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... kinda like that joker who says that he officially staked 1st legal claim to the moon and so he legally owns it, and is selling lunar real estate with official legal title documents and whatnot... and no, this is not a joke; there is really a guy doing this - he's American, of course... (three cheers for American ingenuity!)
Or even better, you ever seen that Eddie Izzard HBO comedy special where he explains the logic used to rationalize British imperialism:
'We built an empire; we stole countries, that's how you builds an empire. We stole countries with the cunning use of flags - just sail around the world and stick a flag in:
"I claim India for Britain!"
- and they're going "You can't claim us! We live here! There's five hundred million of us!"
..."But do you have a flag?"
- "We don't need a bloody flag, this is our country, you bastard!"
..." No flag, no country. You can't have one. That's the rules that I just made up... and I'm backing it up with this gun, that was lent to me be the National Rifle Association."'
- that dude is hilarious (and hey, by that logic, America DOES own the moon! U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A!)
So yeah I understand that point - my mother and I were just talking about this last week, about the proclamation from the Pope that the conquistadors took to the Americas, claiming the land and everything in it in the name of the Holy Roman Catholic Church, and declaring the lives of any natives who did not accept this proclamation as forfeit. She was like, "the whole history of the church is so horrible, it's all so much bullshit - that's it, I'm officially not Catholic anymore!" ... and she was serious. Of course she hasn't been to Mass in about 10 years, so it wasn't as dramatic a gesture as it might sound, but still.
So yeah, Europeans mastered the art of rationalizing imperialism with legalistic documentation and all... but the Mongols and others didn't care about whether it had the facade of self-rationalized legality to it, they just took what they wanted and didn't give a fuck about making it sound nice and legal. So pick your poison, I guess.
>yeah, the Mongols made European settlers look like gaping, >spent vaginas. really.
Yeah - check out the part about the Mongols' and how they used it to kick European ass... those poor crackers didn't know what hit 'em.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "This will not stand, ya know, this aggression will not stand, man." - The Dude
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Mar-A-Lago delenda est
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