• @JacksonLamb@lemmy.world
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      02 months ago

      Put it this way. No one in their right mind would have their healthy teeth pulled out without anaesthetic and sell them, if they had any real choice.

      We know that he “bought” teeth from slaves, and that he was a slave owner, we also know that he had dentures made of other people’s teeth. No one knows for sure that the teeth he took were for his own use or from the people he enslaved himself, but it seems probable. More info here.

  • @MasterBlaster@lemmy.world
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    02 months ago

    Okay, fella - take a few breaths and relax. People are products of their times. The better ones fight for virtues and values they see as better at the time. They see an opportunity others do not and rally people around those.

    Others they don’t see and continue wi5h those norms, or they see the wrongs but don’t believe they can rally people around fixing them.

    Do not demonize people in the past who do not meet current norms. There will never be anybody who will meet those standards.

    Judge them against the standards of their peers.

    What if MLK did not support feminists? Would he now be considered scum, thus negating everything good he ever did?

    Heck, i don’t know if he had a stance on women’s rights explicitly. Maybe he didn’t. Is he evil if he didn’t?

    • @dwindling7373@feddit.it
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      2 months ago

      People are products of their times.

      You hear this a lot, but then you and look at “the times” and find arguments in favor of cultural integration dating back thousand of years.

      It is true that people are the products of their time, but those times are not as radically distant moral wise as it is usually assumed.

    • snooggums
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      2 months ago

      Do not demonize people in the past who do not meet current norms. There will never be anybody who will meet those standards.

      “Nazis were just a product of their time!”

      • @MasterBlaster@lemmy.world
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        02 months ago

        So you believe the entirety of the United States’ existance is an affront to humanity as it’s very foundation is as evil as Nazism, right? Nothing Amerixa ever stood for was any better rhan thw worst of humanity.

        It is telling that you can so lightly equate my comment to waving off Nazism as if across the developed world Nazism was the norm of the time. Yes, most peoples in the European culture were naturally Nazis, and only a few morally sound people were against it. I see your troll… And I set your straw man on fire.

        • Horse {they/them}
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          02 months ago

          So you believe the entirety of the United States’ existence is an affront to humanity as it’s very foundation is as evil as Nazism, right?

          considering that

          1. it was founded on genocide
          2. it was built by slavery
          3. it still has not completely outlawed slavery
          4. lebensraum was explicitly based on manifest destiny
          5. it has killed far more people than the nazis ever managed

          yes, the usa is an affront to humanity and is on par with the third reich

    • @taiyang@lemmy.world
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      02 months ago

      Product of the times isn’t a great way to put it, but you can certainly make the argument that most people have shades of grey morality.

      Science can back you up, too, as I teach social psychology and when you dig in, you find that normative human nature is pretty complex but generally very supportive for in-group and mildly empathetic even with strangers. It’s only when you dehumanize a group do you get the worst behavior, and in all four cases you see that, be it slaves or indigenous people.

      When you look at those times, it’s people who recognized their humanity that ended up in the just side of history.

    • OBJECTION!
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      02 months ago

      Yeah, nobody at that time knew slavery was wrong. Well, I mean, except for all the slaves, obviously, they knew, but there was no way for them to get their perspective heard because they were cut out of the political process. Who cut them out of the process? Well, uh, well you see…

    • Dessalines
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      02 months ago

      There were plenty of peers, even UK and European ones, that opposed the US colonial project. Read Losurdo - Liberalism, a counter-history if you want an in-depth look at the debates of the time.

    • Cowbee [he/they]
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      02 months ago

      Lots of “what-ifs” to dismiss people highlighting historical genocidal slavers.

    • @eldavi@lemmy.ml
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      What if MLK did not support feminists? Would he now be considered scum, thus negating everything good he ever did?

      he literally addressed the national organization for women in 1966 and espoused their ideals.

      giving a pass to the people from history is problematic because the same ideals of progressiveness that we pride ourselves on today were present in the past and people knew that it existed; they simply weren’t as popularly received back then as they are now and anyone espousing them back then were treated like tankies of their own time.

      giving them a pass only helps to excuse regressivism and anti-progressive sentiment like both the republicans and democrats (respectively) practice today; this is a key reason why we have trump as president today and probably jd vance tomorrow.

