43 Replies to “Had Christopher Columbus Been Governed By The Prime Directive”

  4. Makes you wonder if the same crew that has whitewashed Obama’s history has been able to wipe out the massive aboriginal slave trade that existed in North America at first contact.
    I’m just waiting for one tribe to get a whack of taxpayer money from some victim scam and then have their tribal buddies down the road nail them with a HRC kangaroo court slave trade reparations shakedown attempt.
    Now that would be entertaining.

  6. This is my favorite comment on Facebook. It goes a long way to explaining why the average human lifespan has more than doubled in the last couple hundred years. Oh wait …
    “The system of oppression and degradation that began with Columbus’ voyages has impacted most of the Earth’s ecosystems as well as the subsequent populations that depend upon those ecosystems for physical, cultural, and spiritual survival. Children born into the world today must grow up with the heavy burden of creating individual and collective identities within their homelands against a constant onslaught of ecological issues created by corporations, and governments that remain committed to faulty economic and political schemes. These schemes not only promote the rights of multinational corporations over the rights of Indigenous peoples, they also enrich western nations at the expense of billions of people who continue to live in mass poverty while also existing in the midst of environmental contamination and devastation.”
    Indigenous Women’s Symposium
    Department of Indigenous Studies
    Trent University
    Peterborough, On, K9J 7B8

  8. Hey, that was pretty good! In my culture it would be said that you “roofed it”. And here I thought you’d gone all Lysenkoist on us.

  11. You know Kate…I have missed your ‘attitude’ around here. Your guest bloggers are terrific, however, there is something about the way you throw great punches.
    Welcome back!!
    ‘You might be Liberal’ is a classic.!

  12. Pretty clever……….somebody watches too much fox news. Is this Kate woman a truck driver?

  14. Impressive Kate! I personally don’t know how myself. I came to this site hoping for a common sense view of the world’s issues. And although I respect you, your opinion and your impressive art work that just checked out! This site clearly isn’t for me. I’m a person who prefers to hear both “left” and “right” arguments before forming my opinion. I clearly wont get that here. Good-bye forever small dead animals!

  15. I am of the opinion that evolution is a scientific theory which on the basis of the evidence is likely correct (as a scientist “believe” is the wrong word), and I don’t think all cultures are equal. (Some are much better at respecting human liberties, others are better at living in certain environments etc.)
    The native reserve system is typical of most social programs that result in social and economic failures.
    However Kathy Shaidle, I really take issue with your implication that First Nations/ Native American people are somehow genetically inferior in terms of intelligence. For example your comments on hallsofmacademia.
    Usually you make quite pointed and correct statements. I can only hope that you mistyped your comments.

  17. Langmann…I don’t think anyone said First Nation are genetically inferior.
    I believe this kerfuffle started with a discussion of the culture of ‘First Nations’ a few hundred years ago.It was Pound who got in trouble, and Wente has responded.
    That is not genetics. That was lifestyle at the time.

  21. “The system of oppression and degradation that began with Columbus’ voyages has impacted most of the Earth’s ecosystems as well as the subsequent populations that depend upon those ecosystems…”
    As did the immigrants who preceded the Europeans relatively recently, for example:

    “It is commonly assumed that High Arctic lakes and ponds were not affected by direct local human activities before the arrival of Europeans, because most native peoples were primarily nomadic, maintained relatively low population densities, and practiced unintrusive hunting and gathering technologies. Our archeological and paleolimnological data show that this was not always the case.

    Thule Inuit whalers, whose winter settlements consisted of houses constructed from the bones of bowhead whales on Somerset Island between about anno Domini 1200 and 1600, markedly changed pond water quality and ecology. The arrival of whalers 8 centuries ago caused marked changes in water chemistry and the expansion of moss substrates.

    Although whalers abandoned the area >4 centuries ago, the legacy of these human disturbances is still evident in the pond’s present-day limnology and is characterized by elevated nutrient concentrations and atypical biota. This is the earliest reported paleolimnological record of changes in aquatic ecology associated with local human activities in Canada or the United States, or for any circumpolar ecosystem.”
    http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=341790
    See also:
    The Role of American Indians in Shaping The North American Landscape
    By Doug MacCleery
    USDA Forest Service
    http://www.foresthistory.org/Research/usfscoll/people/Native%20Americans/AmIndian.html

  22. Wow!! Quite the chat going on at Neo’s tonight! Thanks for the link!I’ll bring the wine.
    Kathy does get nasty sometimes!

