Regarding some of the remarks about Native Americans, I found this information in an article on American Indians and genocide:
“Finally, even if some episodes can be considered genocidal—that is, tending toward genocide—they certainly do not justify condemning an entire society. Guilt is personal, and for good reason the Genocide Convention provides that only ‘persons’ can be charged with the crime, probably even ruling out legal proceedings against governments. No less significant is that a massacre like Sand Creek was undertaken by a local volunteer militia and was not the expression of official U.S. policy. No regular U.S. Army unit was ever implicated in a similar atrocity. In the majority of actions, concludes Robert Utley, ‘the Army shot noncombatants incidentally and accidentally, not purposefully.’ As for the larger society, even if some elements in the white population, mainly in the West, at times advocated extermination, no official of the U.S. government ever seriously proposed it. Genocide was never American policy, nor was it the result of policy.”
Certainly I am not defending what happened to the indigenous peoples here any more than I can defend slavery. Both were deplorable, but guilt should be personal. A lot of blood was shed during the Civil War and reparations made to ancestors of slaves by the government would probably be handled as well as the rescue of stranded locals during Katrina. It would be a disaster in the making.
I really hope people vote for the candidate they feel is the most qualified and not because of the appearance or age of either of them. MLK’s remarks about a nation where people will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character is worth remembering. I am waiting to see who will be selected for Vice President, too. That should tell volumes about each man.
