This is my John Galt speaking cartoon

[kandrathe]

Hi,

A common fault in these types of discussions is to hold people of the past accountable to our present morality and fault them for their failure to live up to a moral code that they never ascribed to. And to compare moral codes is, ultimately, a foolish thing. Most moral codes are a mixture of superstition, prejudice, and pragmatism.

Human failures are funny things; the more remote, the more clearly seen. We have no problem seeing the evils committed throughout history and the wrongdoings of distant rulers. But we seem be blind to much of our own evils and wrongdoings.

--Pete

Hi,

Your thoughts about holding people Today accountable for the Past? I personally do not want to be held accountable.

John Wayne's opinion of Native Americans. September 4, 2005 5:55 AM The interview is reprinted in The Playboy Intervew (Wideview Books, c1981).
Here is the text of one answer about the Indians:

In an interview with Playboy magazine published on May 1, 1971, Wayne made several controversial remarks about race and class in the United States. The interview became a hot topic and many stores had trouble keeping the issue in stock.

He noted that, as someone living in the 20th century, he was not responsible for the way people who lived one hundred years before him had treated Native Americans, stating:
I don't feel we did wrong in taking this great country away from them if that's what you're asking. Our so called stealing of this country was just a question of survival. There were great numbers of people who needed new land the Indians were selfishly trying to keep it for themselves.

Look, I'm sure there have been inequalities. If those inequalities are presently affecting any of the Indians now alive, they have a right to a court hearing. But what happened 100 years ago in our country can't be blamed on us today.

I'm quite sure that the concept of a Government-run reservation... seems to be what the socialists are working for now — to have everyone cared for from cradle to grave.

What happened between their forefathers and our forefathers is so far back -- right, wrong or indifferent -- that I don't see why we owe them anything. I don't know why the government should give them something that it wouldn't give me.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Wayne

From a John Galt cartoon to a discussion about Native American genocide is a subject that should not get lost in a cartoon thread should we start a new Post?

John Wayne was wrong. :-)

He should have lived on the Pine Ridge Reservation for a few months before making that comment. It is exactly what John Galt feared would happen everywhere if the "control freaks" who run our socialist government had their ways with us. {notice how I re-railed there! }



They don't own their homes, so why should they invest in them. There are few jobs, so they line up for their handouts as an act of survival. If we cared about them at all, we'd figure out a path to independence, rather than continue to perpetuate over a century of dependency. If we cared, we'd help this tribe of a scant ~25,000 Americans figure out how to break their cycle of poverty and death.

"Although Pine Ridge is the eighth-largest reservation in the United States, it is also the poorest. Unemployment on the reservation hovers between 80% and 85%, and 49% live below the federal poverty level.[2] Adolescent suicide is four times the national average. Many of the families have no electricity, telephone, running water, or sewage systems. Many families use wood stoves to heat their homes. The population on Pine Ridge has among the shortest life expectancies of any group in the Western Hemisphere: approximately 47 years for males and 52 years for females. The infant mortality rate is five times the United States national average. Reservation population was estimated at 15,000 in the 2000 census, however the number was raised to 28,787 by HUD, following a Colorado State University door-to-door study.[3] The reservation has a lot of alcoholism and poverty.[4]

As of 2011 the reservation has little economic development or industry, and no banks or discount stores exist on the reservation.[4] Despite the lack of formal employment opportunities on Pine Ridge, a considerable agricultural production is taking place on the reservation, yet only a small percentage of the tribe directly benefit from this. According to the USDA, in 2002 there was nearly $33 million in receipts from agricultural production on Pine Ridge. Less than one-third of that income went to members of the tribe.[5]"