Winning the West

A reader asks whether my argument for the morality of European conquest in "Winning the West" would apply if the Chinese decided they needed more natural resources or room for expansion (see comment). My answer is, "yes, of course!" Japan put this theory into practice on Dec. 7, 1941. We call it Pearl Harbor Day.

China is free to invade North America anytime it chooses. Earnest appeals for peace won't stop them, so we would resort, in the words of Clausewitz, to "diplomacy by other means." America would crush Beijing's invasion fleet in less time than it takes to say "Hiroshima." That part of my post made the point that between nations there is no law, because no higher authority exists to enforce one. Self preservation is the most moral of all acts, and self defense is just another way of stating it. The 2nd Amendment to our Constitution recognizes this imperative by giving each citizen the right "to keep and bear arms."

The morality of survival is obvious to those who value freedom and recognize their duty to sacrifice in its defense. But my post made another important point as well. It is that the Indians benefited greatly when Europeans brought the blessings of civilization to their savage, stone age cultures. They should thank us.

The canard that dead Indians can't benefit ducks the issue. The European conquest of North America was tragically brutal in many ways, but the Indians themselves were barbarians. We defeated them on their own terms. Now the lives of their descendants have the potential to be infinitely superior to the objective misery and squalor of their past, honorable as it was in its time and romanticized as it has been. But the Red Men themselves are responsible to realize what white civilization has to offer. Real warriors rise to the occasion. Japan's noble Samurai certainly did.

We enjoy reading Sir Walter Scott's colorful tales of Ivanhoe and King Arthur's knights, but no one in their right mind would volunteer to return to the Middle Ages, so very dark in more than name. We urge those who value truth to study the native Americans' actual pre-Columbian way of life, as we have, and compare it with these welcome, worthy citizens' vastly greater opportunities in the 21st Century. One can be content enough in a dugout or tepee, knowing no better. But when we do know better, we recognize the waste. The time has come to shake out that old buffalo robe and create a moth-free Happy Hunting Ground.