Quickly...

I'm out of morning now, and have to get ready for work, but wanted to say this:

"Oh yes, sure. We all know that Native Americans of that era were profound civil libertarians. They were fighting for equality among the sexes; to rights against cruel and unusual punishment (see "A Man Named Horse"); for the right to remain silent; to uphold the right to speech, separation of church and state, and they NEVER targeted for death women and children, always taking the same care our troops do now to avoid civilian deaths ... and on and on and on. "

Your sarcasm is noted, and while I find it unfortunately employed, I understand what you are saying. I think you are 100% WRONG, however. Furthermore, you are really letting your ignorance on the topic shine through...

Using the movie "A Man Named Horse" as an example of cruel and unusual punishment in the culture of the American Indians is almost beneath you. It tells me that, not only do you not understand the greater portion of the Indian's struggle, but that you have never really watched the damn movie, either.

The suffering that was portrayed in the movie was #1, completely fictional... and #2 was self-inflicted in the (fictional) attempt to show that the suffering of an individual on a voluntary basis was somehow able to extend itself to the greater suffering of the community and culture at large. Richard Harris was portraying someone who was taking on the "voluntary" role of Jesus Christ, and by hanging from hooks in the skin until the skin ripped, the suffering experienced by the individual would take away from the suffering of the group. It is a fictional story of redemption and grace, without the Christian trappings. Nothing more.

I also think your blatant refusal to see that for the vast majority of Indians that suffered under the tyranny of the Indian Removal Act considered themselves AMERICANS. They appealed their case to the Supreme Court of the United States, they begged their Congressmen and Senators to speak up for them, they attempted to remove the threat by running Indian candidates for the Governorship of both Georgia and Alabama... is short, they did what the Constitution of the United States required them to do to protect and preserve their individual freedoms and rights, to no avail. None of them fought a secessionist war against Jackson... they did what the Government told them to do, and died because of it. Nearly 10,000 of them. Crazy Horse and Red Cloud were doing exactly what they were told to do under established treaty, and when the US reneged on those promises, they fought to DEFEND the treaty rights... not to become a separate country. Black Elk wanted his son to go to University and become a statesman in Washington... instead he died at Wounded Knee, because he was denied the right to travel on a train from SD to Washington. I don't know about YOU, but I'd think long and hard about taking up arms against the Government that treated ME like that... and that is a promise.

So, you can continue to hold the cultures that existed side-by-side with the Founding Fathers in the category of savages and wild men that scalped and burned women and children for the pleasure of it all you want. I choose to recognize that the US holds a debt to these cultures in the very formation of its representative system, as history demands I do.