NOTE: This letter is addressed to Justin Raimondo, editorial director of Antiwar.com and author of Reclaiming the American Right: The Lost Legacy of the Conservative Movement

Regarding "Mourning in America" by Justin Raimondo (http://www.antiwar.com/justin/j070403.html):

While I may sympathize with some parts of your idealistic vision of America, I have to disagree sharply with the way you gloss over Manifest Destiny and western expansion. ...

In the past, you have articulated an eloquent libertarian argument for the Palestinians' right of self-defense to their property and homes against the intrusion of Zionist settlements and bulldozers (analogous to how the founding forefathers resisted the British Crown). And yet, when it comes to the matter of American-Indians, you use "Lockean" justification for their elimination. I fail to see the difference between that and any other imperialist or Zionist justification for conquest and colonization. You espouse the settlement of white colonists on virgin and pristine lands at the expense of the natives as a just and beautiful cause, but you lambaste the Israeli Zionists for their own attempts at development and colonization of Palestine. You vilify the atrocities of American natives and attribute it to "firewater" (drunk on terrorism perhaps) but why would you expect them to do otherwise – in the face of encroachment and displacement? You seem to exhibit more understanding for the Palestinians fighting against their own demise in the face of the Israeli juggernaut. Hell, why not just let the Chinese overrun Mongolia, Tibet, and Siberia then, just as the Americans overran much of Mexico? All in the name of Locke.

I won't even delve into other historical misrepresentations of American-Indians as nomads or the real reasons for why the Texans seceded from Mexico, etc., since previous responses have approached those issues already. But I will say this: while I have enjoyed reading most your articles in the past, Justin, and have respected your integrity and consistency on most antiwar issues, this article is definitely one of your more inconsistent and sloppier articles to date.

~ Joseph Hines

see letter: http://www.antiwar.com/letters/letters489.html

alternate: http://www.antiwar.com/letters/letters.html

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SEE: Who deserves to be mourned in America? part I

by Justin Raimondo & Goh Joon

-- http://www.indyhawaii.org/news/2003/07/3060