Poor Bryan. You were heartbroken by the American Family Association finally having had enough of something you’d written, and pulling down your insane screed against the Native Americans.
Despite your long history of hateful tripe against those you disagree with (primarily Gays and Muslims), the AFA clearly felt you’d gone over the line (or damaged enough potential contributors) by writing about how Native Americans deserved everything that had happened to them at the hands of Europeans because they were savage and pagan and perverted, just like the Canaanites had been. They didn’t even feel that “Unless otherwise noted, the opinions expressed are the author’s and do not necessarily reflect the views of the American Family Association or American Family Radio” disclaimer at the end of the article covered them enough, especially since you’re their “Director of Issue Analysis.”
So here you are, mocked and humiliated. And at this point there’s really only two things you could do: blame it all on the Gays and the Muslims, or else paint it as … well … proof of everything you’ve said.
Thus:
On Tuesday, I posted a column on the settlement of America by Europeans.
Actually, it was a column about the “conquest” of America by Europeans, and how the aboriginal population deserved to have their land conquered — in fact, you reached the odd conclusion that conquest was self-justifying and a sign from God.
The column generated so much intense, vitriolic and profane reaction …
Perhaps because it was so intense, vitriolic, and profane in the first place.
… that it threatened to take on a life of its own, and serve as a distraction to the fundamental mission of AFA, even though when I blog I am speaking only for myself and not for the organization.
Which is a pleasant fiction, but clearly not the truth as the public sees it (or, really, as you probably understand it).
So the reaction to one of your blog posts was so vitriolic that it threatened to “distract” from “the fundamental mission of AFA“? That mission is “to motivate and equip individuals to restore American culture to its moral foundations.” But given how your column was all about how lack of decency and morality and good moral behavior on the part of the Native Americans meant that they deserved to have their land taken from them, how could this be a distraction? and certainly you’ve had plenty of other columns that have drawn “intense, vitriolic, and profane” reaction before. So why take it down?
So we took it down.
If you really are knuckling under to the criticism when trying to teach a pertinent, courageous, vital point that is, in fact, dead center of the AFA’s mission … well, shame on you, Bryan.
But the issue I addressed in the column is an important one, and at some point, a rational discussion and debate about it must be held.
“We’ve taken the argument down (along with all the comments made about it), but I’m going to continue it anyway.” Mixed messaging, Bryan!
The template that the left has generated is that the displacement of indigenous tribes by European colonists and settlers was irredeemably evil.
It’s hardly a “template,” nor is it just “generated” from the “left.” And by “displacement” do you mean extermination, deceit, theft, breaking of repeated treaties and agreements, forcing of populations into marginal land areas (places that the American citizenry didn’t want … at least until they did), and systematic impoverishment of the survivors?
“Irredeemably evil”? I don’t think anything is irredeemable, but I certainly would disagree with your original thesis, Bryan, that the “indigenous tribes’ had it coming to them, just like the Canaanites.
All the land which now comprises the United States was stolen from its rightful owners.
As a gross generalization, yes. Not that the Native Americans themselves were gentle, unconflicted, Pocahontas-like nature lovers who never fought against each other. The total of human history is, arguably, the theft of land (and property, and life) by one group of humans from another. It’s unpleasant, even depressing. But it’s certainly not some divine action prompted and lauded and blessed by God.
Our very presence on this soil is a guilty, tainted presence.
Our national actions of the past taint our nation today. Sin, unless acknowledged, repented, and (if possible) fixed, remains sin. That’s fairly orthodox Christianity, Bryan.
If I killed the previous owner of this house and moved into it, just because I liked the look of the property and wanted to possess it, I might create the loveliest dwelling imaginable, a wonderful home my family and children, a place of refuge and hospitality for my friends, a house of joy that warms the hearts of all around. That wouldn’t make my original action right.
But something tells me, Bryan, you’re going to try and justify it anyway. Even though the AFA apparently decided to drop the controversy.
So the question is whether that template is right, or whether the displacement of indigenous nations was consistent with the laws of nature, nature’s God, and the law of nations and history.
“Laws of nature?” In nature, “red in tooth and claw,” might makes right. The “winners” are the ones who survive. You might find this shocking, Bryan, but that’s called “natural selection.” It’s something those Darwinists go on about all the time. Is that really what you’re arguing for?
The “law of nations and history”? As noted, history is full of stronger people conquering weaker ones, at least for a time. The Moors conquered Spain. The Romans conquered Palestine. The Germans conquered most of Europe. The Russians conquered half of it on the way back. That stuff happens, certainly. But it’s not what we’d call “right” or “moral” or “desireable” or … Godly.
