An Inconvenient Truth
I love it when Europeans talk about the U.S. as though we were a bunch of gun-toting, violent drunks. Let me see...hmm...Europeans gave us two world wars. The first, aka "The Great War" was the bloodiest conflict in human history, up till that time. How many died? 18,000,000 men, women and children. Not surprisingly, the U.S. had to act to help save the world from those same Europeans.
Not to be outdone, less than 25 years later, they started a second global war. This time the death toll was 80,000,000, a more than four fold increase in the slaughter. But, that wasn't all. They also gave us the two most pernicious political systems in human history; Communism and Fascism. Both were, contrary to popular belief, Leftist, socialist movements. Communism alone killed about 100,000,000 outside of the two great wars. And, they managed to do so in about 70 years.
This is where Europeans usually bring up slavery, as though slavery was unique to America. Slavery, however, was a global phenomenon, not solely an America one.
"How about genocide against Native Americans?"
It never happened. According to the best existing scholarship, more than 90% of Native Americans died as the result of contagious diseases. This epidemic took its toll within the first few generations of European arrival. It was not, let me repeat, not a planned genocide, unlike those in Russia, China and other Communist bloc countries.
"How about we get back to the issue of slavery?"
The first Africans came to America completely by accident via a Dutch war ship. Within a few decades slavery was legalized in the American colonies. Over the next 200 plus years Americans imported about 375,000 slaves in total.
"Just how many Americans owned slaves? I bet it was a lot!"
Answer - 1.4% of the total population. Of course, some 3000 Blacks owned about 20,000 African slaves in the American colonies, as well. So there's that to consider. It was also Africans selling other Africans into slavery that enabled slavery to exist in the first place. And, now that I think about it, one of the first slave owners in the American colonies was a Black man named Anthony Johnson. But we'll keep that a secret. We don't want upset people with the truth, now do we?
Today, there are about 40,000,000 African Americans living as the most prosperous African people on earth. Compared to a country like Brazil, American-owned slaves had a much higher life expectancy. Do the math. A more than fifty fold increase in the African American population should be sufficient evidence. That's in spite of having one of the highest abortion rates in the world. I'm not suggesting that slavery was good. I'm simply stating the facts. Slavery benefited a very, very small number of people and harmed everyone else.
So, the next time some European sophisticate or American advocate for European sophistication starts talking about those yahoos back in the "colonies" tell them to shut their pie-holes. And then ask them "Has there been a WWIII since the U.S. took the stage as the world's leader?" And then kick the dust off your heels and walk away. I'm just saying.
Mark Magula
Not to be outdone, less than 25 years later, they started a second global war. This time the death toll was 80,000,000, a more than four fold increase in the slaughter. But, that wasn't all. They also gave us the two most pernicious political systems in human history; Communism and Fascism. Both were, contrary to popular belief, Leftist, socialist movements. Communism alone killed about 100,000,000 outside of the two great wars. And, they managed to do so in about 70 years.
This is where Europeans usually bring up slavery, as though slavery was unique to America. Slavery, however, was a global phenomenon, not solely an America one.
"How about genocide against Native Americans?"
It never happened. According to the best existing scholarship, more than 90% of Native Americans died as the result of contagious diseases. This epidemic took its toll within the first few generations of European arrival. It was not, let me repeat, not a planned genocide, unlike those in Russia, China and other Communist bloc countries.
"How about we get back to the issue of slavery?"
The first Africans came to America completely by accident via a Dutch war ship. Within a few decades slavery was legalized in the American colonies. Over the next 200 plus years Americans imported about 375,000 slaves in total.
"Just how many Americans owned slaves? I bet it was a lot!"
Answer - 1.4% of the total population. Of course, some 3000 Blacks owned about 20,000 African slaves in the American colonies, as well. So there's that to consider. It was also Africans selling other Africans into slavery that enabled slavery to exist in the first place. And, now that I think about it, one of the first slave owners in the American colonies was a Black man named Anthony Johnson. But we'll keep that a secret. We don't want upset people with the truth, now do we?
Today, there are about 40,000,000 African Americans living as the most prosperous African people on earth. Compared to a country like Brazil, American-owned slaves had a much higher life expectancy. Do the math. A more than fifty fold increase in the African American population should be sufficient evidence. That's in spite of having one of the highest abortion rates in the world. I'm not suggesting that slavery was good. I'm simply stating the facts. Slavery benefited a very, very small number of people and harmed everyone else.
So, the next time some European sophisticate or American advocate for European sophistication starts talking about those yahoos back in the "colonies" tell them to shut their pie-holes. And then ask them "Has there been a WWIII since the U.S. took the stage as the world's leader?" And then kick the dust off your heels and walk away. I'm just saying.
Mark Magula