      • @MasterBlaster@lemmy.world
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        02 months ago

        Excellent job taking what I wrote and reframing it to make it appear i asserted something I did not.

        Reading the room, I can see this forum is filled with people who have an axe to grind and have already decided I am a “part of the problem” because I had the audacity to suggest that we should not demonize the American founders.

        Good luck finding a nation that has any redeeming qualities, given that no founders are unimpeachable for anything.

        • @eldavi@lemmy.ml
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          02 months ago

          you’re missing the point and no nation’s founder’s character is unassailable.

          we give grand canyon sized passes to these specific founders to white wash their truly horrific behaviors that we know about; but don’t do the same thing for leaders that we consider our enemies and that’s indicative of the propaganda that we keep perpetuating when we repeat this whitewashing to each other; as well as the reason why we’re descending into fascism.

          no one is immune to propaganda so, yes, you are part of the problem like i am; the only difference is that me and most of the people commenting on this post is aware of this specific propaganda and you’re not; hopefully unwittingly so.

          • @MasterBlaster@lemmy.world
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            I find it ironic that you think I am unaware of some propaganda, presumably related to this thread.

            I learned about the imperfect personalities of our founders and their peers in elementary school. No passes were given. I also learned that many of the founders sought to explicitly outlaw slavery, but compromised in order to get unity vs. king Charles and a viable nation.

            Had they not done that, we would have been divided against an overwhelmingly powerful existential threat and probably would have lost. It is an example of making incremental progress and postponing a conflict until later so that there will be a later.

            You are missing my point. “Canceling” historical figures or rewriting history because “bad” is a disservice to everyone. Acknowledging both the good and bad is the better approach. We learn by studying history, identifying the failures and successes precisely to learn from them and hopefully do better.

            Our current president is an example of what happens when we don’t learn from history. I don’t know any reasonable person who whitewashed our founders. For those people, you need to look at movements that seek authoritarian control over a population, the people who follow them, and their victims who were denied the necessary education in history and critical thinking.

            Additionally, I think most on this thread need to brush up on logical fallacies. Even the best of us forget some of them, but it is endemic in these forums.

    • @yunxiaoli@sh.itjust.works
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      02 months ago

      Okay. There were staunch abolitionists across the US and especially in the UK. Many of whom were operating on the basis of equality, i.e. not the American belief that black people are a subspecies that were sent from heaven to serve whites, like all the leaders of the US though before the 1900s.

      So by your own method, Washington was a disgusting human being, one would argue a demon.

      • @MasterBlaster@lemmy.world
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        02 months ago

        That statement does not make any sense. You need to review the concept of ‘logic’. This is another excellent example of twisting a statement to discredit the person who said it rather than addressing the concept put forth by that person.

      • @MasterBlaster@lemmy.world
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        02 months ago

        Really? You think because people existed who held our view of what is right means all who did not have an epiphany, and whole-heartedly agree, are horrible subhuman beings?

        • @yunxiaoli@sh.itjust.works
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          02 months ago

          That humans are human?

          Yeah, I’m willing to draw the line in the sand there. Equality in the face of nobility (i.e. class vs race based discrimination) is more fair and equal than the view espoused by our founding fathers. But all caste systems have always been bad. Universally. And no matter the culture or time period with this idea, you’ll find a loud minority or a large majority of people that disagree with the caste system in place.

          Because that’s how they work, a minority can only benefit, and are the only ones that need it to work, so the less stratified they are the more people are against it but are rendered powerless by the system in place.

          Every human that didn’t believe in equality, and by that I just mean that all humans are human, is a bad person.

          For fucks sake orangutans got their name because we as a species treated them as human at one point. If we can do that to a fucking monkey there’s no epiphany needed to do it to actual humans.

