Yes, We Can Be Thankful

One of the things that really annoys me about the "Thanksgiving as celebration of genocide" nonsense is the utter lack of historical appreciation of what people do.

The idea that Europeans descended on peace-loving Native Americans living in harmony with nature and each other and then slaughtered and conquered them in a unique sin in the annals of humanity puts Native Americans in a separate line of development as humans from Europeans (and everyone else).

Imagine seeing the European Union today for the first time with their military weakness and decades of peace and pacifism, and assuming that this is how Europe has always been, without the understanding of the centuries of bloodshed that led to the era you viewed.

Similarly, Native Americans in North America (with the Aztec exception completely memory-holed) are seen by the nonsense peddlers as peace-loving people sitting around smoking weed and enjoying nature when--POW!--Europe wiped them out.

Yes, Europeans nearly did that. As they did to each other for centuries.

And the Europeans did what the Native Americans did to each other. Do you really believe that the Native Americans who existed at the time of contact with the first colonists were anything but the victors of past centuries of conflict with other Native Americans?

Again, ask the victims of the Aztecs if you wish.

And when the Europeans arrived, they were seen as a source of help in the competition between Indian groups. (Tip to Instapundit. And yes, 1491 was a fascinating book.)

Just as some Africans worked with Europeans to gain advantage over other Africans.

Sadly for Native Americans, long isolation made them vulnerable to the diseases that Africans were immune to. So their strategy had a fatal flaw that doomed them.

What happened to the Native Americans was a tragedy. And based on our standards today, quite wrong. Evil, even. But what happened then was how the world was then. And everybody acted that way, expanding where they could and dying off when they lost.

Ask the Carthaginians if you wish.

If the Mongols had had the advantage of new disease crippling their enemies, do you think they would have stopped before conquering the entire Eurasian landmass?

So get over the self-flagellating nonsense of condemning the European colonization of the Americas as so uniquely evil that we can't celebrate the result today of freedom and/or prosperity that is expanding across the planet in place of the despotism and struggle for existence that once defined human life.

Have some Turkey and gravy, enjoy the Lions game on TV, and be a little Goddamned thankful for once in your pathetic life embracing victimhood.

PRE-PUBLICATION NOTE: After I wrote this I found a post that I could have simply linked to!