Raise the Hammer

naive or disingenuous: who are you to tell me what my history is? Your argument of the dawn of civilization is no longer taught in schools. It is a remnant of the same period in which 'our' forefathers were busy justifying their past and present actions on premises of terra nullius and/ or racial superiority. The idea of a Greek and Roman heritage skipping over the dark ages before it was reborn in the Renaissance is a fiction, that two generations of historians have been busy debunking. You'll still find these arguments in a few books lamenting multiculturalism.

Tell me how my rule of law for landed gentry is skewed. Your counter is that the traditions 'evolved' but it retained its essential western kernal of genius. I'll suggest instead that it was forced to change by concerted efforts on the part of the excluded group, bit by bit. Take Native enfranchisement. Was that the umbrella of modern western liberty spreading its wings over the previously disenfranchised? Or was it the product of the group in question claiming their rights?

Finally as to eradication, you make the logical point that if they are eradicated how can we know if they were liberal, and you say I overstate the case. Tell me how I overstate the case. Do you need examples of eradication and displacement? Or do you need examples of liberality? Both points are uncontroversial. The British colonies were a far more autocratic society than any indigenous people they interacted with. They may have been slightly less offensive in present day Canada only because of the distraction of competing with the French and the requirements of the fur trade, but wherever British settlement occurred it was accompanied by depredation, whether that was Indians, Metis, or Acadians. And the point of logic is ridiculous: we can know of eradicated societies because we have records.

Finally you accuse me of 'unqualified cultural self-castigation'. You've got a lot of nerve. I don't identify with the culture you champion and I think you're telling the story wrong and trying to fit me into it.