  25. The people who are in charge of the universities nowadays, well at least the social sciences, are probably the most misinformed people on earth today. Even the people they seek to elevate don’t believe (really) half of what they profess, although they can always pretend to do so, if it helps with job promotion.
    Imagine how stunned you would have to be to even entertain the idea that two different cultures had to be treated as “equal” on first principles.
    Fat lot of good that will do us if intelligent aliens show up around here.

  26. and if your house still has the “wide load” banner from the last move… you might be from Saskatchewan.
    Sorry couldn’t resist!

  27. I don’t really need to understand Kate to see that the statement about evolution and the ‘equality’ (whatever that means) of cultures is high-grade dumbassitude.
    Don’t co-opt terms that you don’t understand. Then you don’t look like an idiot. It’s really very simple.

  29. Ok so not only do I NOT believe in evolution, but I also believe that not all cultures are equal. What does that make me?

  30. ET:
    Let me take a crack at it. Maybe you are someone who has never picked up a science book? Or maybe someone hopelessly ignorant? Or maybe someone who lacks an understanding of evolution? Seriously, it’s really not that hard to ‘get’.
    But please, keep your beliefs, and do teach them to your children.

  31. So anon…your ancestors were pond scum eh? Well the apple doesn’t fall very far from the tree…
    Ponder this (if your brain is sufficiently developed): The universe is pre-disposed towards entropy. In the face of this fundamental universal truth, how could anyone in their right mind possibly even consider that a complex system would arise spontaneously from a simpler one or from pure chaos?

  32. If you believe that the state should regulate personal choices regarding everything… except abortion – you might be a liberal
    If you believe unborn children may need to be terminated, but not serial killers – you might be a liberal
    If you believe that male/female differences are socially constructed, but homosexuality is genetically predetermined – …

  34. “Ok so not only do I NOT believe in evolution, but I also believe that not all cultures are equal. What does that make me?”

    Part wrong, part right.

  35. The gobbledeegook from that Trent Symposium has just reminded me again, now that I’ve grown up, why having gone to Trent was, maybe, not the best decision I ever made.

  36. ET:
    Dude, the second law argument is old, old, old. Clearly you don’t have any understanding of it at all.
    Complex systems have the capacity to self-organize by lowering their entropy. This is principally due to the fact that they are nonequilibrium systems, and therefore (unlike equilibrium systems, which may be where you get your maximum entropy concept of the second law) they can lower their overall entropy by exporting entropy to their surroundings. The sum of the change in internal entropy (dSi) due to irreversible processes (which is always > 0), and the change in external entropy (dSe) exchanged with the surroundings across the system boundary, is the total entropy – and it can be greater or less than zero.
    These relationships have been known for a long time; at least since Schrodinger’s book “What is Life?”, which is well worth reading if you want to actually understand this stuff. The Second Law argument is a non-argument. Evolutionary systems are physical systems and obey the laws of thermodynamics, albeit for nonequilibrium systems.

  37. Since when does a scientific theory require any kind of “belief” at all?
    Since it became property of the Neo-Coms.

  38. Langman, don’t be coy. I never “mistype” anything.
    There are significant IQ differences between different racial groups. This is a fact. Do I personally know what the average IQ is in the aboriginal population? No. This doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist, and I given the large dropout rate among Canadian Indians, however, we’re safe in making some assumptions about it.
    Look at IQ and the Wealth of Nations for one, or to the decades of IQ tests administered by the US Armed Forces for further proof.
    Funny, nobody gets upset when it is suggested that Asians and Jews have higher IQs than other people. But “higher” implies (more than implies) a “lower” and this where feelings are hurt.
    Men have higher IQs than women, but that doesn’t upset me. I guess I’m just not that touchy.
    Some of these differences may be genetic. Some of them may be caused by dietary problems. But these differences do exist and wishing them away doesn’t work.
    PS: next time someone insists that “the army is where society’s idiots and losers end up”, you might want to show them this:
    >Professors Moskos and Sibley found in their 1994 book All That We Can Be:
    >”83 percent of white recruits scored in the upper half of the mental aptitude test (compared with 61 percent of white youths in the national population), while 59 percent of black recruits scored in the upper half (compared with 14 percent of the black youths nationwide).”
    >In other words, the Army’s black enlisted personnel score just as well on the general aptitude test as the average white American. (African-American officers average even better, of course.)
    http://isteve.blogspot.com/2005/08/us-army-creating-iq-test-for-iraqi.html
    IQ of Enlisted Men:
    http://isteve.blogspot.com/2006/11/average-iq-of-enlisted-men.html

  39. Kate, here’s another one to add to it.
    “If you support abortion but oppose the death penalty, you might be a liberal.”

