Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo.

/awaiting completion of the rare buffalo trifecta as well.

While we're talking about hunters, how about I bring up H.R. 4089: Sportsmen's Heritage Act of 2012:

Official Summary

The following summary was written by the Congressional Research Service, a nonpartisan arm of the Library of Congress, which serves Congress. GovTrack did not write and has no control over these summaries.
2/27/2012--Introduced.

Sportsmen's Heritage Act of 2012 - Recreational Fishing and Hunting Heritage and Opportunities Act - Requires federal public land management officials to facilitate the use of, and access to, federal public lands and waters for fishing, sport hunting, and recreational shooting, except as restricted by specified limitations, including statutory authority that authorizes or withholds action for reasons of national security, public safety, or resource conservation. Requires that Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and Forest Service lands, excluding lands on the Outer Continental Shelf, be open to recreational fishing, hunting, and shooting unless the managing agency acts to close lands to such activity for specified purposes, including resource conservation, public safety, energy production, water supply facilities, or national security. Allows federal agencies to: (1) lease their lands for shooting ranges, and (2) designate specific lands for recreational shooting activities. Sets forth requirements for a withdrawal, change of classification, or change of management status that effectively closes or significantly restricts 640 or more contiguous acres of federal public lands or waters for fishing or hunting or related activities. Recreational Shooting Protection Act - Requires National Monument land under BLM's jurisdiction to be open to access and use for recreational shooting, except as limited by the Director of BLM for reasons of national security and public safety and to comply with an applicable federal statute. Prohibits the issuance of closures or restrictions on such land that are substantially similar to those that were previously issued and not approved by federal law. Polar Bear Conservation and Fairness Act of 2012 - Amends the Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1972 to direct the Secretary of the Interior to issue a permit for the importation of any polar bear part (other than an internal organ) from a polar bear taken in a sport hunt in Canada to any person: (1) who submits proof that the polar bear was legally harvested before February 18, 1997; or (2) who has submitted, in support of an application submitted before May 15, 2008, proof that the bear was legally harvested before such date from a polar bear population from which a sport-hunted trophy could be imported before such date. Hunting, Fishing, and Recreational Shooting Protection Act - Amends the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) to exclude from the definition of "chemical substance" for purposes of such Act: (1) any component of any pistol, revolver, firearm, shell, or cartridge the sale of which is subject to federal excise tax, including shot, bullets and other projectiles, propellants, and primers; and (2) any sport fishing equipment the sale of which is subject to federal excise tax and sport fishing equipment components.

Source: http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/112/hr4089

ZeroCorpse: Because this is perhaps the one religion on Earth that has members who have been the most brutalized by every other religion, especially Christianity.

It's so cute when people like you think you know history. How about we get some real history into this.

Sixty years before Columbus "discovered" the New World, Pope Eugene IV condemned the enslavement of peoples in the newly colonized Canary Islands. His bull Sicut Dudum (1435) rebuked European enslavers and commanded that "all and each of the faithful of each sex, within the space of fifteen days of the publication of these letters in the place where they live, that they restore to their earlier liberty all and each person of either sex who were once residents of [the] Canary Islands . . . who have been made subject to slavery. These people are to be totally and perpetually free and are to be let go without the exaction or reception of any money."

A century later, Pope Paul III applied the same principle to the newly encountered inhabitants of the West and South Indies in the bull Sublimis Deus (1537). Therein he described the enslavers as allies of the devil and declared attempts to justify such slavery "null and void." Accompanying the bull was another document, Pastorale Officium, which attached a latae sententiae excommunication remittable only by the pope himself for those who attempted to enslave the Indians or steal their goods.

When Europeans began enslaving Africans as a cheap source of labor, the Holy Office of the Inquisition was asked about the morality of enslaving innocent blacks (Response of the Congregation of the Holy Office, 230, March 20, 1686). The practice was rejected, as was trading such slaves. Slaveholders, the Holy Office declared, were obliged to emancipate and even compensate blacks unjustly enslaved.

Papal condemnation of slavery persisted throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Pope Gregory XVI's 1839 bull, In Supremo, for instance, reiterated papal opposition to enslaving "Indians, blacks, or other such people" and forbade "any ecclesiastic or lay person from presuming to defend as permissible this trade in blacks under no matter what pretext or excuse." In 1888 and again in 1890, Pope Leo XIII forcefully condemned slavery and sought its elimination where it persisted in parts of South America and Africa.

