ARI with another interesting take:

[I'd bet most people would profit from reading the last two paragraphs first.]

Dear Editor:

The Senate Committee on Indian Affairs is debating whether the United States should formally apologize to Indians for a "long history of official depredations and ill-conceived policies." This proposal should be rejected.

Before Europeans arrived, the scattered tribes occupying North America lived in abject poverty, ignorance, and superstition--not due to any racial inferiority, but because that is how all mankind starts out (Europeans included). The transfer of Western civilization to this continent was one of the great cultural gifts in recorded history, affording Indians almost effortless access to centuries of European accomplishments in philosophy, science, technology, and government. As a result, today's Indians enjoy a capacity for generating health, wealth, and happiness that their Stone Age ancestors could never have conceived.

From a historical perspective, the proper response to such a gift is not resentment but gratitude. America's policies toward the Indians were generally benign, aimed at protecting them from undeserved harm while providing significant material support and encouragement to become civilized. When those policies erred, it was usually by treating Indians collectively, as "nations" entitled to permanent occupancy of semi-sovereign reservations. Instead, Indians should have been treated as individuals deserving full and equal American citizenship in exchange for embracing individual rights, including private ownership of land.

If the United States government were demanding that Indians apologize for the frontier terrorism of their ancestors, as if living members of a particular race could be guilty of their forebears' misdeeds, the demand would (properly) be rejected as racist. For the same reason, American Indians should refuse to be regarded as a race of helpless victims entitled to a collective apology from their fellow citizens.

Thomas A. Bowden

Ayn Rand Institute

2121 Alton Parkway #250
Irvine, CA 92660
(410) 727-4300

Copyright © 2005 Ayn Rand® Institute. All rights reserved.

I'm going to Rendezvous in Cloquet this weekend (but don't look for me Saturday afternoon, should you decide to take a roadtrip, I'll be visiting my sister at her inlaws' in Superior--actually Oakland Township, half a mile from where I grew up; maybe I'll go harass the inhabitants of our former homes, and visit the messes I made, building forts in the woods].

One of the things you learn reenacting, is that there were many pleasures in the old lifestyle. But you also learn that there were many grave dangers. Keeping your babies out of the fire is a serious concern. There were many diseases we no longer have to worry about - any cut could be a death sentence, but, for the most part, anti-biotics and innoculations have solved the worst of them - Smallpox, Polio and Tuberculosis were major killers. We still have flu pandemics, or so they say; we haven't had a really major one since the early sixties. Some say we're due--SARS is the greatest threat today. The AIDS crisis is horrendous in Africa.

But most middle-class Westerners feel pretty secure.

The pleasures of 18th century life were the omnipresence of the normal nighttime sounds of nature, the feeling of accomplishment when you create something useful with your bare hands, and the flavor of meat cooked over a wood fire. Your always solving problems with only your mind and rude hand-tools.

But you come back to the 21st century with a appreciation of the degree to which our modern tools, machinery and computers make our tasks easier. And our medicines make lives like mine possible.