DCP Is An Ugly American Tourist

[I Have Questions]

To his credit, today he draws a direct comparison between Trump & Maga, and Hitler & Naziism.

I thought DCP had sworn off criticizing Donald Trump so the donations to Interpreter wouldn't dry up.

That suggests that Interpreter is dependent on donations from people who take issue with calling out MAGA/Nazi supporters for what they are. That Interpreter and his Patheos Blog are not examples of Free Speech but instead, are controlled spaces where Maga/Nazi sympathisers are allowed to call the shots.

DCP's willingness to kowtow to Trumpists in return for money suggests a personal moral shallowness on his part. Perhaps this recent change, where he parallels Trump's Administration with that of Hitler's, is a sign he's decided to grow a backbone?

[drumdude]

I thought DCP had sworn off criticizing Donald Trump so the donations to Interpreter wouldn't dry up.

That suggests that Interpreter is dependent on donations from people who take issue with calling out MAGA/Nazi supporters for what they are. That Interpreter and his Patheos Blog are not examples of Free Speech but instead, are controlled spaces where Maga/Nazi sympathisers are allowed to call the shots.

DCP's willingness to kowtow to Trumpists in return for money suggests a personal moral shallowness on his part. Perhaps this recent change, where he parallels Trump's Administration with that of Hitler's, is a sign he's decided to grow a backbone?

He certainly deserves credit where credit is due. The number of conservatives who are concerned about Trump is vanishingly small. An even smaller number are willing to speak out publicly.

[Marcus]

In order to support his negative assessment of the Hawaiian King, the Afore is mentioning a massacre the King was responsible for. (Cough cough--Mountain Meadow Massacre & BY)

Was this an April fool's post slipped onto his blog?

...And here’s yet another story about King Kamehameha I that should make it clear that only a morally ugly, lazy, despicable, unempathetic, racist, colonialist, and privileged white man such as I am could possibly have even the slightest reservation about pronouncing the man “great”:
<snipped>
...The, umm, “battle” between Keōua Kuahuʻula and his kindly host Kamehameha the Great has sometimes been called the “Slaughter at Kawaihae.” But why? It’s difficult to imagine how anybody other than a white supremacist could see anything at all reprehensible in it. And yet, weirdly, some sort of healing ceremony was held there in 1991, on the two hundredth anniversary the butchery, by some of the descendants of those who were involved in the event...

[Doctor Steuss]

...The, umm, “battle” between Keōua Kuahuʻula and his kindly host Kamehameha the Great has sometimes been called the “Slaughter at Kawaihae.” But why? It’s difficult to imagine how anybody other than a white supremacist could see anything at all reprehensible in it. And yet, weirdly, some sort of healing ceremony was held there in 1991, on the two hundredth anniversary the butchery, by some of the descendants of those who were involved in the event...

The Timpanogos men murdered on Valentine's Day, and their children and widows who were made into servants, have entered the chat...

"Never treat the Indian as your equal." ~Some Guy Worthy of Adoration and Praise, In Utah, circa 1850

[drumdude]

I've never been to or read any of the blogspots at that other board, but I cannot help but find it fascinating that such a group of (apparently, mostly) men should waste away their days in the daily grind of negative pontifications. Just think about it, a group of men, who dedicate their lives to negative thoughts, negative words and (most probably) negative actions. I am serious when I say "negative actions," for most people who live daily thoughts of negativity end up actively acting negative in return.

A common phrase that they hate over there is one that most applies to them, "Haters gotta hate." I know they hate it, because they try and turn it around somehow, but it never quite works the same, because none of us here would remark at all about any of them if it weren't for their incessant spewing of hate-filled trash.

After all, haters gotta hate, and the evidence is in the words and the works that follow them.

???????

[I Have Questions]

...The, umm, “battle” between Keōua Kuahuʻula and his kindly host Kamehameha the Great has sometimes been called the “Slaughter at Kawaihae.” But why? It’s difficult to imagine how anybody other than a white supremacist could see anything at all reprehensible in it. And yet, weirdly, some sort of healing ceremony was held there in 1991, on the two hundredth anniversary the butchery, by some of the descendants of those who were involved in the event...

