[ebiester]

Is the Armenian genocide worse than the Trail of Tears, for example?

(I'm not trying to discredit or diminish the Armenian genocide here, mind you, but rather point out we still have someone who committed genocide by the same terms on American money.)

[mikeash]

I think most Americans will, at this point, agree that the Trail of Tears was terrible. The National Park Service has an official historic trail covering the route, with many exhibits describing the terrible suffering.

Turkey, on the other hand, still tries to pretend that the Armenian Genocide did not happen, even prosecuting people who say it did.

We are by no means perfect, but I think nations which are able to acknowledge and learn from the mistakes of their past have a leg up on those that try to pretend everything was great.

[turar]

> We are by no means perfect, but I think nations which are able to acknowledge and learn from the mistakes of their past have a leg up on those that try to pretend everything was great.

The United States government has never acknowledged Native American genocide either.

[mikeash]

They clearly have to some extent. That's why I mentioned the National Park Service trail. More would be better, for sure, but we don't deny it, nor prosecute people who say it happened.

[hkt]

Calling it a genocide is an important acknowledgement in its own right.

[mikeash]

That's an argument that the US could handle it better. My argument is simply that some countries handle it qualitatively better than others, and in particular that the US acknowledges and learns from the Trail of Tears in ways that Turkey does not with the Armenian Genocide. These two arguments are compatible.

[desireco42]

They are fairly similar, however we just don't know much about what happened to Armenians, which doesn't diminish what they endured or how bad things were done to them.