          • @MasterBlaster@lemmy.world
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            02 months ago

            Your prose belies your ideology, which indicates said ideology depends on defining those who don’t fulfill said ideology as sub-human. So far, most responses have been attempts to indirectly assert that the idea that people who were wrong about some things cannot possibly have been right about anything (and by the way, any who think otherwise are just as horrible).

            I am quite aware there is nothing i could possibly say to get anybody to address the actual issue i raised, never mind “win” a debate over it.

      • @stickly@lemmy.world
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        02 months ago

        There are people today rightly pointing out the looting of the global South by the global North, and yet nobody in the north is volunteering to give it all back. What disgusting human beings, if they had any decency they’d give it back and ritually kill themselves

        • @yunxiaoli@sh.itjust.works
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          02 months ago

          That line only works when most of the global north aren’t more poor than those in the south.

          Most people in the western world do want to remove the stolen wealth and return it, since they’ve never seen it either.

          • @stickly@lemmy.world
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            ??? Do they really though? I rarely see the sentiment that literally all ill-gotten gains forming the foundation of their nation’s power and stability should be returned (and definitely not from people benefitting). Mostly it’s just tossing a few cultural artifacts, some meager reparations, and cutting back on some luxury like chocolate because it makes them feel bad. That’s the same as freeing a few slaves after you profit off them for your whole life (and we established that makes you a demon).

            Or are you arguing about injustices in classes? If everyone being exploited by the rich agreed to dismantle that system it would be done by now. Doesn’t matter if you’re poor, you participate in the problem.

            You probably just want your exploitation to be marginally less than the guys on the bottom, you don’t care about the core issue. Therefore being opposed to the compete dismantling of our current economic system is regressive and 90% of earth’s population are demons

            • @yunxiaoli@sh.itjust.works
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              My dude I’m dual citizen Chinese and us, stealing from the rich and building the fundamentals of society equally is kinda my jam, even if someone did fuck up and make me a us citizen by default.

              The American working class, despite making far more than their peers in the global South, are usually more poor than their peers in the global South. Home ownership is a myth and favelas are banned here; you’ll not only never retire but even if you manage to get to retirement age all your money is going to go to medical care. You might have a car but you need it to live since there’s more distance between your house and the only grocery store than there is between most villages in poor countries. Hell all the wealth the US stole still has more people living near open sewage lines than any country in South America. Shit even the cops are more corrupt than those in the south but you can’t even bribe them since they’re paid so much by the rich to protect their property.

              The American poor are happy to give up the wealth their country stole, because they never saw any of it.

        • @MasterBlaster@lemmy.world
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          02 months ago

          Perhaps I’m not seeing the sarcasm in this. The level of hatred one has to have for a whole population to genuinely want them all killed in disgrace reminds me of something that happened in recent history several times… hmm… what could that be? Cambodia, Serbia, Germany… hmm.

          Mighty high horse there. Got a mirror? Consider using it.

  • @TommySoda@lemmy.world
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    02 months ago

    You could look at any country in the world and find leaders that were just as bad and even worse throughout history. I think the takeaway should be that shitty people exist. Some of it is a product of the times, some of it just being awful people. Shitty people have and always will exist.

        • @argon@lemmy.today
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          02 months ago

          And then they would have removed them later. Just like all the statues of Adolf Hitler, which no longer exist.

          • @stickly@lemmy.world
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            02 months ago

            Lmao what the fuck is this take? Somebody tell Egypt to start tearing down the pyramids. There are 1000s of Roman monuments still standing that celebrate specific conquests of slavers. Why are there still statues of shitty imperial colonizers all over Europe?

            You only get your blood-monuments torn down when your state is systematically destroyed.

    • Cowbee [he/they]
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      02 months ago

      The US Empire is definitely one of the worst States to exist in history, though, consistently.

    • @GrayBackgroundMusic@lemm.ee
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      02 months ago

      This is an ml community. Anything that praises the USA or normalizes it (that is, reducing the awfulness) is gonna get down votes.

    • @UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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      02 months ago

      The Republican Party was predicated on continuous western expansion. It was the successor to the Free Soil Party in the west and what was left of the Whigs in the East.

