The California state legislature elected the Republican Miller as one of the state’s two Senators in 1881. He was an outspoken proponent of several bills to limit the influx and influence of Chinese immigrants. He expressed his sentiments during passage of the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act:
“One complete man, the product of free institutions and high civilization, is worth more to the world than hundreds of barbarians. Upon what other theory can we justify the almost complete extermination of the Indians, the original possessor of all these States? I believe that one such man as Newton, or Franklin, or Lincoln, glorifies the creator of the world and benefits mankind more than all the Chinese who have lived, struggled and died on the banks of the Hoang Ho.”
— 13 Cong. Rec. 1,487 (1882).
A central idea in Domenico Losurdo’s masterpiece Liberalism: A Counter-History is that liberalism was, from its very beginnings, an ideology that sought to justify slavery. Hagiographers of the Founding Fathers and American independence love to portray it as a triumph of “freedom-loving peoples.” According to this story, slavery was merely a lingering imperfection, a backwards holdover righteously stamped out by the Civil War early in the nation’s history, and whatever regrettable byproducts of slavery that remain don’t fundamentally challenge the identification of liberalism and Western democracy with “freedom” as such. Losurdo argues, however, that liberalism is better understood as an ideology produced to satisfy the need felt by capitalists (business owners, entrepreneurs, etc.) to justify their rebellion against the monarchy while simultaneously justifying colonialism, Manifest Destiny, the genocide of indigenous people, chattel slavery, and the active suppression of workers’ rights.
Upon what other theory can we justify the almost complete extermination of the Indians, the original possessor of all these States?
This is such an weird thing to say in his position.
It’s definitely acknowledging that what happened was mega-fucked, or at least would be without proper justification.
But it’s so wild to me to be open about your moral philosophy being based on cope.
My best guess would be that it was Very Bad to suggest that the folks who paved the way for their lives were anything but saints? There’s a YouTube video (innuendo studios maybe?) that talks about conservatives viewing individual people as good or bad vs viewing actions as good or bad (which leads to e.g. “the only moral abortion is my abortion”). Under that lens, Good People do Good Things, and the people who genocided the native americans were Good People, therefore there must exist a reason that it was a Good Thing?
see also John Franklin Miller
At least 25% of AP US history was shit like “the
<ethnicity>exclusion act of<year>”.It’s great to see how his views survived except you can’t actually say that anymore and it all has to be couched in other terms
from Really Existing Fascism
This is such an weird thing to say in his position.
It’s definitely acknowledging that what happened was mega-fucked, or at least would be without proper justification.
But it’s so wild to me to be open about your moral philosophy being based on cope.
My best guess would be that it was Very Bad to suggest that the folks who paved the way for their lives were anything but saints? There’s a YouTube video (innuendo studios maybe?) that talks about conservatives viewing individual people as good or bad vs viewing actions as good or bad (which leads to e.g. “the only moral abortion is my abortion”). Under that lens, Good People do Good Things, and the people who genocided the native americans were Good People, therefore there must exist a reason that it was a Good Thing?