The major problem in the US was the precarious position of the Catholic Church in America before the twentieth century. Catholics were a small and much-despised minority. They were subject to repeated, sometimes violent attacks by Protestant "Nativists." In many ways, the American hierarchy of the day was trying to protect the Catholics immigrating to the U.S. and did not regard itself as in a position to be the leader in a major social crusade.

There were indeed Christians of various denominations who were slaveholders and who abused native Americans, but such abuses went against the teaching of Jesus and the decrees of the Catholic hierarchy.

Crosshair: ZeroCorpse: Because this is perhaps the one religion on Earth that has members who have been the most brutalized by every other religion, especially Christianity.

It's so cute when people like you think you know history. How about we get some real history into this.

Sixty years before Columbus "discovered" the New World, Pope Eugene IV condemned the enslavement of peoples in the newly colonized Canary Islands. His bull Sicut Dudum (1435) rebuked European enslavers and commanded that "all and each of the faithful of each sex, within the space of fifteen days of the publication of these letters in the place where they live, that they restore to their earlier liberty all and each person of either sex who were once residents of [the] Canary Islands . . . who have been made subject to slavery. These people are to be totally and perpetually free and are to be let go without the exaction or reception of any money."

A century later, Pope Paul III applied the same principle to the newly encountered inhabitants of the West and South Indies in the bull Sublimis Deus (1537). Therein he described the enslavers as allies of the devil and declared attempts to justify such slavery "null and void." Accompanying the bull was another document, Pastorale Officium, which attached a latae sententiae excommunication remittable only by the pope himself for those who attempted to enslave the Indians or steal their goods.

When Europeans began enslaving Africans as a cheap source of labor, the Holy Office of the Inquisition was asked about the morality of enslaving innocent blacks (Response of the Congregation of the Holy Office, 230, March 20, 1686). The practice was rejected, as was trading such slaves. Slaveholders, the Holy Office declared, were obliged to emancipate and even compensate blacks unjustly enslaved.


I think you misunderstood the point made in that the native population was STILL ENSLAVED and STILL SUBJUGATED to abuses that defy social norms. Just because the Pope decreed bulls that condemned the practice does not exclude the fact that it happened in the name of Jesus Christ, Lord and Savior to the White Man.

Crosshair: It's so cute when people like you think you know history. How about we get some real history into this. [whereupon you engage in a lot of factual cherry-picking intended to lend the false impression the Catholic church had staunchly opposed slavery since 1435.]

Your citations are condemnations only of "unjust" slavery, but not slavery in general.

Paul, Augustine and Aquinas -- Catholicism's early brain-trust -- all endorsed slavery.

Slavery was made the Catholic's canon law penalty for certain crimes in the 12th Century. Pope Paul III permitted the enslavement of Christians in Rome. Various popes and oodles of clergy owned slaves. The papal navy even engaged in slaving expeditions.

During the Age of Discovery, popes pronounced that indian lands were forfeit to Europeans and sanctioned the enslavement of indians. The transatlantic slave trade (importing African slaves to replace the wiped-out populations of Indian slaves) came at the behest of a Catholic bishop.

The Catholic church didn't take an unequivocal stand against slavery in every form until 1994.

I have Cherokee blood running through my veins. Great-great-great-great-great grandfather was a chief. I have the Cherokee Fingers (double jointed in all of my fingers) as well. The Native American people are the most mistreated people in human history. The Europeans didn't just bring them disease but alcoholism too. That's engrained in your DNA. My mother's side of the family are all dark haired and dark sinned. The alcoholism, depression, etc, has nearly destroyed all of them. Thank God the alcoholism skipped me. Yeah, the Jewish people were persecuted for centuries, but, correct me if I'm wrong, I don't think they were persecuted to the point of developing mental disabilities, prone to alcoholism, depression, and suicide. That sort of thing devastates generation to generation. Good luck convincing me any people have been decimated more than the Native Americans. For this to happen to the Lakota people is incredibly sad. It's evil, and whomever did it will answer for it one of these days.

siyuntz: "Tekmo, this post bothered me for 2 reasons, and I wasn't going to respond, but I guess I have to, because I am a compulsive nutcase."

Uh oh. Bracing for it.

