Was Manifest Destiny justified?

>Does Might make Right?

Yes. If the Indians were the overwhelming force in opposition to the settlers they wouldn't have hesitated to destroy them.

It was all unsettled land for the taking.

>unsettled

Was the colonization of Anatolia by Turks justifiable? Were the Islamic Arab conquests justifiable? Was the Bantu extermination of indigenous South African peoples justifiable?

>muh noble savages

>I don't care who does the fighting, I don't want any more of it "in mine." The boys out here have all come to the conclusion that fighting indians is not what it is cracked up to be, especially when it is fighting on the open prairie against five to one, we always have to fight at such a disadvantage, we always have to shoot at them running, they wont stand and let a fellow shoot at them like a white man.

>whataboutism
/pol/ never changes.

>when white people do something we need to ask whether it's justified
>non-white people, oh it's all in the past who cares haha!!

really makes me think, reddit..

Imagine if we hadn't subdued the heathen savages of the West and they still roamed free to raid as they pleased. Only now they're armed with Soviet supplied small arms, and technicals like their African equivalents. It's not like they would magically have gotten their shit together and transitioned smoothly into the 21st century, they'd still be tribal jackasses that torture each other for fun. Basically Africa 2.0.

>Just after dinner on the 25th of July . . . someone called out, "Indians!" and all hands, seizing their arms, ran out to see where they were. . . . On the north side of the river about fifteen or twenty Indians on horseback were moving leisurely along. In a few minutes about a dozen men were mounted, and crossing the bridge they commenced skirmishing with the enemy. As fast as our men moved on, the Indians fell back, until our men had gone about three miles from the bridge. All this time the Indians were increasing in numbers, until there were about forty in plain sight. . . . At this time an order was received from the station for the men to come back. . . . As our men fell back toward the bridge, Indians kept coming out of the ravine, until there were about fifty in sight, showing that their maneuvering had been for the purpose of leading our men as far away from all support as possible, and to then wipe them out by superior numbers. Our men reached the station without any loss. . . . In one of the charges the boys shot a Cheyenne chief through the bowels. He threw his arm over the neck of his pony . . . and went into a thicket of brush, where the chief fell off. Two of the boys rode into the thicket and found the chief lying apparently dead. One man jumped off his horse and stabbed the Indian about the heart. He did not give the least sign of life. Then the trooper commenced to scalp him. As soon as the knife touched his head, the Indian began to beg, when another man shot him through the brain. The Indian's belief is that if a warrior loses his scalp, he can not go to the happy hunting ground. Indians will lose their lives without the least sign of fear, but want to save their scalps. . . . About ten days before this, the Indians had captured one of our men, and had tortured and mangled his body in a shocking manner. Our boys swore that if they ever got hold of an Indian they would cut him all to pieces, and they did.

But nobody said they were justified.

Your whataboutist attempt to defend your position utterly falls apart just from someone saying "no, those weren't justified either"

That's the point, it's a lure for redditors who want to constantly cry about europeans doing genocidal shit and project their gay modern spooky moralism onto them (while being lukewarm or excusing for non-european ''''''''atrocities''''''''')

In reality, might makes right. Why bother questioning whether the laws of nature are justified in your manmade ideology?

>non-white people, oh it's all in the past who cares haha!!
>proceeds to create yet another thread about Muslim conquests
I get it, it's you who's the real victim here.

Nobody makes threads asking for those events to be justified either. Only Europeans are commanded to justify their history.

Source?

Get back to us when Hollywood starts making sob stories about the fall of Constantinople.

It really does.

Then why was the response not simply no they were unjustified as well?
Instead you bring up the anons argument as being bad when it is justified if we are talking about the same or similar events done by different people.

I am sure we can get a movie about the evil crusaders sacking the city well funded by rich white venicians.

Wiped out by diseases. Initially it was very difficult for Europeans to set up when they came to the US lands. Once they started dying of diseases and their societies collapsed, it was much easier to set up colonial settlements.

The difference is what pre-modern states (Muslim, Christian, Pagan, whatever) were unapologeticly expansionistic, while the post-Revolutionary US supposedly hold a higher moral ground, with the declaration of the human rights in the declaration of independence, the pathos of the Constitution and the idea of a city upon a hill.
So you can't hold pre-modern states morally responsible for acts of war and expansionism, but you can ask if the US acted accordingly to the principles it professed.

Not even a real thing. America Expanded from coast to coast naturally and thats that.

Yeah, this is the problem with white people, bros. We're too high on our self righteousness fumes. We need to abandon all of the universalist bullshit and behave in accordance with the rest of Humanity. Truly liberals are the tr00 white supremacists.

is that supposed to be a counterargument or did you just have a seizure and press random keys on your keyboard before posting? i'm having trouble telling

I demand rule 34 of that flying woman getting Nativized by some Comanches.

So good because more land=bigger potential in the future or bad because it was an unprovoked aggression on a weaker opponent? How should we even evaluate such action?

> if you're questioning the USA's actions you're literally attacking all the white people
I'm not fucking with you, stop co-opting me into your bullshit.
t. white person

This. The Palestinians should stop bitching and submit to Israeli rule. If they don't like it, then they should get the fuck out. Move to Sweden or something.

i think its wrong insofar the indians were treated way worse than they deserved
the whole situation with the cherokee nation was a fucking disgrace

Only globalists support this might makes right nonsense.

It's not like no Americans opposed it.