      That necessarily meant seizing more land from American Natives and distributing it to Settlers. Much of the Union Army, before and after the Civil War, was focused on decimating the Native population and securing new tracks of free land for settlers. Lincoln inherited that mandate when he took office and pursued it as zealously as any Republican before or since.

  • @rational_lib@lemmy.world
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    02 months ago

    Teddy Roosevelt never said “The only good indian is a dead indian.” That quote is typically associated with Philip Sheridan.

    A number of sources claim a similar quote (“I don’t go so far as to think that the only good Indians are the dead Indians, but I believe nine out of every 10 are…") alleged to be from an 1886 speech in New York, but this still goes against how he treated native americans generally and I can’t find the original speech so I’m a bit suspicious of this as well.

  • @bricklove@midwest.social
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    02 months ago

    Not pictured: the giant, shitty looking pile of rubble under them.

    They just blasted chunks off the mountain and left the mess behind

    • @Stalinwolf@lemmy.ca
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      02 months ago

      My wife and I found ourselves near Mt. Rushmore by happenstance durin a road trip several years back. We knew the history, but stopped in to see it for ourselves. We found it to be extremely shitty and underwhelming. The natural area behind the monument was incredible, and I absolutely understand why the indigenous people believed this place to be sacred, but the front was small, tacky, and depressing. I wish I could refund our admission and give it to some chill natives at a gas station instead.

        • @Stalinwolf@lemmy.ca
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          02 months ago

          Internet says there’s no admission, so I must have misremembered that part. We did look around the gift shop a bit.

          • @x00z@lemmy.world
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            02 months ago

            Sadly I wouldn’t have put it past the US.

            But yeah gift shops and stuff around it is the tourist norm.

  • @doingthestuff@lemy.lol
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    02 months ago

    Just a little reminder that governments have killed more people than any other entity and it isn’t even close. You could try to point at religion - and that history is also fucked - but even if you exclude “holy wars” waged by religious government leaders, religious killing still doesn’t add up to what has been done by governments where religion wasn’t really a factor. The proletariat must not be disarmed. You might trust your current government, but give it a generation (or even an election) and things could be very different.

    • @stickly@lemmy.world
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      02 months ago

      What a weird, self defeating line of thought. Yes, wielding the collective power of a larger group of people will do more damage. Was anyone under the impression that a loose tribe of 30 dudes could physically accomplish the same feats as 30 million?

    • @RedFrank24@lemmy.world
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      02 months ago

      I wouldn’t call that a particularly insightful observation. Ever since humanity settled down in agricultural societies there have been governments, and with governments come a monopoly on force, so obviously governments have killed more people than anything else. Any organisation of humans is gonna have at least some threat of lethal force backing it.

      • @PolandIsAStateOfMind@lemmy.ml
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        02 months ago

        I wouldn’t call that a particularly insightful observation.

        I would even say it’s incredibly trivial. But even making such observations points to the fact that such person is somehow treating that as apparently undesirable, wanting what, going back to hunting-gathering?

  • @VeryVito@lemmy.ml
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    02 months ago

    I understand the point, but as an exercise, try to find four historical figures without glaring character defects. Eventually, I figure we’ll all be either judged or forgotten in time.

    • @PolandIsAStateOfMind@lemmy.ml
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      Yeah every political leader have little oopsies like being called “town destroyer” by the people which land they invaded and towns they destroyed. They also were proud of it, used it to invade even more land, and their grandpas were also called that because it’s their family and nation thing to do for generations.

    • @argon@lemmy.today
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      We only learn about the ones with defects, because they are the most interesting. Most people in history were fine.

      One historic figure who had no known defects: Alan Turing

      • @stickly@lemmy.world
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        02 months ago

        Its telling that your example is someone explicitly kept out of the public eye during his life. Basically any account of Turing is from personal friends or his professional work. He was a generally good person and great scientist that helped defeat the nazis, but he’s only celebrated by progressives for his persecution as a gay man.

        I struggle to find any major social cause he publicly championed or records of his views on controversial topics. I’d like to be wrong, but it’s easy to not have a mixed record as a private citizen. Nobody was grilling him to free slaves or asking his opinion on systemic injustice.