"I never once stated that I was a Native American. In fact, I am not...I'm not "pointing to the ugliness of someone else's history", but rather acknowledging my own."

Fair point. I actually didn't mean to assume or imply anything about your heritage, but I see how my wording didn't make that clear.

[Your argument] plays in my mind like "they were all wearing short skirts and sexy tops, and therefore deserved it". Do all victims have to be meek and cooperative, lest they forfeit the acknowledgement that they were victimized?

Again, fair point. Again, not the argument I was intending to make.

My point was this: when you read much on the subject, you begin to notice that there weren't very many good guys with pure motives on either side. To fixate on one side's body count without even bothering to examine the other isn't fair, rational, or scholarly.

I have a distant ancestor who was one of those "Black Robe" Frenchmen who took it upon himself to come to the New World early to save the souls of the heathen savages. Clearly, he didn't even begin to comprehend what a dick move that was. Anyway, Monsieur I'm Doing You and Jesus Such a Favor was caught by the Iroquois. They entertained themselves for the next few weeks torturing his party to death or nearly to death. They got bone-breaking beatings daily, were starved, burnt, hanged, some of his extremities were cut off, and he was also partially flayed. The tribe released what was left of him go back to deliver their "stay home or this could be you" message. It wasn't particularly well-received by kindly Christian folk who don't particularly appreciate having their clergy torture-murdered by the heathen savages they're trying to help.

When I say the Iroquois entertained themselves torturing captives, that's really not an exaggeration. And that's not just the Iroquois, there were a lot of tribes that did this. And it's not just Native tribes that do this, lots of human cultures did. It is meant to evoke a powerful response, and it does. If you're the torturer, you better hope the powerful response you invoke is terror, because the alternative is to invite vengeance. That's what happened.

American history is full of situations where unrealistically optimistic white people wander off to the great wide open, which as far as they know, is unclaimed, uninhabited, and theirs for the taking. A native party locates these wantonly destructive trespassers and poachers, gang-rapes the women, brutally kills men and infants, kidnaps the children and takes their property as compensation. Other whites hear about the vicious attack on these poor innocent travelers and, full of righteous indignation, kill the first bunch of Natives they find, who almost certainly had nothing to do with the original attack. Puzzled survivors of that random and unprovoked massacre angrily retaliate by attacking the nearest white settlement. Government sends in troops to quash the threat of a dangerous and illegal Indian uprising, and as usual, technology and tactics decide the winner, and whatever treaties existed are discarded as null and void.

Is every story exactly like this? Obviously not, but a lot of the body count happened in more or less this fashion.

FWIW, my French ancestor returned to the New World and eventually married an Iroquois. She must've been a helluva lady.

ParagonComplex
I have Cherokee blood running through my veins. Great-great-great-great-great grandfather was a chief. I have the Cherokee Fingers (double jointed in all of my fingers) as well. The Native American people are the most mistreated people in human history. The Europeans didn't just bring them disease but alcoholism too. That's engrained in your DNA. My mother's side of the family are all dark haired and dark sinned. The alcoholism, depression, etc, has nearly destroyed all of them. Thank God the alcoholism skipped me. Yeah, the Jewish people were persecuted for centuries, but, correct me if I'm wrong, I don't think they were persecuted to the point of developing mental disabilities, prone to alcoholism, depression, and suicide. That sort of thing devastates generation to generation. Good luck convincing me any people have been decimated more than the Native Americans. For this to happen to the Lakota people is incredibly sad. It's evil, and whomever did it will answer for it one of these days

Actually, Askenazi Jews do have a very high rate of depression. I suppose that the optimists died out, as they were unlikely to prepare for the pogroms. Only the pessimistic survive, I guess. My great-great grandfather hung himself after the cossacks burned down his business....

"Why are all the Jews neurotic?" "Because you killed all the normal ones!" - Donald Glover

The comparatively lower rates of alcoholism (and higher alcohol tolerance) among Europeans is believed to have evolved due to millennia of exposure to it, which is something that most Native American societies didn't have. Kind of like the higher rates of lactose intolerance among Native Americans and Asians, I suppose.

Of course, being an extremely poor and heavily marginalized minority undoubtedly doesn't help one's mental state either, and I certainly agree that Native Americans are the most decimated group in history, no argument there.

/of Ashkenazi Jewish descent
//studied anthropology
///Did not know that about the Cherokee fingers, that is very interesting.