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America's greatest sin [W:264]

What is America's greatest sin?

  • The war for independence

    Votes: 1 1.2%
  • Slavery

    Votes: 27 31.4%
  • Indians / native Americans

    Votes: 31 36.0%
  • Hiroshima, Nagasaki bombing

    Votes: 3 3.5%
  • The war in Vietnam

    Votes: 1 1.2%
  • The FED

    Votes: 6 7.0%
  • The Cold war

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • The Civil war

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Other

    Votes: 14 16.3%
  • I can't tell

    Votes: 3 3.5%

  • Total voters
    86

Canell

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Thoughts anyone? :)
 
Results of slavery:

-Lower paying jobs for free/citizen labor
-Concentration of wealth at top
-De-Industrialization
-Expansionism/Imperialism
-Jesse Jackson was born
 
I almost chose "other" because what would have made this more interesting would have been to also see New Deal and Great Society programs in there as options. But even if they had been, the Federal Reserve is still the winner. We gave Congress the authority to create currency, not a private central banking cartel.
 
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Picked Indians because, while slavery is loathsome, it was not a uniquely American enterprise.
 
I'll be honest, I didn't even register the Native American option. That's a deeper sin than any of it. Can't change my answer now though.
 
I picked slavery because we are still living with it's effects 200 years later. Americans indians were robbed and treated as slaves so they are included in my pick.
 
I picked slavery because we are still living with it's effects 200 years later. Americans indians were robbed and treated as slaves so they are included in my pick.

I don't think they were treated as slaves, as they were not plucked from their lives and forced to work. Slavery is a deprivation of liberty. The natives were deprived of life, liberty and property (the whole sha-bang). Their entire lives were destroyed in front of them and they were left with neither the means nor the property to realize any semblance of freedom or autonomy. I'm not excusing slavery, but nothing holds a candle to what my ancestors did to the native people of the land I now enjoy.
 
I cant tell. Too many!
 
Barry Manilow
Firing Danny Ford at Clemson
Bailing out the airlines
Reducing the size of Twinkies
Female sports announcers
 
Slavery would certainly be my second choice. Yes, we are still living with the ramifications of slavery. But what we did to the Native Americans is number one for me. The reasons the ramifications of what we did to them doesn’t affect us as much today as slavery is because the Native Americans as a people have been all but eradicated. They are too busy trying to merely survive as a people to take up civil rights issues.

I truly believe that the extinction of the various tribes and their cultures is right around the corner. I realize that is the nature of the world, that societies rise and fall. But it is still America’s greatest sin.
 
I don't think they were treated as slaves, as they were not plucked from their lives and forced to work. Slavery is a deprivation of liberty. The natives were deprived of life, liberty and property (the whole sha-bang). Their entire lives were destroyed in front of them and they were left with neither the means nor the property to realize any semblance of freedom or autonomy. I'm not excusing slavery, but nothing holds a candle to what my ancestors did to the native people of the land I now enjoy.
All that is true, but the Indians were enslaved in the early history of our country.....


.....Once Europeans arrived as colonialists in North America, the nature of Indian slavery changed abruptly and dramatically. Indians found that British settlers, especially those in the southern colonies, eagerly purchased or captured Indians to use as forced labor in cultivating tobacco, rice, and indigo. More and more, Indians began selling war captives to whites rather than integrating them into their own societies. And as the demand for labor in the West Indies became insatiable, whites began to actively enslave Indians for export to the so-called "sugar islands."

The resulting Indian slave trade devastated the southeastern Indian populations and transformed Native American tribal relations throughout the region. The English at Charles Town, the Spanish in Florida, and the French in Louisiana sought trading partners and allies among the Indians, offering trading goods such as metal knives and axes, firearms and ammunition, intoxicants and beads, and cloth and hats in exchange for furs (deerskins) and Indian slaves captured from other tribes. Unscrupulous traders, frontier settlers, and government officials encouraged Indians to make war on other tribes to reap the profits from the slaves captured in such raids or to weaken the warring tribes.

