Stolen silver...

[Chris James]

I'm sure you've seen the article by now. It still pisses me off whenever I see something like this:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/17-tons-of-silver-gold-coins-from-1804-shipwreck-are-returned-to-spain/2012/02/25/gIQAYs6fZR_story.html

How convenient that Spain can rape a country's wealth 200 years ago and still end up with the booty. I cringe every time we celebrate Columbus Day here in America. The Spaniards were nothing but arrogant bastards responsible for the rape and murder of the native population in the Americas.

Spain is not one of my favorite countries for many reasons, and this only puts them further up on my S**T list. If there was to have been some justice in all this then Peru should have had the silver and gold returned to them to make a political statement about the Spanish. Some European countries don't deserve our respect.

I would hope the salvage company sent them a bill for all the time and effort it took to bring this treasure up from the bottom. The Spanish sure didn't have the balls to get it for themselves, they had to use the court to steal it...again.

[The Pecman]

Not to argue with you, but it seems to me that the U.S. government killed a few million native Americans and took all their land -- 25 million acres -- all in the name of settling North America. Is that any worse?

If you think raping and pillaging started back in 1492, think again. The concept of Manifest Destiny goes back long before the Americans gave it a name.

[Gee Whillickers]

For me, blaming a whole country on the actions of a few people who happen to have been born in, or are citizens of, that country isn't fair. Every country or culture or large group of people contains the whole spectrum of humanity in my experience, from selfish pricks to kind and generous souls. Not that there isn't blame to assign, just let's make sure we assign it to the right individuals.

[JamesSavik]

When we look back at history, its a mistake to judge the players by modern values.

England, France, Portugal, Holland and Germany all played at the Great Game and all of them played the game hard. Empires don't build themselves. It took a lot of blood, sweat and tears to make the sun never set on England.

The Spaniards were arrogant racist treasure hunters by todays standards but in the age of exploration, they were doing nothing more than what the other colonial powers were doing: empire building and spreading Christianity. Even by that yard stick, Spain was particularly ruthless in its exploitation of its colonies.

Even to this day, the world is still coping with problems that were born in the Colonial period. For instance: Iraq is a country because Europeans drew the lines. It is actually three countries: Kurdistan, Shitte-stan and Sunni-stan cobbled together on paper and kept together at gunpoint by a succession of bloody dictators. When we took it over in 2003, we found those same tribal rivalries were still alive and just as heated.