A darker picture of frontier heroes emerges

New York Times News Service via HoustonChronicle.com ^ | Nov. 6, 2004 | RALPH BLUMENTHAL

[Max Combined]

Fight fire with fire.

Good job, Rangers.

[Max Combined]

ping

[baltodog]

A dark time.

Long ago.

I'm SO glad we can trust the law enforcement organizations on BOTH sides of the border, now.

Oh, wait....

[ClearCase_guy]

Apparently, this was all one-sided. The saintly Mexicans never misbehaved or mistreated any Texans. The Rangers were just brutal for no reason. I guess.

I'm so glad we're looking at history in an objective way now.

[IStillBelieve]

It's the left's agenda of deconstructing American history.

Why don't they spend their time deconstructing the failures of liberalism and communism?

[Michael Goldsberry]

"You can't put current values on past times,"

Agreed.

Texas Rangers are heroes.

[Charlespg]

The Comanche's and Mexican Bandits were not Saints Ether. both sides played pretty rough

[astounded]

New York Times News Service - any questions?

[gaspar]

The author, Ralph Blumenthal, has been working at the New York times since the nineteen sixties. In the last election he was given the assignment of sliming George Bush, and tried his hardest to give life to the CBS phoney documents story. Five will get you ten he is a New Yorker born and bred, a red diaper baby, and one of those East Coast liberals committed to the extirpation of any aspect of America's past that is viewed with some reverence.

[Melas]

I have a real problem with dredging up muck about men long dead and no longer here to defend themselves.

[Popman]

In January 1915, with Mexico in a revolutionary uproar and world war raging in Europe, a Mexican rebel named Basilio Ramos was stopped in McAllen with a manifesto calling for an armed uprising to reclaim Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado and California for Mexico, and other lands for Indians and blacks.

I guess the Texas Rangers wouldn't pass the Kerry "Global Test"

How un PC of them to think an armed revolution across the border was a big problem for Texas, since a large portion of Texas was Hispanic.

[geedee]

It never fails to amaze me at how lefties can always, always find fault with those who fought FOR a cause yet can never find the slightest hint of stink with their fellow lefties who refused to fight and were traitors to their country and even gave comfort to the enemy . . . see Lurch.

The SwiftVets have presented boat-loads of evidence, a gazillion eyewitnesses, and reams of documents proving their case . . . and nary a historian in sight is interested YET the Texas Rangers are being slammed because of eyewitness testimony related by a great-grandson. Or was it just a grandson? Regardless . . . one could hardly be called unbiased if family was involved.

Did the Texas Rangers do some things wrong? I'm sure they did . . . but bringing the law to lawless areas isn't a job for the faint of heart -- see Iraq. I'm sure some Iraqi terrorists have been shot in the back too . . . but only after they've fired off an RPG at a schoolbus of Iraqi children and turned tail to run.

It's just not in our physical and cultural makeup for there to be wholesale executions of our enemies . . . THAT is and what will always be what separates us from most other countries on Earth. And that's why we're the greatest country the world has ever known.

[squirt-gun]

More politically correct BS to distort history.

[Popman]

New York Times News Service - any questions?

Same news cycle

Bush wins big. Too early to start smearing him again, so smear his state.

Same thing happened in 2000.

A bunch of anti - Texas news items hit the MSM

[hershey]

Folks weren't PC back then -- it hadn't been invented, thank God.

[hershey]

It was called kill or be killed. Or -- He who shoots last is dead.

[Popman]

Dead Mexican Banits - Date unknown

[error99]

(paraphrasing...)
"...In 1915, with world war raging in Europe,
a Mexican rebel called for an armed uprising
to capture land for Mexico, Indians, and blacks.
White men age 16 and older were to be executed.
Mexican raiders captured a U.S. soldier,
cut off his head and stuck it on a pole.
Texas Rangers, responded with a wave of shootings and lynchings..."
- - -
Good Job, Rangers.
"You have to nip it; nip it in the bud."

[Popman]

Postcard: "Permanent Headquarters of Mexican Bandits in Hidalgo Co.".

[Buckeye Battle Cry]

Ah yes, time to return to the good ol' liberal tradition of re-writing history to tear down the dead white guys".

In the eyes of the liberal intelligentzia, America thrived not because of these frontiersmen and statesmen, rather, it thrived in spite of them.

The frontier was brutish and nasty. They did what they had to do. Period.