It is not known how many Indians were enslaved by the Europeans, but they certainly numbered in the tens of thousands. It is estimated that Carolina merchants operating out of Charles Town shipped an estimated 30,000 to 50,000 Indian captives between 1670 and 1715 in a profitable slave trade with the Caribbean, Spanish Hispaniola, and northern colonies. Because of the higher transportation costs of bringing blacks from Africa, whites in the northern colonies sometimes preferred Indian slaves, especially Indian women and children, to blacks. Carolina actually exported as many or even more Indian slaves than it imported enslaved Africans prior to 1720. The usual exchange rate of captive Indians for enslaved Africans was two or three Indians to one African.....

Slavery in America
 
I'd say slavery. It has caused the most problems, and should have been addressed immediately.
 
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I was torn in between the Indians and Hiroshima Nagasaki ...one was genocide the other was the most horrible terrorist attack in history, so I dunno.

Slavery I didn't pick because as said before, it wasn't a uniquely American thing.
 
I was torn in between the Indians and Hiroshima Nagasaki ...one was genocide the other was the most horrible terrorist attack in history, so I dunno.

The Indians sealed their fate when they sided with the British during the War of 1812. What did they think was going to happen? And dropping the bomb on Japan was a "terrorist" attack? Get real.
 
The Indians sealed their fate when they sided with the British during the War of 1812. What did they think was going to happen? And dropping the bomb on Japan was a "terrorist" attack? Get real.

Well, the bomb was a show of overwhelming force against a civilian population. However, it was during a time of open warfare against an aggressor nation. "Terrorist" it was not.
 
Well, the bomb was a show of overwhelming force against a civilian population. However, it was during a time of open warfare against an aggressor nation. "Terrorist" it was not.

I would say it still fits the definition of terrorism. That doesn’t in itself mean it wasn’t the right choice. In my book, targeting non-combatants in order to effect some sort of political change or action, is terrorism. Terrorism used to be a very common, and acceptable, tactic in warfare.
 
Well, the bomb was a show of overwhelming force against a civilian population. However, it was during a time of open warfare against an aggressor nation. "Terrorist" it was not.

Terrorism is the act of causing fear through violence and force in order to coerce others. The Japanese would have killed hundreds of thousands of Soldiers, Marines, and Sailors, leaving the atomic bomb as the most desirable option.
 
I agree. It was effective military strategy, and it likely did save lives. 70,000 people died in the immediate blast. 70 million people died in the war overall, many millions of civilians. A military invasion would have been catastrophic, as it was in Europe.
 
I would say it still fits the definition of terrorism. That doesn’t in itself mean it wasn’t the right choice. In my book, targeting non-combatants in order to effect some sort of political change or action, is terrorism. Terrorism used to be a very common, and acceptable, tactic in warfare.

Targeting civilians is certainly troubling in any light. Grave decisions were made.
 
I agree. It was effective military strategy, and it likely did save lives. 70,000 people died in the immediate blast. 70 million people died in the war overall, many millions of civilians. A military invasion would have been catastrophic, as it was in Europe.

Plus, after Bataan and their treatment of POWs, and our allies, I can't say I have any sympathy for the Japanese at that time.
 
The War for Indendence a greatest American sin? I guess the British must have thought so, but why is it on the list? :confused:
 
Plus, after Bataan and their treatment of POWs, and our allies, I can't say I have any sympathy for the Japanese at that time.

How many of the Japanese killed in the bombing ever laid a hand on an American? I can be convinced that the bomb was necessary for the greater good while still feeling sympathy for those killed and maimed, particularly the children. Surely you can as well.
 
The War for Indendence a greatest American sin? I guess the British must have thought so, but why is it on the list? :confused:

It's called "humour", you know. ;)
 
Definitely what we did to the Native Americans. Primarily I think it's worse than slavery because in some ways, we're still doing it to them.
 
How many of the Japanese killed in the bombing ever laid a hand on an American? I can be convinced that the bomb was necessary for the greater good while still feeling sympathy for those killed and maimed, particularly the children. Surely you can as well.

Not really, no. When they brought POW's to Japan, the women and children were equally sadistic in their mistreatment of POW's. Their entire culture in that time period was stuck in the 12th century. Fat Man and Little Boy corrected that.
 
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