Comments by "Stephen Jenkins" (@stephenjenkins7971) on "The American Revolution’s Forgotten War Crime - US History - Extra History" video.

@larsdewit6521 Then by your reckoning most human history is evil. Because both Americans, British, and every other peoples of this time period eagerly engaged in this kind of behavior.
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@larsdewit6521 Idk. I'm uncomfortable with placing modern values and beliefs onto ancient peoples or even peoples from a century ago. One day in the future, we might be considered barbarians and horrible people because we don't follow their values too.
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@HectorT52 In what realm of reality do you live in where any of this is silenced? Seriously, people openly talk about Native American genocide all the time to the point that people doing genocides as we speak use it as an excuse to do their own genocides.
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Relegating small massacres in the midst of a nation's founding really isn't an egregious mistake at all. It's quite literally not important in the grand scheme of things. It's 100% critical to talk and mention the horrors Native peoples were inflicted onto, or the retaliations they inflicted -mostly because it is a part of the history of the US itself. Hiding the overall trust is what is egregious; but mentioning every single war crime in a nation's history effectively destroys all nuance and triumphs of a culture. Nobody can or should do that, because that is effectively just self-flagellation and seriously dystopian. When learning about Indigenous history, we don't have to incessantly talk about the myriad genocides perpetuated by tribes against other tribes, the point is to learn about the how and why and triumphs. Those should not be forgotten of course, but focusing on the individual massacres is braindead. That being said, good video. I've heard of the massacre, but didn't know the details. It's easy to say what I've said, but I'm sure that's cold comfort for people who were massacred.
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@ChristopherSmith-il6fo That's effectively my point, sir. I suppose we should be teaching kids that the phrase "Golden Age" always has an asterisk somewhere that not everything was perfect for everyone.
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@HectorT52 The maximum I've ever seen is "this was how things were done back in the day", which while factual, still sounds a bit too much like an attempt to shrug it off sometimes depending on the context of the conversation. I tend to be suspicious of people that tend to talk about US war crimes, though. Mostly because I have bad experiences with people only sing it as an excuse to justify modern war crimes or genocides. So apologies if I seem harsh. Whether it be the recent Ukraine War, or the war in Ethiopia, people have had a habit of justifying the worst of actions via whataboutism. So I've become very jaded about your attitude. To me, its just an easy way for fascists to justify terrible things today.
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@roxylius7550 Every war has innocents dying. The point is to not purposefully do it and try to minimize where possible, like NOT bombing entire cities with cluster bombs which serves little infrastructure damage but maximum damage to the civilians. You know, stuff like Russia always does.
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@Belthasar-nu2cd By this logic, a golden age as a concept doesn't exist, which is absurd. Everything has a golden age, that doesn't make it perfect for everyone involved.
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@HectorT52 You're overthinking it way too hard. A golden age is just a shorthand way to say "when country was better than now" usually. That's not a blanket statement, there are exceptions in that; but overall it gets the message across. Better than saying "things were slightly better then but it had lots of bad stuff too". That just sounds redundant.
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@larsdewit6521 "enslavement of people I think we can clearly judge people from the past. Most notably because even some people back then voiced the same concerns we do now" I'd only agree with that if those voices that disagreed with that was a sizable minority rather than a few scholars of the time period. As if even the people of the time period, even if a minority starts calling it out, that means that the zeitgeist of morality has evolved enough to consider that. Say, the US in the 1840's, when anti-slavery movements started cropping up across the country, a far cry from the few voices that talked about it in the 1780's that vaguely hoped it would go away later. And not just in the US, but in Europe too and the Americas was anti-slavery movements cropping up. That's when I'd say you're more than welcome to apply morality, I think. I don't think I can condemn a Roman or Han Dynasty Chinese about slavery.
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@MisterJasro And what if that future has them believing that freedom was a mistake? We don't know what the future holds, maybe it's better by our beliefs, or maybe it's far worse. Either way, being condemned for not being "advanced" enough or even for having a radically different moral system in a different time period is absurd.
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@YouAreStillNotablaze No, by your logic, the concept of a golden age makes no sense at all since there is no such thing as a society that never had problematic elements. Ever.
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@YouAreStillNotablaze Too much work, I think :D
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@Belthasar-nu2cd "The thing is, that only works if you refuse to consider the enslaved or otherwise oppressed as people for the purposes of that statement." No, it takes them into account as well. People don't like being slaves, but that doesn't mean they don't use the institution if they have the opportunity. History is riddled with "slaves rise up, become new slave owners" stories. For US history, some 30,000 freed African Americans would colonize Liberia and basically enslave the local African population there for their new country. Several Native American tribes would start their own slave plantations and fight alongside the Confederacy in the Civil War. Just because you're a victim doesn't mean you don't believe in the system of oppression. More often then not, there is no principle involved; just a wish to be the one holding the whip.
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@kyosokutai It is, at least in totality where killing any child is bad. The only "bad" child murder back then is when it's done to your own people. Sometimes not even then, if the society in question has a nobility class that shrugs off massacring entire cities of commoners. Seriously, have you ever opened a textbook?
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@theperson8539 That "sorry excuse" is your history. Be careful that such standards aren't used to judge our generation as a bunch of evil psychos that deserve destruction for a new standard we aren't aware of.
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@erikanders3343 Everyone's nations is founded on genocide/ethnic cleansing to an extent. At least, if we're using the logic of "they existed thus its a part of their founding".
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@Genesis23OPB Your own country was built on war crimes and genocide too, regardless of where you're from. And no country willingly surrenders people to the Hague until they've been smashed to begin with.
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@noahjohnson935 A generation is 20-30 years, maximum. So, its more like several generations behind us.
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@noahjohnson935 And? That's not how counting generations work. 😑
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He's more of an anti-American view of things rather than a balanced view of things. This due to his complete lack of nuance for the US while whitewashing everyone besides the US. Barring a few exceptions like Japan. Might as well listen to Noam Chomsky imho
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Tbh, I don't think there is such anyone that believes America's birth was immaculate. If anything most people seem to believe that America's birth was a unique evil.
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