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Post by crzhrs on May 11, 2009 11:49:34 GMT -6
<Yeah, but we won, and knew that we could>
Who is "we" . . . and what exactly did we "win"
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Post by crzhrs on May 11, 2009 11:50:02 GMT -6
<In all the cases above, the men knew they would eventually win their people's freedom, even though the cost would be high>
I didn't know there were guarantees in war . . .
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Post by crzhrs on May 11, 2009 12:08:18 GMT -6
<They look pretty much like Europeans, today>
I don't think Indians at the time were concerned about what they would look like today.
Anyway . . . they and their children were FORCED to "look" like White People . . . did you forget the Cherokee turned into "White People" and look what that got them . . . forced to march hundreds of miles & loss of homeland. I know . . . look where they are now . . . which is where?
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Post by conz on May 11, 2009 13:07:25 GMT -6
Crzhrs...
We won our independence from Great Britain, through war. That's what Henry was inspiring.
There aren't...it is always a gamble. When you go to war, you are not only gambling your own life, but sometimes the lives of your wife and children, as well. So you had better have a pretty good reason for it, don't you think? AND, and good chance of winning, as well, right?
Otherwise, fighting, even defending yourself, is IMMORAL. And perhaps a war crime against your own people.
Wasn't that why they were fighting, so that they wouldn't have to look like the Americans? They allowed their own women and children to freeze to death on the Plains other than come into the reservations and become like the Americans, didn't they?
They are alive. Their language and sub-culture exists. They are also probably the best off of any of the Native tribes, today, on their reservations. For a while, they owned their own African American and Mexican slaves on their reservations, and lived in brick plantation houses, the wealthiest of them.
Because THEY didn't fight. There is a lesson here, one obviously lost on Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse.
But Red Cloud was smarter...he got it. Didn't like it, but he did the civilized calculations and came up correct. So more of his people survived to have ancestors today, while many of the Sitting Bull camp lost their genes to history...
Clair
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Post by crzhrs on May 12, 2009 7:27:20 GMT -6
<They are alive. Their language and sub-culture exists. They are also probably the best off of any of the Native tribes, today, on their reservations. For a while, they owned their own African American and Mexican slaves on their reservations, and lived in brick plantation houses, the wealthiest of them>
Yes . . . look what it got them . . . forced to march hundreds of miles when gold was discovered on their ancestral lands. The loss of those brick homes, slaves, their "wealth." Even appeasing the Whites got them nothing . . . only more broken promises and theft of their land.
Many of those who appeased faired no better than those who resisted.
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Post by conz on May 12, 2009 8:36:02 GMT -6
crzhrs
But many of them DID do better by not fighting.
I really don't know how you can make this statement, though. In effect, you are saying it would be better to fight, and take lives, and get your women and children killed, rather than to live sorry lives on the reservation.
At least you are alive, dude. That's better than being dead, when those are your only choices.
You don't HAVE to fight. To fight when the only outcome is your family's death and nothing else good can come of it is immoral.
Give me a better reason why it was moral, and logical, for men like Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse to get their families killed, while leaders like Red Cloud saved theirs.
Clair
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Post by crzhrs on May 12, 2009 9:14:21 GMT -6
<Give me a better reason why it was moral, and logical, for men like Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse to get their families killed, while leaders like Red Cloud saved theirs.>
Red Cloud did fight for his people . . . he led the successful battle against the military from 1866-68 and won. He believed the government would honor the treaty and provide everything that was promised to help his people. By the time he realized he had made a mistake it was too late. SB & CH learned from Red Cloud's experience and wanted no part of failed promises and theft of any more land and were not going to be duped. They resisted.
It's immoral not to fight for your freedom, even when things look bleak . . . when chances of succeeding are low . . . the alternative to be penned in, caged, forced to be what you are not is a good incentive to resist. You may die but you die for what you believe in.