The Timpanogos men murdered on Valentine's Day, and their children and widows who were made into servants, have entered the chat...

"Never treat the Indian as your equal." ~Some Guy Worthy of Adoration and Praise, In Utah, circa 1850

It's this type of bias in Peterson's writing that makes me see him as a casual racist. What's bad behaviour for a non-LDS Hawaiian King is more than acceptable and not equivalent when perpetrated by a white American Mormon.

Peterson is just an anti-Hawaiian.

[Physics Guy]

In fairness, Peterson's post about this focuses more on Napoleon than on Kamehameha. Conquest is indeed a bizarre form of greatness. It usually amounts to greatness in crime.

There is some reason to think that Kamehameha may have turned over a new leaf once he had established his rule, so that he perhaps fits the mold of Chandragupta Maurya, whom Peterson (along with pretty much everyone) praises as one of history's few truly great rulers. I found a story that is supposed to have explained the origin of Kamehameha's law criminalizing violence against women, children, and the elderly. As supreme king Kamehameha tracked down two fishermen who had once knocked him out with a paddle while he was raiding them; he supposedly apologized for the raid and rewarded them. I don't know how much propaganda may have been involved in this story, but Kamehameha lived in the late 18th century and had personal contact with Americans, so his history is not just all ancient legend. And furthermore, even just propagating such a story as propaganda would show that Kamehameha as king wanted to be thought of as great for more than just successful violence.

And even violent conquest can have a greatness that modern people may find hard to imagine. The lands that a great conquerer forcefully unified were often not peaceful countries but savage anarchies in which most people suffered war all the time, with peace coming only after the conquest. People really did welcome that kind of conquest. Successful conquerers would definitely want to spin it that way, but it may really not have needed so much spinning. My admittedly thin and amateur understanding of history and anthropology makes me think that small-scale societies have tended to be horribly violent.

Modern people may feel guilty about condemning those more "primitive" societies, and want to disavow judging them by "our" standards. People may want to justify those societies' customs, whatever they were, as being somehow just as legitimate as ours. I think that's racist, because it amounts to saying that massacre and slavery and human sacrifice were just fine for those savages, who didn't deserve human rights as we do. Kamehameha may not have been the ideal ruler, but he seems to have improved things a lot from how they were when he started, and that really is great.

[I Have Questions]

June 11th is an important Hawaii State holiday. It's the day many Hawaiians honor and respect their greatest ruler/unifier, King Kamehameha the Great. Hawaiians view King Kamehameha and his numerous accomplishments with the same reverence many people view George Washington or Abraham Lincoln.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Kamehameha_I_Day

DCP (who is currently in Hawaii) just posted a very derogatory comment about the Hawaii's most hallowed and honored person. To their credit, several commentors called DCP out on his tone-deaf post.

I’ve never understood why Kamehameha is called “the Great,” nor why his name and his statues show up all over Hawai’i. Yes, he unified Hawai’i under a single ruler. But for what? Simply because he wanted to own all of the islands? Why? Did he have progressive new ideas to help people? Didn’t he have enough poi to eat? Was his grass-hut palace on the Big Island too small? How many people had to die for him to gratify his pointless ambition? Why, again, do we call such men “great”? I’ll bet that there’s a different standard in heaven for greatness. And there should be a different one on Earth, as well.

Quite disrespectful, no? Does it rise to the cruelty of him torturing a cat, as reported by one of his co-travelers during an excursion to the Middle East? Does it rise to the irreverent mockery of him demeaning Jewish religious ceremonies, as also reported by one of his co-travelers during a trip to Israel? You will have to be the judge of that. But it's psychologically fascinating that even vacationing in a tropical paradise seems to inspire despicable behavior in him.

Given Peterson's objections to a nation celebrating a person "guilty" of violent conquest in the formation of a sovereign state, one assumes he also objects to the celebrating Independence Day and Thanksgiving? Presumably he will now avoid visiting Hawaii? Does he renounce himself for daily pledging allegiance to a sovereignty state that was formed the same way 'King Kamehameha I' formed Hawaii? Perhaps he will speak out against Israel's current campaign of ethnic cleansing and refuse to visit and lead tours there? Or are those things somehow different?