        Einstein is a contemporary comparable. He was a great scientist, opposed the nazis, and by most accounts a decent guy. He was even had to flee his homeland to escape persecution as a jew. Clearly lots of parallels. The main difference being he was an idol in his own day so we have way more first hand accounts.

        Turns out he was a socialist with varying views on communism, had shifting support for zionism and wrote rascist shit in his travel diaries. You could probably find a quote like Roosevelt’s and slap it on a picture of him, that doesn’t sum up his life.

        • @SLVRDRGN@lemmy.world
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          02 months ago

          I’m not certain many people even know he was gay. I’ve never heard of this. Interesting info tho- thanks.

          • OBJECTION!
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            Despite his contributions, he was forced to undergo chemical castration because of his sexuality, so it’s a pretty big deal.

        • luluu
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          I can tell you that Turing is not only celebrated because he was gay. That man is one of the fathers of computer science as we know it today. His Turin machines are the basis for a lot of theoretical computer science

          • @stickly@lemmy.world
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            Again, that is an incredible technical achievement but it’s not inherently good or bad. A ton of problems today come from the proliferation of tech, maybe we’d be better off if he studied something else. Coming from someone who studied and can professionally appreciate his work: it’s not exactly discovering lifesaving vaccines.

            He’s a relatable role model, especially for people who can are unfairly persecuted today. But that’s not the same as being a notable figure playing a role on the historical stage.

    • TacoButtPlug
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      02 months ago

      Obama bombed a wedding of civilians not to mention hid Afghanistan casualty reports, was a part of the death of half a million Iraqi casualties, was part of the Syrian hell that targeted mainly children with fatalities at 191,000 by 2014, then there was Yemen and saber rattling on Iran and full support of Israel. Carter sadly oversaw the East Timor genocide at 25% of the population or 170,000 killed.

    • acargitz
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      I dunno Barack Obama and Jimmy Carter, seem to have been personally good people. That’s two recent US presidents. Then I guess I would add some super low hanging fruit like Nelson Mandela, Frederick the Great, John II Komnenos, any of the Five Good Emperors, Cyrus the Great, Ashoka, and one could keep going.

      • Cowbee [he/they]
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        02 months ago

        Carter supported Pol Pot and Obama was a monster to people in the Middle East, neither can be considered to be “good people.”

      • @Packet@lemmy.ml
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        Obama?? Obama??? The Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya Obama? You must be joking, right?

        • acargitz
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          OP talked about “glaring character defects”.

          These are policy failures and state crimes, arguably attributed to the American state as a whole, and the long term US imperialist policies, rather to the singular person of the president.

          You might have noticed that I added Frederick the Great in the list, which tells you exactly what my understanding of the challenge was.

        • @Zerush@lemmy.ml
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          02 months ago

          Without the US, the world would be much more peaceful today, most of the current wars and terrorisms are caused by US interventions, directly and indirectly.

        • @CaptPretentious@lemmy.world
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          02 months ago

          That is an incredible list. Did a find for a few things I personally knew about and have always been disappointed in Obama for… and sure enough found them. First one I searched, was extending the Bush tax cuts on the rich. I remember Bill O’Reilly saying “Oh, if I have to pay taxes, I’m going to have to fire people, and that’s on Obama, so tax cuts means less jobs!” (so glad Bill got canned) and Obama just fucking caved like a spineless coward.

      • @jacksilver@lemmy.world
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        02 months ago

        I mean we absolutely could call out their flaws too, someone with that much power/responsibility is going to do abhorrent things (drone strikes with Obama being an easy one to bring up). Just like the four on Mount Rushmore these things aren’t what we typically call out because they either were “of the times” or not on the same scale as their accomplishments.

        • @bane_killgrind@slrpnk.net
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          02 months ago

          The drone strikes thing is a bad example. If he didn’t touch it, individual combat units could use drones with impunity. He required drone strikes to be approved by his office.

          Tell me if you had the choice between sending in boots to kill a guy, or drone strike, would you really ever risk your guys getting shot?

