... Ya, just feeling the morality there.

 

[PaulS]

I didn't forget that some of his men got what was coming to them and that their "native" help ran and left them to fight it out.

 

[PaulS]

I am an all American mutt. I have traced my ancestry (my wife has) back to the Mayflower and before that to a bunch of ruffians and a royal line but I am more American than any of the seventeen or so nationalities of which I am composed. The only way I could be more American is to have had some native American in there.
I probably have most of the nationalities that people make fun of but I really don't care because I am first and foremost an American patriot.