  40. Attention Kathy Shaidle! That sound you hear is Lucy Warman rushing down to the HRC to file a complaint (with their computers, natch). Remember, facts don’t matter. You have obviously hurt the feelings of somebody with your last post.

  41. I don’t know if there are racial differences in IQ but way back when dinosaurs roamed the earth I was put in charge of corporate expansion. I had to find the right people to fill the job openings in a new branch operation. I hired a head hunter who promptly brought me the resumes of some very qualified people. The vast majority had post secondary education some with multiple degrees including one whose doctoral work included designing rockets. I hired several basing my decision on education. The branch floundered much longer than it should have and I was at a bit of a loss to explain it. I changed the manager several times with the same result.
    One day I stumbled upon the resume of a person of native ancestry who had, a few years ago left the reserve. He certainly didn’t have the academic qualifications, he completed his high school after he became an adult and had no intention of pursuing a higher education but there was something in his record that gave me an idea. I gave him the job of branch manager and within a year the new branch office became the most profitable branch in the company. What had triggered in my mind was his reputation of being able to think on his own not simply regurgitate what college had taught him.
    Did he have the IQ of the rocket surgeon? Probably not but then the rocket surgeon didn’t have the IQ of the Indian either.

  42. You might be a Republican if….
    If you believe the government should stay out of the church’s business, then believe in faith based initiatives
    If you believe that we are fighting this war to defend American values, then want to hang all the war protesters
    If you think mentioning Buddha or Mohammed in schools violates the separation of church and state, but want the kids to keep pledging allegiance to a nation “under God”,
    If you do not believe in a “vast, right wing conspiracy,” but DO believe in a “vast left wing conspiracy
    If you believe that television news is biased and left wing, but believe that Rush Limbaugh and Micheal Savage are fair and balanced
    If you believe that Clinton was immoral because of his affair with the office staff, but believe Eisenhower was a great man despite his affair with his secretary
    If you STILL think it is all Clinton’s fault
    If you believe that Bush prefers war to diplomacy because it is easier to spell
    You believe the NRA contributes more to American life than the NEA
    You think of reality TV as Fox News
    You’re a pro-lifer, but support the death penalty
    The only union you support is the Baseball Players, because heck, they’re richer than you
    You think you might remember laughing once as a kid
    You answer to “The Man
    You don’t think “The Simpsons” is all that funny, but you watch it because that Flanders fellow makes a lot of sense
    You don’t let your kids watch Sesame Street because you accuse Bert and Ernie of “sexual deviance”
    You’ve argued that art has a “moral foundation set in Western values”
    When people say “Marx,” you think “Groucho
    You’ve ever yelled, “Hey hippie, get a haircut.”
    You argue that you need 300 handguns, in case a bear ever attacks your home
    You point to Hootie and the Blowfish as evidence of the end of racism in America.
    You’ve ever said “Clean air? Looks clean to me
    You came of age in the ’60s and don’t remember Bob Dylan
    You own a vehicle with an “Ollie North: American Hero” sticker
    You’re afraid of the liberal media
    You ever based an argument on the phrase, “Well, tradition dictates…”
    You ever told a child that Oscar the Grouch “lives in a trash can because he is lazy and doesn’t want to contribute to society
    You’ve ever urged someone to pull themselves up by their bootstraps, when they don’t even have shoes
    you believe it’s patriotic and supportive of the military that Bush loves sending our troops into wars, and simultaneously cuts veteran’s benefits, military hazard pay and military family services
    you call yourself a “patriotic American,” but yet you display confederate flags to honor the people who rebelled against the USA
    you believe that AIDS is divine punishment for sinfulness, even when babies are born with it
    you believe that global temperatures are affected by cyclical, documented changes in the earth’s climate that occur in cycles exceeding 10,000 years, even though you don’t believe that the earth is that old
    you believe that youths won’t have sex if they’re never taught about birth control
    you believe that communism was not a viable system while simultaneously believing that only the “genius” of Ronald Reagan was able to defeat it
    you believe in state-sponsored public prayer in schools, as long as the children aren’t praying to any gods other than your god
    you believe that socialism hasn’t worked anywhere, and that Europe doesn’t exist or is irrelevant
    you believe that biology teachers are corrupting the morals of sixth-graders when they teach them the basics of human sexuality, but the Holy Bible, which is filled with sex and violence, is good reading for all children

  43. LOL, some of those are funny Right of centre, but many are more US politics &/or “socially conservative” related.
    How about libertarians?

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