--- Mario Goveia <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > >You are free to believe any version you please, just >don't try to ram it down my throat when there are >other competing versions that I choose to believe >which make more sense to me. >
Who is ramming anything down your throat? I do not just believe anything, if it is not backed by facts. I always choose to remain agnostic. I ask you, Why do you choose to believe certain versions and not others? Why do they make more sense to you? > >Your question about European historians being biased >against their own kind is just plain silly. > Why is it silly? > >Europeans are not monolithic, nor do they all have >similar opinions. > I am talking about facts, not opinions. What facts convince you that some European historians are biased, and why? > >There are some Europeans who are still trying to claim >that Hitler's holocaust never happened. > What distinguishes these people from those who claim that the Amerindian holocaust (mass killing of defenseless people of a different kind) never happened? > >I just don't believe there was any systematic mass >killing of defenseless people by the European >settlers in North America, any more than than there >was mass killing of defenseless people in any >historical expansionist period, going back to Roman >and Greek and Ottoman times, and even the Huns and >Barbarians. > Do you have any facts to back your assertions? Or is this also what you choose to believe because it makes sense to you? Do you deny the Armenian genocide committed by the Turks, as well? > >The point is that there were expansionist periods >throughout history. The Roman Empire and Alexander >ring a bell? Obviously those who were conquered were >treated "unfairly". > I am sorry, I still don't see any point being made here. Are expansionism and mass killing of defenseless people of a different kind (genocide/holocaust) mutually exclusive? > >What I am objecting to is revisionism being applied >to the settling of North America, with incendiary >terms like "genocide" and "holocaust" and incredible >claims of small pox infected blankets. > Please provide some facts (not opinions) to back your claims of revisionism, and the incredibility of small pox infected blankets (in the specific case of General Amherst, Colonel Bouquet and Captain Ecuyer). > >For this to make sense all the Europeans would have >to have had small pox. > Not true at all. Only the soldiers involved in distributing the blankets need to have had small pox. Moreover, it has been documented that because of frequent epidemics nearly 90% of the susceptible population of the Old World had already suffered from small pox. Please also note that the most severe form of small pox had a mortality rate of 25 to 30% in all exposed populations, including the European population (for the less severe form it was 1%). In contrast, in the Amerindian population mortality from this disease was considerably higher (perhaps, more than 50%). The Amerind population of Dominican Republic, for instance, declined from 3 million to just 125 in a very short period of time because of small pox. > >As I said before, believe such stuff if you want to. >I just think that such claims are pure baloney. > As I said above, I do not just believe anything, if it is not backed by facts. I always choose to remain agnostic. I ask you again, what facts convince you that such claims are baloney? Cheers, Santosh
