November 04, 2004
Savages
We are a nation of savages. That is what we decided last night. We belong to the "most advanced" society in the history of the world, and we decided that we would rather be barbarians, hunched over fire pits, ripping meat off the bones of our enemies, raping our women, howling out at the gods for peace in the afterlife.Posted by Norwood at November 4, 2004 10:47 AMOh, how when this glorious nation began, we believed we knew who the savages were, the Indians, worshipping their mad array of deities, slaughtering each other in wars over hunting grounds, enslaving each other, living in caves and teepees, creating communal existences where each member of a tribe had his or her place and his or her job to contribute to the life of the group. God, how we hated them. How we entered their villages and tried to convert them to the single God. How we massacred them regularly when they would not give up their centuries-old existence in favor of the obvious good and rightness of the European way. Sure, sure, they tried to strike back, but that made our bloodlust even stronger. We white people showed them what savagery was, and it made their bows, arrows, axes, and (later) rifles seem like so many sticks tossed against a brick edifice. King George III loved his gifts of scalps, cut off the Indians skulls by loyal white subjects of Britain.
