Holy crap, I can't believe this.  Let me say this for the record:<p>The slaughter of Native Americans by the Conquistadors was a terrible thing.  Awful.  Tragic.  An abomination.<p>Also, and completely not taking anything away from the awful abominableness of that terrible tragedy, the Native Americans had lots of other problems with their culture, and were in many ways, quite savage.<p>The Conquistadors had really good food, and the technological know-how to cross the oceans, which are both quite good and important things.<p>Being a murderer doesn't mean your ships aren't great.  Having great ships doesn't make you less of a murderer.<p>My point is that you can't just say "they did this awful thing, therefor everything about their culture was horrible".<p>My point is also that you can't just say "they had this awful thing done to them, therefor everything about their culture was better."<p>We can judge the act as bad without thinking that it somehow pollutes everything that is <i>good</i> about the culture that did the heinous thing.<p>We can also judge the act as bad without thinking that being the victim of a heinous act somehow erases everything that is <i>bad</i> in the victim.<p>The real world is complicated, and all-or-nothing thinking is irrationally and unforgivably lazy.