>"I regarded the outrages that have been committed lately [on the frontier] as not the work of a tribe, but of small and irresponsible parties of young men, who are eager for war. My opinion is, that we are not yet justified in declaring war." -- George Armstrong Custer

>"It has long been the conviction of the humane amongst us, that our aboriginal inhabitants have been the victims of great wrongs, cruelties and outrage; but it is only recently that the particular nature, the atrocious character, and the frightful results of these crimes have been brought distinctly before us. . . . No nation can safely disregard the just claims of even the humblest class of its citizens. . . . No nation is more sensitive to the claims and obligations of justice than our own; and we are sure that when the true history of the Indian's wrongs is laid before our countrymen, their united voice will demand that the honor and the interests of the nation shall no longer be sacrificed to the insatiable lust and avarice of unscrupulous men." -- Henry Ward Beecher

>Our treatment of the Indian is one of the foulest blots in our history. . . . We shall never be able to be just to other races, or reap the full benefit of their neighborhood till we "unlearn contempt." . . . The popular indifference to this whole question, combined with the selfish greed and bloodthirstiness of the frontier, is obstacle enough to the adoption of this policy. . . . god bless such barbarians and make us like them. -- Wendell Phillips

Not sure if sarcasm but I actually agree. Also on a side note why would sweden or others would let them in? They really dont have to. Palicucks who cant handle the BIC need to fuck off to jordan and stop crying tbqh, they can stare at Jerusalem from across the river

>Only globalists support this might makes right nonsense.

I support endless might makes right. If your nation dies it deserved to die, doesn't matter if you're black, white, hispanic, communist, social democratic, nazi or fascist.

If you fail, you're a failure. Will to power bitch.

>only expansionists support expansionism
really made me think

If might isn't right then the native chiefs weren't right either.

Manifest destiny was morally justified because it more quickly brought about the socioeconomic conditions where you can sit and opine about the morality and ethics of it all.

While sentiments in the West were quite different;

>Go . . . and point a houseless, impoverished man to the smoking embers of his dwelling, the work of savage hands, where but yesterday he had stock, grain and plenty, after years of hardships and say to him, "the triumph of humanitarian principles!" Kneel beside the dying victim on the plains, scalped and disemboweled, and to his ear whisper—"peace!" Clasp a maniac sister in your arms, upon whose body sixty savage monsters have glutted their passions, restore her purity and call reason to its throne again with words of "peace!"

>Could the arrow and tomahawk but reach a few of the "peace" men in our national councils, their blood would color this Indian question with a hue that even Congressmen could understand.

Was Labensraum?

that's not an argument. we can and should look to the actions of the past to shape our morality for today, and justifying actions on the basis of "well shit i guess the world didn't spontaneously explode so we're still around today" does nothing to further that goal

>we need to be moral to be successful
lyl

>Morality is progressive

>brought about the socioeconomic conditions where you can sit and opine about the morality and ethics of it all.
literally anyone can do that. They could be sitting on rocks, in tents, or lodges or whatever. Unless you mean arguing about this on Veeky Forums.

who are you quoting
not an argument

>we can and should look to the actions of the past to shape our morality for today
you're literally deriving an ought from a is

into the garbage it goes

not an argument

No it was not justified, it was no different than colonialism or other European imperialism.

>Justification of mass genocide and forced land-taking from other cultures

No.

But on that note every major power to this day and some minor powers have done this, so well not justified it is status quo.

>open thread, might have some interesting respon-
>filled to the brim with slave morality

Shocking.

There is literally nothing wrong with white people genociding non-white people.

There's literally nothing wrong with genocide period, no matter who does it.

A little more than regular colonialism, as the Americans at least stayed and did something useful with the land.

Yes

Agreed. Can't wait for the European and American race wars.

>genocide
bullshit
>forced land-taking
chiefs were tyrants and taking land from a tyrant isn't immoral, it is competition, also I didn't see you crying when the cherokee moved into muscogee territory
>from other cultures
that doesn't make it better or worse

there is one recurring theme in all this, this sort of thing was going on all over the world and between natives but when a white person bashes a brown person you shit your intestines out in rage

Like, legally? Ethically? No. The instances of paying natives for the land was justified, but the instances of outright taking or coercing natives off the land was not. Any arguments for about it working out for the better just from the perspective of progress and resource utilization are moot relative to ethics.

>everything I don't like isn't an argument
molly pls go

>also I didn't see you crying when the cherokee moved into muscogee territory
how would you know? it's not like you were alive during it

If you don't want to be counted among the enemy then don't stand with then dumbass.

Well there were christians who opposed the crusades too.

There were less than 300,000 people living in the entire Mexican Cession, natives included. That's a little over HALF a person per square mile to less than Half depending on how you measure the cession. By all rights, it was unsettled.

America will be taken back, La Raza is coming

Evaluate it as Polk == Best President and fuck Injuns

fuck off beaner. We'll fuck you up just like the good old boys did in 1840. You'll probably be siestaing to even notice anyway

I'm trying to think not as an edgy user but someone who would evaluate a politician's decision as objectively as I can. Polk was an authoritarian president who favored unconstitutionally strong presidential office, risked a war with Great Britain and attacked another nation in a land grab. This is all horrible.

On the other hand making a country this large was benefitial in the long run. What to make of it? The United States was not in danger so he certainly gets some negative points because he didn't do it in a clean and peaceful way like some other presidents.

Whig/liberal opinion in New England generally opposed expansion of the USA into the frontiers from the time of the founding of the country. Whether it be the opposition to the Louisiana Purchase or the fanatical hatred of Jackson or the No Territory movement during the Mexican war, expansionism as a political objective was always the domain of the 1% and lower class. USA needed the frontiers as an outlet for its teeming hordes of urban poor, but the well to do in those urban centers saw it as diluting their political influence in the union as new states were added.

Once the middle class gained ascendancy in the north, and the north gained ascendancy in the union expansionism was basically done. They could effectively prevent the lower class from waging any more wars, causing the people of the south to go so far as to turn to private wars to try to expand.