re: Is being racist always wrong?

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Utter nonsense. Colonialism, especially European colonialism, was an arms race in terms of economic resources. The idea was to collect as many raw materials from different areas of the world and bring them back for processing in the native land.

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Exactly. It was basically about free stuff, and that goes back to long before present-day racial classifications were invented.

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In early empires, such as the Babylonians and Assyrians, conquered peoples provided slave labor and military numbers - a different type of resource but a resource nonetheless.

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And others were even more "colonialist" -- the Persians allowed local self governance in exchange for tribute.