Yes . . . families are at risk . . . but they looked to the warriors to protect them and their way of life. I believe many of the women & elderly backed the warriors.
If you saw the last episode of WE SHALL REMAIN regarding the 1973 Wounded Knee takeover . . . a number of woman were there with the men, some of them armed and ready to fight and die.
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Post by conz on May 12, 2009 11:09:14 GMT -6
Crzhrs,
Yes, he did, so he made the correct moral choice to fight, I think. He actually achieved something by his sacrifice, and he really didn't sacrifice that much...he lost a bunch of Warriors, but I don't think he lost many families in that particular campaign.
No he didn't...I'm sure he understood the government better than that. He simply cut the best deal that he could...he didn't have much moral choice. His victory was the best he could have gotten, he realized. He was smart, and not too arrogant.
Since Red Cloud continued to send entreaties to Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse to surrender to the reservations and save their people, I don't think you are correct, here.
Red Cloud didn't like the cards he'd been dealt, no doubt about that. But he also realized he was getting as good as he was going to, and did not take to the field against the Americans again. He fought the Americans in peaceful ways, and did get some concessions that way (better reservations, better treatment, replacing bad agents, protection by the Army, improved Native police forces, etc.).
I think that is admirable for a Warrior, but it is immoral to subject your wife and children and grandchildren to this...sorry. You had better have a better than "bleak" chance of gaining a better life for your expected sacrifice than this.
Many did, most did not. Most of the great surrenders were not because the Warriors didn't want to die fighting...they surrendered because the women and children, by dying, starving, and just being scared all the time, influenced the Warriors to surrender.
But the women are going to follow their men...that is their survival. When lots of women, though, figured out that they could be fed on the reservation without living in the wilds expecting to be butchered at any moment, they strongly influenced their men to take them into the rez. Single Warriors continued to ride out and make war, but less and less as prospects for survival grew dim, and their families stayed behind with the government.
Yes, women are brave. But women acutely want their children to grow up and have children, and continue their gene line into the future.
The women who died at Wounded Knee took their futures out of this world. It is fine to be on TV...it is better to have living descendants in our world today, continuing their ancestor's work.
Red Cloud saw that, and enabled it. Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse were impervious to this, in their pride and arrogance. MOST of the Sioux women clearly came to believe this, I think, by Bray's writings and others.
Clair
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Post by "Hunk" Papa on May 12, 2009 13:42:02 GMT -6
1) LOL...I think you know by now that is never going to happen. Subtlety not my forte'. 2) And that is all I ask, my friend. It is the reason that I am here...to be challenged on my views and conclusions, as well as challenging others on theirs. Just don't devolve to personal insults, eh? 3) Me too, yet we may still rarely agree on how the evidence should be interpreted, and what evidence is more reliable that others. 4) It sure does, and I thank you for that. On occasion it even changes my views on things, or at least modifies them. When it happens to me again, I'll try to point that out so that you'll know your efforts are appreciated, and not in vain! Clair
1) I had hoped that this response of yours might just herald the birth of a more reasonable Conz, but having seen your latest essays on this and the Cavalry Training thread I would have to agree that subtlety is not your strong suit, though that excuse merely gives you the opportunity to ride rough shod over other peoples posts in the guise of the bluff Hussar. 2) It seems to the rest of us that the reason you post here is to be as bloody minded as possible, spraying your views around without recourse to much substantive evidence and reaching conclusions that suit you, based on the shifting sands of the flimsy information you have provided. Don't devolve to personal insults? You insult the intelligence and the integrity of every poster you respond to by negating the evidence they furnish with knee jerk reactions simply to defend your untenable opinions. Punctuating your posts with outdated 1990's e-mail symbols like LOL, <g> etc., does nothing to detract from the offence you give. 3) Evidence is often open to interpretation but lack of evidence has nothing to interpret. If, or should I say, when you disagree with the evidence others produce, please provide countering EVIDENCE not just pages of personal emotions. The followers of Clio require more than hot air. 4) I await that cataclysmic dawning with hope rather than certainty. Hunk
