Andrew Jackson vs. Hitler.

[Quasimod0]

Hitler was worse. Both made poor choices though.

 

[Kahran Ramsus]

This is true but if you look at it percentage wise it was pretty bad. Ethnic cleansing is slightly better than genocide but it's still terrible.

I don't disagree. Florida has never forgiven Jackson for what he did to the state.

I'm just saying that if I was given a choice to go to Oklahoma (even if I only had a two in three chance of making it) and going to a gas chamber, and fighting back wasn't an option, I'd be putting on my cowboy hat and start singing Boomer Sooner.

 

[Optimus_Prime_]

So, according to you, creationists are worse then Hitler?

Que?

How exactly did you come to that conclusion from reading that?

I remarked that, in fact, he was a creationist.

Hitler certainly believed in God, whether he was a creationist, I don't know? He believed in astrology and also Lamarkism, which is complete horsesh**.

Being a creationist today is pretty bleeping stupid. The Earth simply is not 6000 years old but rather billions and billions (4.5 billion).

Jackson being a creationist is more forgivable. He lived at a time when the age of the Earth was undetermined, although many suspected this wasn't the case even then. There wasn't a nice Internet to research that on though.

 

[Shemtov]

Being a creationist today is pretty bleeping stupid.

D'you releize how offensive that is?

 

[Optimus_Prime_]

D'you releize how offensive that is?

I'm not sure I care.

Fossils are a thing. Go to the Natural History Museum. You can believe what you wish, but Creationism, by definition, is either ignorance or denial. It's not a debate the Earth is 4.5 billion years old. It's simply fact.

 

[Shemtov]

I'm not sure I care.

You should when you insult the intelligence 46% of Americans

 

[Optimus_Prime_]

You should when you insult the intelligence 46% of Americans

You're right. It's very offensive to me that Americans lack a proper science education.

 

[Schlosser85]

Let's take it down a notch.

 

[Optimus_Prime_]

I doubt "full-out" war would break out in any greater amount than it already had, something the Cherokee apparently weathered if they were still around to be forcefully relocated. It was ethnic cleansing, pure and simple. If the solution to clashes with southern settlers was to send an entire people hundreds of miles to another place they had no idea about to make reservations that were on land that was considered worthless at the time and kill almost a third of them on this trip, then I'd say they would have been better off having a war.

If reservations work then they should have had reservations right where they were at and enforced the laws about people staying out of them. Jackson wanted that land for the rich white people who supported him.

Yup, nail on the head right there.

And who is giving Jefferson a pass for raping his slaves? I have yet to see anyone giving him a pass on slave rape. If you want to discuss the positive aspects of Jackson as amelioration for the Trail of Tears go ahead, no one is stopping you from making that argument.

Yeah, I was a little confused by this remark. I don't condone rape. Even though I like Thomas Jefferson, I would think being raped by him is unpleasant and not something about him that anyone would give a free pass to.

This is true but if you look at it percentage wise it was pretty bad. Ethnic cleansing is slightly better than genocide but it's still terrible.

Kind of the same though right?

I mean Hitler targeted ethnicities, and he was trying to cleanse Germany.

It seems like we are hung up on this notion of scope.

Jackson has less zeroes on his total than Hitler for sure, although had Jackson done this with 1940s level tech you may have started to get similar numbers.

 

[Thundercrack85]

Que?

How exactly did you come to that conclusion from reading that?

I remarked that, in fact, he was a creationist.

Hitler certainly believed in God, whether he was a creationist, I don't know? He believed in astrology and also Lamarkism, which is complete horsesh**.

Being a creationist today is pretty bleeping stupid. The Earth simply is not 6000 years old but rather billions and billions (4.5 billion).

Jackson being a creationist is more forgivable. He lived at a time when the age of the Earth was undetermined, although many suspected this wasn't the case even then. There wasn't a nice Internet to research that on though.

He banned Charles Darwin's works. The Nazis were an odd bunch. I'd say Hitler was a culturally Catholic deist. Had a love-hate relationship with Christianity. But he was no atheist (he hated them as much as he hated love-thy neighbor German Protestants). He also had an odd obsession with paganism and mysticism. Maybe that was just a hobby.

 

[Lighthouse]

He banned Charles Darwin's works. The Nazis were an odd bunch. I'd say Hitler was a culturally Catholic deist. Had a love-hate relationship with Christianity. But he was no atheist (he hated them as much as he hated love-thy neighbor German Protestants). He also had an odd obsession with paganism and mysticism. Maybe that was just a hobby.

Or maybe he decided to leave it alone after he lost a lot of men who decided to open a certain "box".

 

[Kahran Ramsus]

There are more than a few historians who will argue that the trail of tears was Jackson's attempt to be humane. Many historians believe that had Jackson not forced relocation, the death toll would've been even higher as it would've resulted in clashes between the settlers and the Native Americans which ultimately would've resulted in full on war and likely genocide of the Native American people (and that Jackson was very aware of this possibility).

I'm not saying that Jackson was a great guy, but it pisses me off that so many people are willing to give the likes of Jefferson a free pass for raping his slaves because he was a "product of his time," but Jackson is a monster to these same people.

Jefferson raping his slaves is a bit a of stretch. He had started relations with one slave, Sally Hemings, who was also the half-sister of his former wife, while they were in Paris. She could have chosen to stay in Paris as a freewomen, but chose to go back with him with the agreement that Jefferson would free her children when they came of age (which he did). Icky situation, no doubt, but it wasn't as if he was going around raping slaves in the field on a regular basis.

 

[Midnyte_Sun]

They all committed horrible crimes. George Washington ripped the teeth out of his slaves to make a set of dentures.