          He added red tape, the minimum thing he could do. I’ll agree with criticism that he did the bare minimum, but all these comments about this frame it like he was horny for drones. That’s reductive and misleading.

          • @jacksilver@lemmy.world
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            02 months ago

            Your comment is exactly the point I was trying to make. The world is complex and imperfect, so anyone with the power/responsibility of a president is going to do controversial things.

            • @bane_killgrind@slrpnk.net
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              02 months ago

              Oh I get it.

              Yeah running countries is a series of shitty compromises, unless you are small enough to gain consensus.

        • Stern
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          02 months ago

          They called Obama the Deporter in Chief. Trump wishes he could get a nickname like that. Carter himself was a nice guy but his below average presidency led to Reagan.

      • @AbsoluteChicagoDog@lemm.ee
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        02 months ago

        Obama lied to the left to gain power, that’s enough to disqualify him right there.

        Also Washington was the greatest president in our history because he willingly let go of his power. He could have been a king but he chose to step down instead to set future precedent.

        • @Wilco@lemm.ee
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          02 months ago

          Yes! Buying dentures made from slave teeth is overshadowed by the fact this man did what very few would have done by setting power aside.

          Would we get labeled by history as evil because we might have bought a product from China made in a work camp?

          • Dessalines
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            2 months ago

            Washington was the richest man in the US at the time, and had the most to gain from indigenous eviction. The Iroquios named him “the town destroyer”, for burning down dozens of their cities. He also owned slaves and supported the institution just like most presidents after him (I think 10 presidents in a row were southern slave-holders like himself).

            And also, its the US, not China, that has slave labor camps. Just because an anti-semitic evangelical christian (adrian zenz) who works for the US government claims that China has forced labor, doesn’t make it so. These claims have been debunked over and over.

            • acargitz
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              02 months ago

              And also, its the US, not China, that has slave labor camps. Just because an anti-semitic evangelical christian (adrian zenz) who works for the US government claims that China has forced labor, doesn’t make it so. These claims have been debunked over and over.

              China has forced labour, according the the UN Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, including its causes and consequences: https://docs.un.org/en/A/HRC/51/26

              • Dessalines
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                02 months ago

                I looked that doc, and they source debunked Zenz reports, and WUC. So nothing new.

                • acargitz
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                  02 months ago

                  If the UN fucking rapporteur deems it reliable enough, and if the UN HRC hasn’t found reason to retract this report, then I have zero reason to believe some internet rando that it has been debunked. For all I know, your one liner responses are no different from pro-Zionist hasbara casting doubt on UN reports on Palestine.

            • @Wilco@lemm.ee
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              02 months ago

              No, China has forced labor camps.

              The US has prison work camps, but most prisoners don’t have to work if they dont want to, it isn’t forced.

          • @pebbles@sh.itjust.works
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            02 months ago

            Fr, like look into the companies that get you your fruits and vegetables. You can’t escape unethical consumption.

  • @LeninOnAPrayer@lemm.ee
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    2 months ago

    I hate the “it was a different time” excuse for these awful human beings. It falls apart if you do any reading from the time. Plenty of people wrote about how shit these people were AT THE TIME. Our morals haven’t expanded somehow. Our systems of control have changed to be more sustainable. The ruling class learned that slavery was not sustainable. That’s it.

    Also, this doesn’t give an excuse for the leaders of today. The slave owners of the past are not “less caring” than the current ruling class is. The current ruling class has just better distanced themselves from direct acts of violence while expanding their ability to perform mass violence. Slavery has evolved into mass incarceration for example. We’ve just normalized our violence into different systems and outsourced a lot of it to the global south.

    If you’re a Billionaire today you are the equivalent of a slave owner of the past with significantly more violence and control than a slave owner could ever dream of.

    • JackbyDev
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      02 months ago

      Also, don’t ignore shipping jobs overseas to where labor might as well be slavery if it technically isn’t.

    • OBJECTION!
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      02 months ago

      I agree with most of this, but slave owners could dream of a lot of violence.