A lot is at stake here. If Americans believe that the entire history of our nation rests on a horribly evil foundation, then there is nothing to be proud of in American history, …
All-or-nothing much, Bryan? The conquest of land from the native populations (which is not just something the United States did starting in the 16th Century, but the Canadians, the Mexicans, and pretty much every other contemporary nation in the Western Hemisphere) is certainly a dark blog in our national heritage, all the darker when it’s denied or explained away by nationalist asshats. It’s not the only part of that heritage, though, and there are many things of which we can be proud.
But I was wrong, Bryan — I was thinking you were missing the Christian point about right not justifying wrong, or sin unacknowledged remaining sin. You were pursuing another, more radical theological point — that one is either pure and blessed and elect of Heaven, or else damned and condemned to Hell. There’s no middle road for you, Bryan, no gray areas.
Of course, that ignores Christian principles of redemption and salvation. Orthodox Christianity would note that nobody deserves by their actions to be rewarded by God … that we all fall short of the mark, and rely upon God’s grace, not to turn our sins into virtues, but to forgive us our sins.
But for sin to be forgiven, it first has to be recognized as such, and repented from. And it sounds like that’s just too scary for you, Bryan. If there’s sin, it must be all-encompassing, all-tainting, and forever degrading and damning. There’s no hope for salvation or redemption … so, instead, you have to pretend like it wasn’t sin in the first place. “He was asking for it!” “Did you see the way she was dressed?” “It’s all part of the laws of nature!”
That’s very sad, Bryan.
… and our president is correct to identify America as the source of all evil in the world and to make a career out of apologizing for her very existence.
Zing! “Not only are you wrong if you think the cultural and physical destruction of the Native American tribes was immoral and unjustified, but that makes you a lacky of that Obama guy we keep railing against.” Never mind it’s utterly laughable that Obama has “identified America as the source of all evil in the world” or is making a “career out of apologizing for her very existence.” The point is, Bryan, you’re trying a not-so-subtle ad hominem attack by turning the position against yours into a straw man for the (presumably hated by your audience) President.
If, however, there is a moral and ethical basis for our displacement of native American tribes, and if our westward expansion and settlement are in fact consistent with the laws of nature, nature’s God, and the law of nations, then Americans have much to be proud of.
I’m amazed by this continuous reference to “the laws of nature” here. By that argument, someone who dies of influenza (or AIDS, or small pox, or cancer, or old age) has had a moral and ethical death because, well, it’s the laws of nature (and nature’s God) at work. Um … really? Does that make antibiotics a tool for our running-dog president to defy nature and nature’s God? Damn Gay Muslims!
This latter view certainly would not compel us to believe that Americans were never guilty of evil themselves. But saying that America was wrong here, or there, is certainly a different thing than saying that the entire American experiment is rooted in evil.
Look! It’s al- or-nothing again! While conceding that there might have been a few Americans who were evil, the idea that America as a whole did something wrong is apparently beyond the pale for you, Bryan. Further, you’ve now recrafted the systematic conquest and resettlement of the North and South American continents (and the roughly simultaneous analog of the Australian continent) as some sort of grand, intentional, planned “experiment,” uniquely (!) “American” (despite starting well before the United States and extending far beyond America’s borders). I suppose in the analogy that you drew, Bryan, between American conquest of the Indians and the Israelites’ conquest of the Canaanites (which we know was blessed because the Bible tells us so), we simply ignore all the other conquest that was going on around it in order to focus on the stars of our morality play.
It’s one thing to have folks throw trash in the stream on occasion, because the trash can be fished out and the water’s purity can be restored. It’s quite another thing for the stream to be polluted at its headwaters. If the stream is toxic from its very source, then everyone who drinks from it drinks poison into his soul, and we certainly should not be bottling this water and shipping it overseas to peoples looking to slake their thirst for a model of liberty, freedom, prosperity and security.
But what about a river that’s polluted midstream? What about taking actions to detoxify and purify the water before drinking of it? What about recognizing that pollution is actually taking place and working to remediate it? Are you suggesting we need more environmental regulations, Bryan?
So this is a conversation that needs to take place. But based on the reaction to my column of Tuesday, America is not mature enough right now for that robust dialogue to occur. Until it is…
“So we need to have this conversation. But we won’t have it now because You Can’t Handle the Truth. So I’ll make it a one-way dialog by justifying my position through my framing of the debate. But we won’t call it that conversation. Which we can’t have today. Because you are all silly, immature lackeys of our presumably Muslim Gay-Loving president who thinks America is evil.”
That’s a bit longer than a tweet, Bryan, but it sure would have saved everyone a lot of time if you’d just left that as the “final word” on the previous post.