 

[Optimus_Prime_]

Actually I'm not familiar with Jefferson "raping" a slave. As far as I can tell it seems somewhat reasonable to assume attraction. Especially since Jefferson became more intolerant of racism towards blacks as time went on. You can see in his letters as his feelings on blacks become very conflicted.

 

[cherokeesam]

Jackson shipping my ancestors off to Indian Territory didn't have a damn thing to do with him trying to be "more humane" or trying to stave off conflicts with white settlers. It had everything to do with gold, which had been discovered in great quantities in North Georgia, on Cherokee land. He kicked us off a gold mine, quite literally.

One of our greatest war leaders, Junaluska, famously saved Andrew Jackson's life during the Battle of Horseshoe Bend in 1813. After the Trail of Tears, he also famously said: "If I knew what Jackson would do to us, I would have killed him myself at that battle."

Even to this day, there's a long-held superstition on the rez about 20-dollar bills (which feature Jackson on them). We trade those in every chance we get for 10s or 50s --- 20s are bad luck.

 

[Smashlilman]

Actually I'm not familiar with Jefferson "raping" a slave. As far as I can tell it seems somewhat reasonable to assume attraction. Especially since Jefferson became more intolerant of racism towards blacks as time went on. You can see in his letters as his feelings on blacks become very conflicted.

If a slave master wants to have sexual relations with his slave, the slave has no choice but to get use to it and go along with it.

 

[Optimus_Prime_]

If a slave master wants to have sexual relations with his slave, the slave has no choice but to get use to it and go along with it.

You're absolutely right, and yet there still may have been. It's hard to tell exactly what went on there. Hemings lived until 62, so reasonably older gal for that time period. Had Jefferson raped her, I'm quite confident they would've killed her to cover the pregnancy. They clearly didn't. So someone protected someone there, and I kind of believe Jefferson sheltered her as best he could. That's why I have trouble believing there wasn't some mutual feelings shared.

 

[Kahran Ramsus]

Jackson shipping my ancestors off to Indian Territory didn't have a damn thing to do with him trying to be "more humane" or trying to stave off conflicts with white settlers. It had everything to do with gold, which had been discovered in great quantities in North Georgia, on Cherokee land. He kicked us off a gold mine, quite literally.

One of our greatest war leaders, Junaluska, famously saved Andrew Jackson's life during the Battle of Horseshoe Bend in 1813. After the Trail of Tears, he also famously said: "If I knew what Jackson would do to us, I would have killed him myself at that battle."

Even to this day, there's a long-held superstition on the rez about 20-dollar bills (which feature Jackson on them). We trade those in every chance we get for 10s or 50s --- 20s are bad luck.

Where I'm from the Seminoles fought back and it ended up being the deadliest of all the Indian Wars. The Seminoles never did sign a peace treaty with the US.

 

[Kahran Ramsus]

If a slave master wants to have sexual relations with his slave, the slave has no choice but to get use to it and go along with it.

It was a messy situation. They were in France when the affair started, so technically she was free at the time until they got back to Virginia. Jefferson was paying her to be a household servant during that time. According to their son, she agreed to go back with him so that Jefferson could provide for her and her children under the condition that he free them when they became of age (which he did). I still don't like the idea of it, but it was a more complicated situation than it would normally be.

I'm not really a big Jefferson fan (I'm more of an Adams supporter), but his crimes are pretty minor compared to Madison or Jackson.

 

[Optimus_Prime_]

It was a messy situation. They were in France when the affair started, so technically she was free at the time until they got back to Virginia. Jefferson was paying her to be a household servant during that time. According to their son, she agreed to go back with him so that Jefferson could provide for her and her children under the condition that he free them when they became of age (which he did). I still don't like the idea of it, but it was a more complicated situation than it would normally be.

I had never read much about it. In this post is the first I've really read, although I had heard, in passing, that Jefferson may have loved her.

(Actually what you describe makes me lean that way some more).

 

[chamber-music]

To think if British Private Henry Tandey didn't let Hitler go during World War 1 all this might of been avoided

Japan and Turkey take the cake.

At least America admits it did all the horrible things to the Indians. Americans just don't really care. But they'll at least admit it.

But every country has those moments. Look at how Australians treated their aborigines. And nobody seems to bring up Belgium anymore, which did things so bad to the Africans that European lodged complaints.

Belgian King Leopold did such bad stuff in Congo Africa that the rest of Europe and the Social Catholics and the Labor Party in Belgian Parliment thought he went too far and they were no saints either.

 

[Optimus_Prime_]

To think if British Private Henry Tandey didn't let Hitler go during World War 1 all this might of been avoided

If I had a time machine I wouldn't have killed Hitler, because even the Nazis tried to kill Hitler. I would've waited until he was elected, and then introduce him to pot. I'm pretty sure if I got him smoking a lot he would've mellowed out.

 

[Optimus_Prime_]

(See Page 2 of link)

Well, to be fair, Jackson didn't, to my knowledge, have a poop fetish like Hitler.
http://www.cracked.com/article_19552_5-insane-celebrity-conspiracy-theories-that-make-sense_p2.html

 

[Schlosser85]

That's gossip, not proven fact.

 

[Kahran Ramsus]

To think if British Private Henry Tandey didn't let Hitler go during World War 1 all this might of been avoided

I honestly don't think so. The National Socialist movement probably would have found somebody else. It might have even been worse. They might have found somebody competent.

This is also the reason why I think Sherman was correct in his treatment of the South in the Civil War. He understood that it wasn't enough to demolish their capacity to wage war, it was the will to fight that had to be beaten out of the South. This didn't happen with Germany in World War I, and we saw the results two decades later.