  • @BlameTheAntifa@lemmy.world
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    02 months ago

    303 natives were convicted and sentenced to death following the Dakota War of 1862. Lincoln actually commuted the sentences of 264 of those natives, allowing the convictions to stand only for those he believed personally engaged in the murder of innocent women and children.

    Therefore, the last one is deliberately and intentionally misleading.

    • @Randomgal@lemmy.ca
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      02 months ago

      He didn’t kill ALL the innocent, whose land he stole and whose relatives he murdered. Only those that dated fight back.

      Yeah, sounds like Trump.

      • @RowRowRowYourBot@sh.itjust.works
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        02 months ago

        He didn’t steal any land. The battles fought between Natives and non-native populations were rarely a fight that had “good” vs “evil” sides.

        They executed those that wantonly murdered innocent people. It tirns out murdering people for their food, goods, and horses is something the government did not want to encourage.

        • @Fidel_Cashflow@lemmy.ml
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          02 months ago

          It tirns out murdering people for their food, goods, and horses is something the government did not want to encourage

          unless you’re a settler, then it’s called “manifest destiny”

        • @Randomgal@lemmy.ca
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          2 months ago

          No, they were, very much. Europeans were invaders, taking land that didn’t belong to them by force. The government explicitly encouraged murder and turned a blind eye to any abuses. If you don’t want people to defend their land and avenge the love domes you murder, maybe don’t invade and ethnically cleanse the are to begin with?

          Do you also think Russia v. Ukraine or Israel’s genocide don’t have “evil” vs “good” sides?

          Because if you’re invading and murdering innocent people, its a clear cut for most people.

    • @UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      The Dakota War came out of a strategic starvation campaign imposed by the Union Army over Sioux Territory. The original tribes had been forced off the productive soil around the Minnesota River and displaced into barren wasteland. Subsequent crop failure and long winter made trading for foodstuffs from their home territories the only means of survival. And the settlers took maximum advantage, deliberately scamming and price gouging the Sioux for the remains of their family wealth. This, after a series of treaties had been casually violated from administration to administration.

      The war was quite literally a fight for survival by the Sioux. Lincoln’s largess in hanging only the young men directly involved in the raid did nothing to prevent the Sioux population from continuing its rapid decline, as the surviving elders were left to starve to death in the wilderness and the children were forced into Christian schools notorious for brutalizing and killing the kidnapped youths.

      • @beejboytyson@lemmy.world
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        02 months ago

        OK, but america had already been established. You have to ask who were the groups that pushed those policies. AoC is part of the machine that invades countries doesn’t mean she advocates for it.

        Something stuck out to me in your response and that’s the religious aspect of the oppression.

  • DFX4509B
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    2 months ago

    Carter was a pretty good person, at least post-Presidency, can’t really speak on how he was in the White House though.

    Reagan, otoh, was irredeemable all the way through, given while he was in the White House, that guy effectively destroyed the middle class, created the current disaster that is unaffordable post-secondary education, and created the current credit score system among other atrocities, not to mention that whole Contra business.

    • rokae
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      02 months ago

      For Carter the worst thing I know is that alot of the free iran Iranian people really hate Carter for his actions in the Whitehouse and blame him for the current oppressive Iranian regime. I don’t really think that was something malicious on his part, just a policy mistake.

      • @inb4_FoundTheVegan@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        They aren’t wrong! Carter may have been the best president post office, but he is also the American most responsible for the religious dictatorship that took over Iran and much of the middile east.

        I’m a leftist, but after finishing “Reading Lolita In Tehran” and watching the PBS documentary “Taken Hostage” I understood completely how Reagan defeated him in a crushing landslide. The outpouring of grief after Carters death was difficult to stomach understanding the damage he had done. Yes the man built houses and gave generously late in life, but that’s because he knew he had a lot to make up for it. The man destabilized several nations, including his own, with entirely foreseeable negligence.

      • @easily3667@lemmus.org
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        02 months ago

        What does that mean? The name Carter doesn’t show up on the Wikipedia page for timor from what I can find.

