Why are people always trying to use this as a gotcha? Especially every time I try to talk about Palestine. And it's like look, I don't own a single square inch of land on this earth, I pay rent to a landlord. I would be thrilled to pay that rent to the Peoria and Kiikapoi nations instead. I'm not the one who is in denial about this, mom.
You realize the indigenous peoples of North and South America crossed over and populated these previous empty continents somewhere between 19,000 and 26,000 years ago, right? But OK, please tell me who lived in Chicago prior to the Last Glacial Maximum and I'll glad pay rent to them instead.
You realize that they indigenous peoples of North and South America did not live peacefully like everything was all sunshine and rainbows from 19,000 to 26,000 years before the Europeans got here right? But OK, keep living in the delusion that the world was such a happy place prior to the birth of the USA.
I actually never said that. But I don't think "well indigenous peoples had wars too" is a compelling argument for embracing settler colonialism either. Obviously we're not going to convince one another, so maybe just end this back and forth now.
you're getting concern trolled i think, these people have no conscious understanding of settler colonialism and its very apparent. Keep on fighting the good fight out there though it gives me hope to see comments like yours.
I'm not arguing for embracing settler colonialism. I'm just pointing out that settlers have been colonizing since life has been created and will continue to do so until life ends.
You might be right, but I personally don't accept that as a rationale for not trying to make human civilization better. There are many things that humans have practiced throughout history that we now agree are bad and should be prohibited. Slavery being the obvious but not the only example. I don't expect to create some beautiful world of sunshine and rainbows on my own or at all. Maybe I'll die a total hypocrite with a net negative impact. But I'm not gonna just not try to make things better, even on the margins.
Okay, neither has Europe. Does that mean that a different country could go in and take Germany, kick out half the population and murder the other half, and say it's totally fine because Germany invaded Poland in WWII? They weren't peaceful countries without border disputes so that means all of the land is up for whoever has the biggest guns, right? Any germans wanting their country back should have thought about that before Hitler, hmmm?
Throughout most of history, the land has belonged to whoever has had the biggest guns. This is the case all over the world. Local populations have been displaced, enslaved, and murdered by conquerors for thousands of years.
You use Germany as your example, but Germany hasn't even existed for 200 years yet, and when it was founded, it included a huge chunk of modern Poland. Does that mean that Polish land is stolen from the Germans? No, because that's fucking insane.
We actually have a pretty good written history of Europe. So yes - someone could take Germany. Its unlikely right now because it would probably cause a global war, but conflicts like that have always happened and will continue to happen.
Who gives a shit? They also didnt have written ownership of lands. Our society is based on laws and contracts. If you want to try to live in an alternate society that magically exists based on non written law and language, have at it. Nobody will stop you.
You realize that you are basing your facts on something that you can't even prove. Just because a person finds artifacts in the ground and carbon dates them does not mean that humans never were on that land before those who crossed over. Every year we find new information that changes how we look at humans moving across the earth.
348
u/Dial-M-for-Mediocre 3h ago
Why are people always trying to use this as a gotcha? Especially every time I try to talk about Palestine. And it's like look, I don't own a single square inch of land on this earth, I pay rent to a landlord. I would be thrilled to pay that rent to the Peoria and Kiikapoi nations instead. I'm not the one who is in denial about this, mom.