Sorry about that . I'm learning about WWII in World Culture class and it just seemed like what Hilter was doing was rather similar to what many other countries/civilizations had done previously. For example, the crusades. Or perhaps the Spanish Inquisition. Nooooooobody expects the Spanish Inqiusiton. Amoungst their weaponry are such diverse elements as fear, surprise, ruthless efficiency, and an almost fanatical devotion to the Pope, and nice red uniforms... 

I'm in no way denying that alot of Indians got the shaft. What I'm saying is that Hitler sought to *kill off* every single person he didn't like. In America, the worst anti-Indian offenders sought only to destroy their culture or move them away.

Personally, I find that the very fact that there *was* a Trail of Tears, and not an upfront systematic slaughter, speaks well of our past. At least better than the pasts of most old world nations.

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Pretty much, Hitler sought to kill the people, we sought to force the people to give up their culture, land, way of living, etc. in order to make them "civilized". The only real difference is that Hitler didn't believe a Jew could be Aryan-ized. We did believe that native americans could be European-ized.

What made you bring this up? ???  Did i miss anything on the news?  This seems to have came out of the blue!

kkriegg,

Are you saying that america isn't as evil as Hitler because some indians got to live?  If anyone needs to be compared with what Hilter did to the Jews to justify themselves, they are setting their standard pretty low if you ask me.

You can see that I haven't locked this topic as you have requested........yet.  But lets not get carried away here.

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Hitler was not a genius.  He was a stubbly little git with a lot of anger and insecurities.  He was able to manipulate people, and gave the German people, who had been through a lot of strife, a goal to aim at.
  And the worst done by settlers in America was not the movement of tribes or random killings to get them to move.  The Beothuk of Newfoundland were massacred, completely exterminated, by the French and their Indian allies.  A whole tribe of Delaware speakers were killed by militiamen in the eighteenth century, despite the fact that at the time of the murders, these people were in a church, worshipping the Christian God, living settled lives.  The settlers even burnt the church down.  They were killed because they were native peoples, and the settlers felt the need to kill them because they were natives using the land, they were red.  Also, Spanish settlers on the west coast of America set up the first concentration camps in the 17th century.  They called them "missions", and all natives were sent to them, where they would work until they died, or they would just die.  Many were murdered if they proved useless.  It was an attempt to exterminate them.
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The first black senator elected by popular vote was a Massachusetts Republican, Edward W Brookes, on November 8, 1966.  Long time after the civil war, I'd say.  And there is still quite a lot of segregation in America nowadays (go to a museum, any museum in a big city, and then tell me the ratio of black to white visitors, and the ratio of black to white employees.  Not happy figures!)
  Hitler was just another insane, insecure man who wriggled up the pole to power.  You can compare him to many figures throughout history, doubtless many in America, Cambodia, France, England, and so many other countries.  Why not accept the fact that your country has a very chequered history?  I know that in my country, Jewish people have frequently been persecuted, for instance, many being murdered in the middle ages.  Muslims still experience some problems today, and the first blacks to enter the country were treated obscenely.  We used the slave trade to build up our empire, and then used that empire to build up our own profits.  Almost every country in the world has some bad history behind it.  Why not accept that yours is no different?  It's no worse than many others, and no better.  You can still love it, it's not a crime.

Neither of those men were elected by popular vote - ie, they don't count.  However, I was aware of the existence of these men, and I take your point.  My point, however, is still valid, and it doesn't help matters that out of all the so-called developed nations (including slightly developed ones) of the 19th century, the United States was second last in abolishing slavery.  The last was Brazil in 1888; hardly a comfortable comparison.

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Slavery had already been outlawed in most of Europe by Papal edict since the 500s, so that's a bit of an unfair comparison.