David and Eric,
You both seem to think that quoting a simple, old-fashioned supposition and comparing it to cow-faeces proves the point beyond a doubt, and anyone who disagrees is indulging in negative and romantic fantasies bound to make us all feel miserable. You hold these narrow-minded platitudes because they are the prevailing beliefs endorsed by 200 years of egotistic victorian arrogance created by phallocentric 'explorers' and self-seeking 'adventurers'. You don't know if any of that is actually a true and complete description of these cultures.
For eg
They would do it to you if they could and they would treat the vanquished more harshly.
This is an assumption based on a defensive/aggressive (possibly suffering from suppressed-guilt) perception, when in fact many original invaders only survived thanks to the generosity and support of the people they went on to oppress, exploit and kill. And the wealth we enjoy has been systematically appropriated from these people and their lands.
I'm reluctant to get drawn in to agreeing/disagreeing with such a facile line of argument as it is being used as an inaccurate assumption of my opinion. It is Eric's, and irrelevant. I have already agreed that every human and their cultures have the ability to kill, oppress, enslave or stifle, but not all of us do, and that still does not justify the act. The motive for it is highly relevant.
I did follow the discussion and unless it has been edited since, I saw long, considered and informed answers from Michael and flimsy, generalised and repetitive statements from Eric. True there was no denial of US failings, but nor was there any open, honest and comparative citing of them. It is not enough to vaguely accuse the Aztecs of human sacrifice or "Africa is a mess"..where is the evidence, logic, conjecture in that? Without also qualifying that the colonial invaders, and let's not forget America is
still invading other people's countries, had for advantage:
1) Guns, which you cannot run from, and now drones delivering bombs from a comfortable safe distance
2) Diseases, some deliberately introduced
3) Claims to superiority in matters of Spiritual belief and imposition of political bureaucracy (at gun-point) all of which systematically destroyed these cultures.
To say the 'victor' is entitled to his 'just' rewards is to ignore the inequality of advantage and then say it's justified because 'today's winners are tomorrows losers' is BS, crass and insulting.
I am not as well-informed, educated or generous as Michael, so I refrain from being drawn into the same discussion with you Eric, where you seem to have learnt nothing or shifted your stance and no doubt will trot out the same simplistic response to no apparent purpose except to entrench a stagnant point of view.
I will just say this. Why are we here on a forum discussing matters of spiritual consciousness? Perhaps it's because we in the 'advanced' world, despite our modern appliances and endless shallow distractions, feel there is something missing in our lives. Some dimension of ourselves unfulfilled. A desire to recover extra-sensory skills and talents, a spiritual connection with nature and a belief in something other than our well-fed, boringly normal 3d+time existence. I suggest, without prejudice or evidence, that these things can be found more easily in cultures that have not sold out to the law of the gun and financial domination.
If we cannot step back and honestly see and say what is wrong with our culture, how will we ever be able to get it right?
Alice