[I Have Questions]

Today's disingenuous pearl clutching...

And surely they’re right! Who else but a lazy, ugly, despicable, unempathetic racist and colonialist could possibly see anything not to admire in a king who not only forced several hundred islanders to fall to their deaths from a tall cliff at the Battle of Nuʻuanu but who also ordered a man to pound water out of dry earth and then hanged that man because the task was completely impossible?

And here’s yet another story about King Kamehameha I that should make it clear that only a morally ugly, lazy, despicable, unempathetic, racist, colonialist, and privileged white man such as I am could possibly have even the slightest reservation about pronouncing the man “great”:

By 1782, Kamehameha I had taken control of western and northern Hawaiʻi island (i.e., the Kona and Kohala districts where we recently spent a few days). Over the eight years, however, he fought a number of inconclusive further battles. And then, after returning from his conquest of Maui in 1790, he was attacked by his cousin Keōua Kuahuʻula, who still controlled the eastern side of the island, over by Hilo. Presumably frustrated, Kamehmeha thereupon returned to the seaside village of Kawaihae, where he had spent some time earlier. There, a respected kahuna or priest suggested the building of a luakini heiau or sacrificial temple as a method of gaining the favor of the war god Kūkaʻilimoku.

The massive temple — see the photograph above — was completed in the summer of 1791. So Kamehameha invited his cousin Keōua Kuahuʻula to come for a visit of the new temple, offering the false promise of a peace treaty. As Keōua Kuahuʻula stepped ashore, he and his entourage were captured and killed. And, with the offering of their bodies, the new temple was officially dedicated.

The, umm, “battle” between Keōua Kuahuʻula and his kindly host Kamehameha the Great has sometimes been called the “Slaughter at Kawaihae.” But why? It’s difficult to imagine how anybody other than a white supremacist could see anything at all reprehensible in it. And yet, weirdly, some sort of healing ceremony was held there in 1991, on the two hundredth anniversary the butchery, by some of the descendants of those who were involved in the event.

And here's a similar story...

The Nephi massacre was an 1853 incident when a group of Mormons invited a group of peace-seeking Goshute Native American men, woman (singular), and children into their fort in Nephi, Utah and executed the seven men and took the remaining three as prisoners.[4]: 138—139  The white settlers were acting in retaliation for the recent deaths of four Mormons in the Fountain Green massacre done by a different nation of Native American called Ute.[3][2][5] The settlers were from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) commonly called Mormons.[4]: 138—139 

The murder of the Goshute men occurred in the midst of a series of skirmishes dubbed Wakara's War between Native Americans and Mormons in the present-day Utah region.[3] LDS settlers at Salt Creek Fort in present-day Nephi, Utah invited the group of people inside the fort, took them prisoner, shot them in the back of the head,[3][4]: 158  and buried them in a mass grave.[7] One woman and two children from the group were taken prisoner.[8]

And another one involving Peterson's personal hero...Brigham Young...

The Aiken massacre was an 1857 lynching in central Utah of five Californian travelers reportedly at the orders of top leaders in Mormonism's largest denomination, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.[2][3][4] The victims were apprehended on trumped up charges of spying, imprisoned, then murdered, though two escaped with injuries, but were killed two days later.[1]: 471–472 [5][6] This occurred two months after the Mountain Meadows Massacre and was part of the impetus for the Utah War (1857–1858).[1]: 457 [7]

In 1877 Porter Rockwell and Wild Bill Hickman were indicted for the massacre.[8][9] In his confession, the now excommunicated Hickman stated that after Bucklin ("Buck") had escaped the murder attempt, territory governor and top church president Brigham Young ordered him to finish the job.[2][10]: 278 [11] According to historian John G. Turner it is likely Young was involved in the death of four of the party members, along with a trader Richard Yates a month before.[3] The Aiken massacre's name comes from the brothers Thomas and John Aiken of the group who were killed.

Peterson would do well to remember the idiom about stone throwing whilst a resident in a glass house.

[Moksha]

Dr. Peterson would not be so harsh to judge this Hawaiian King if Kamehameha's people had remained true to their Jewish roots and not been cursed with a skin of darkness.