So I Just started my next Quarter and right now I'm taking an Introduction to UNIX class, and one on American History. Thankfully I love both, so it is actually quite interesting. Right off the bat however I knew American History would be hard, simply because I have a hard time reading about all the injustice that went on to build this country, yet I'm supposed to feel proud to be an American.
It is literally infuriating to me when I read about how bad people were treated, when the early settlers and immigrants were themselves escaping persecution. Even in today's world it's so sickening to see people so willing to step on the backs of others just to get ahead in this artificially inflated society we all live in. If you think about it, our planet Earth is roughly 4.5 billion years old, and we have absolutely no historical record beyond the last few thousand years at best. What this likely means is that our civilization will end up erased from Earths history books, which means all this greed and power hungry ego trips will be for nothing anyways; we have a short time here on this planet, it's sad to see so many choose to live it hurting others instead of helping and enjoying what this planet offers, together in harmony.
I also have a hard time thinking about how these immigrants, first settlers included, pushed their ideals onto a people who were much more in harmony with their surroundings and views. The new people felt that these savages couldn't have a high level grasp on what it meant to be civil, and religious, and therefore felt it necessary to force their views upon them:
In response to Missionaries attempting to convert Native Americans to Christianity, one Crow Inidian explained
"We found there were too many kinds of religion among white men for us to understand, and that scarcely any two white men agreed which was the right one to learn. This bothered us a good deal until we saw that the white man did not take his religion any more seriously than he did his laws, and that he kept both of them just...to use when they might do him good in his dealings with strangers. These were not our ways. We kept the laws we made and lived our religion."
Let that be a life lesson to those who need it: someone with different views, opinions, and beliefs does not necessarily have a lack of understanding. Quite the contrary, you may be so blinded by your own ideals, that you lack the comprehension needed to grasp the bigger picture. In the case of this Crow Indian, his people didn't pollute their ways with things they didn't believe and live, I wonder how much better of a world we might live in had people so open minded graced us with a lasting presence much earlier on in US History.
Just my 2c...
