Zeev's Turnips Talk Politics (ZTTP)

[aim hier]

Where are the perfect people you see as our moral superiors?

Dropping the atomic bombs on Japan had to be a tough decision for Truman. Innocent civilians were killed. But prolonging the war would have led to many more troops being killed, and possibly even more civilian casualties. There was no reason to expect that Japanese resistance to an invasion would not be formidable. Even after the first atomic bomb, Japan would not surrender, necessitating the second bombing, which swiftly brought the war to conclusion.

Slavery is evil. But it's ridiculous to apply today's moral standards to earlier eras. America didn't invent slavery, it existed throughout the world before England, Spain, or Portugal ever began the practice of using slave labor. Eventually, all of the European nations saw the injustice of the practice and banned it.

As for the treatment regarding Indians, we are again, applying current moral standards to an earlier era. The various Indian nations warred with one another, committed massacres, chased other people off their land, long before Columbus set foot in the new world. As for the decimation of the North American indigenous people, I believe most historians agree that disease killed far more people than did warfare.

Here in Florida, Indians had largely disappeared before the U.S. took ownership of the territory, though there had been relatively little actual fighting between the Spanish and English with the native peoples. Disease wiped out almost all of the indigenous peoples. The current Indian populations of Seminoles and Miccosukees are not indigenous to the state of Florida.

Again, who are the blessed people who have always lived a life in harmony with our current moral standards?

To me America is the nation that has freed and made prosperous more people in the world than any other nation by a large measure. We have inspired many peoples to give up impoverishing Marxist regimes and adopt private property economies and democracies. When natural disasters strike, who do people expect to offer aid?