            • @Dengalicious@lemmygrad.ml
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              02 months ago

              I’m sure you’d have more fun on the Daily Stormer or 4chan as you clearly feel the right to talk about things you are ignorant of. Keep your mouth shut about things you don’t know about.

              • @easily3667@lemmus.org
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                2 months ago

                Methinks you might protest too much about other people being nazis. You seem well, well versed in where nazis hang out and what reading nazis like to do. I hope you’re not secretly a nazi hiding out in lemmygrad.

                If it’s not clear cause youre not the sharpest, I’m saying you’re just another nazi.

          • @ChonkyOwlbear@lemmy.world
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            02 months ago

            JIMMY CARTER: “Well, as you may know, I had a policy when I was president of not selling weapons if it would exacerbate a potential conflict in a region of the world, and some of our allies were very irate about this policy. And I have to say that I was not, you know, as thoroughly briefed about what was going on in East Timor as I should have been. I was more concerned about other parts of the world then.”

            https://www.democracynow.org/2025/1/10/jimmy_carter_indonesia_east_timor_genocide

            That sounds like a completely believable explanation to me. I can completely believe that that the military advisors didn’t give him the full picture of what was happening there.

            • @Grapho@lemmy.ml
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              02 months ago

              From the article you linked.

              The CIA, in the spring of 1977 and into 1978, told the Carter administration that Indonesia was literally running out of weapons, running out of bullets and bombs, because of the intensity of its bombardment of East Timor, and that the Suharto regime was requesting a doubling of military assistance so it could more effectively prosecute that war. And in 1978, the Carter administration actually increased military sales to Indonesia, including the provision of ground attack fighters, such as OV-10 Broncos, A-4 and F-5 ground attack fighters, which the administration knew would be used to bomb and attack the defenseless civilian population of East Timor.

              What’s more, let’s pretend to be the most gullible person in the world, totally unaware of how the US has historically operated, and take Carter at his word. Was anyone prosecuted for lying to the president? Was anyone court martialed, did anyone in the CIA, State Department, or Department of Defense face any sort of legal repercussions? No?

              Then I guess the US must have been pretty satisfied with the outcome, to not make any provisions to ensure it wouldn’t happen again or even punish those who led to it. And of course they were, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon and Northrop Grumman must have made a literal killing.

              • @easily3667@lemmus.org
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                2 months ago

                So you’re moving goalposts from the original claim “Carter oversaw east Timor” to “maybe someone in the CIA should have been prosecuted” and “the military industrial complex is bad”?

                Big shift if true.

                A shift from actually new information to “turns out the bad guys are bad, guys”

                • @Grapho@lemmy.ml
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                  02 months ago

                  Ah, so you’re not actually interested in learning, but in sealioning.

                  That’s cool, I’ve been around democrats before.

            • OBJECTION!
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              02 months ago

              Of course, the classic “don’t ask, don’t tell” of the national security state. The careerists don’t want oversight and the president wants plausible deniability so they’re left to just do whatever tf they want with no democratic accountability whatsoever.

              • @easily3667@lemmus.org
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                I know you want to imagine something darker, but once you get your first job you’ll realize how very very very very easy it is for simple things to slip through the cracks, let alone complex things like a conflict on the other side of the planet from you in a region your country hasn’t traditionally cared about.

                • OBJECTION!
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                  02 months ago

                  And that in itself is a reason why the intelligence community cannot be allowed to exist in its current form.

          • @easily3667@lemmus.org
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            2 months ago

            (1) don’t think for a second Im treating a geocities site as a real source

            (2) Carter’s name is not on that page. I saw “oversaw” as the claim. If he oversaw, his name goes on the page. His name is not on the page. Ex: Kissinger is on the page, and is a war criminal and he should rot in hell.

            • @Grapho@lemmy.ml
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              1. You don’t have to treat it as a source, that’s why they link to sources. Being posted by NBC or NYT makes no difference to the validity of the sources. Learn to fucking read.

              2. Kissinger worked for Carter. Did he get executed? Did he get jailed? Oh, he got even more influence? Then Carter is guilty for approving.