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Where you're wrong, HTRN, is that I'm all for being bound by treaties--but I would never have signed the ones that were developed, and I'm not saying at all that those were supposed to be 'put to a vote.' I'm saying that just like the Panama Canal treaty isn't my treaty, neither were the Injun treaties. If you read the rest of my post, you'll catch that my point isn't that the treaty should be set aside...it's that it wouldn't have been signed in the first place. I agree that we should abide by it, if only because it's precedent setting to break treaties. But I won't accept personal responsibility for the drafting and signing of it, any more than I deserve responsibility for the Magna Carta.

But where you're right is in your comparison. Maybe a treaty signed under duress IS just like the Union's Constitution, in that those who swore to uphold and defend it under duress should be let out of that oath and allowed to go their own way. After all, fish hawk argued that he was subject to the terms of the tribal treaties only under the barrel of a gun, and should be allowed recission because there was no willing party to the contract on his side. And hey, I'm only subject to the jurisdiction of the Constitution by the force of arms that established that there is no right to secede from the Union, not the natural rights of mankind that government is only by the consent of the governed. There was no willing contract on the part of Robert E. Lee, only a gun barrel.

But if, as you say, since nobody made provision for the 'palefaces' to revote and the social contract is automatically 'renewed,' there is no ability to revolt against a bent version of that government after the social contract is signed. Thus, not only was secession in the South illegal, the whole American revolution was illegal, under your logic. After all, the contract was signed with the King, and nobody made provision for the Tories to revote.

But I stand by my point to fish hawk, which is that either you want ALL treaties signed under duress abrogated, and the Union gets dissolved, and the Puritans get checks for their property in England, and the Angles and Saxons owe the Celts some big dough, etc., etc., or you abide by all of them. You may not cherrypick from historic wrongs and be logically consistent in so doing.

As to your attempt to avoid any discussion of the points I made by playing the 'prejudice' card, osprey, I use the term Injun because it's just as I'd say the word Indian, rolls off the tongue better and is easier to type than the unwieldy PC term "native American." If you think mere words are true indicators of prejudice, you're both fools. Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton generally speak respectfully to others these days, but they are extortionists who would steal from their own mothers if they could. I've got no disrespect for Injuns or for their ability to fight--the only reason we beat them down is that their stock wasn't disease resistant. If even a third of them had managed to fight off the plagues Europeans brought on their first visit, HTRN and I wouldn't even be glints in our great-great-great grandaddies' eyes.

But I'm a big fan of fighting wars to their finish, and you don't finish a war by leaving a bunch of pissed-off people to ferment. America keeps making that mistake. If you disagree with me on that, fine, but it doesn't make me prejudiced to state my opinion, and if you think it's appropriate to toss that word around lightly, peachy. Just don't expect that anyone will have a lot of respect for your opinion if your only response to argument is 'neener neener, you're prejudiced!'

And you don't know me from Adam, Redneck, so I suggest you take that 'a calf could buck you' bullshit right back to your virtual trailer park. I cut my first steer before you even sprouted hairs, and I bet you couldn't tell a crossfire from a cloverleaf.