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Post by conz on May 12, 2009 14:26:41 GMT -6
1) I had hoped that this response of yours might just herald the birth of a more reasonable Conz, but having seen your latest essays on this and the Cavalry Training thread I would have to agree that subtlety is not your strong suit, though that excuse merely gives you the opportunity to ride rough shod over other peoples posts in the guise of the bluff Hussar. Aye, I am what I am, always. No subterfuge, or subtely, or any of those s's, here. I do, however, like the imagery of "riding roughshod," but I hope it isn't over other people's posts. After all, I can't interrupt anyone's post, eh? You ALWAYS get your say, and I always enjoy reading it. And isn't that just what this forum is for? Stating what you believe and offering why you believe it. Learning what others believe and replying why you don't believe THAT. And once in a while, maybe influencing a mind or learning something. Then I must be doing it logically, effectively, and too well. Otherwise it would not bother those with different arguments. Anyway, I'm not trying to denigrate anybody...it is like saying the Americans never listen to the Europeans because we never do what they want. Silly. We always listen, we always disagree, respectfully, and we always do what WE think is right. Americans. To be sure. I always take the evidence seriously, and either: 1) explain why evidence doesn't apply to the argument, 2) explain why the evidence doesn't really say what the poster thinks it says, 3) show contradicting evidence and why it is better. I think I've done this is most every case...if I missed something, I apologize, but if you show it again, I'll apply one of the above rules if I think the reasoning is incorrect. Is saying you believe somebody to be incorrect in their conclusions the same as insulting them? Or only if you do it effectively? Hope is not a plan. <g> Use reasoned arguments, based on experienced and learned judgment. There are many different viewpoints here...and we should be very glad of that. You never want me to agree with you, or we wouldn't have much of a forum, would we? And I'm giving you the best soapbox to share your ideas that you could possibly have! So have fun with it. I enjoy your ideas, and I enjoy sharing why I find them faulty, and I enjoy when you challenge me on that. In a gentlemanly way. Clair
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Post by wolfgang911 on May 13, 2009 6:55:50 GMT -6
conz why do you always want to have the last word. you're just like the cavalry behind crazy horse. the latter is shrewder and braver but hey what does the mightiest warrior do against a bunch of endless soapboxes..
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Post by crzhrs on May 13, 2009 8:02:46 GMT -6
< . . .and we always do what WE think is right>
So did those who stayed out . . . they believed what they were doing was right. But you call them immoral & animals.
I've come to the sad conclusion that you are a wolf in sheep's clothing . . . a CSS in Conz's posts.
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Post by conz on May 13, 2009 10:53:33 GMT -6
< . . .and we always do what WE think is right> So did those who stayed out . . . they believed what they were doing was right. But you call them immoral & animals. It is not about whether or not THEY thought they were right. I'm stating my beliefs. And I believe that those who stayed out after their was no hope were acting immorally toward their families. They weren't thinking like civilized men. That's my opinion. I share the same amount of views with him as I do with you, I suspect. We can always find something to agree on, eh? Clair
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Post by crzhrs on May 13, 2009 11:02:37 GMT -6
<They weren't thinking like civilized men>
Here we go again . . . they are not civilized so we must kill them.
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Post by wolfgang911 on May 13, 2009 14:47:33 GMT -6
I am questioning why Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse stayed hostile after Red Cloud surrendered...it makes no sense. Are they animals, or are they thinking men? What were they thinking, then? That they could win? That they could improve their tribes condition? Their bands suffered more than any other Native tribe I can think of, directly because of their prolonged resistance. OK quote below these more hostile tribes the friendly ones that did better then those lousy sioux, apache ute and navaho to preserve their genes, language (a little) and acres : we listen to your long gene list of tribes (hopis don't count for evident reasons) :
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