7 ms·

The numbers should really be 100% instead of 25% and 10%. Much has been stolen from them.

spaginal 6y ago
You have a distinctly queer idea of what happens after a war. This isn't an American idea to take land after conquest, it's how it's always worked throughout human history, even with the Indians that warred amongst themselves prior to the American government becoming the ultimate victor against them. You may disagree with the foundations of the conflict, and you can argue on those merits if you choose, but the results are the results all the same, and it's not theft when you win.
- S33V 6y ago
  I find it amusing that you hold a blanket thought that the theft of Native American land was the result of war games and not a mixture of deception, racism, genocide, breach of trust, and thievery.
  - defen 6y ago
    > a mixture of deception, racism, genocide, breach of trust, and thievery. Were there rules against that? And if so, who would enforce them?
  - mensetmanusman 6y ago
    War is hell... and all of those things
  - mtgp1000 6y ago
    How do you think warring tribes treated each other? You are aware that some proportion of native tribes kept both native and black (and probably white to a lesser extent) slaves, right? It's also interesting that you choose the word "theft" as though the natives even had a concept for land ownership. Seems people are too eager to view history through a modern moral lense these days.
    - __s 6y ago
      > It's also interesting that you choose the word "theft" as though the natives even had a concept for land ownership There were many tribes living without telecommunications across the Americas with all their varying climates causing different socioeconomic structures to emerge https://mises.org/wire/did-indians-understand-concept-private-property https://mises.org/wire/did-indians-understand-concept-privat...
      - mtgp1000 6y ago
        >all their varying climates causing different socioeconomic structures to emerge Which supports my point, that trying to view native practices through modern concepts is a bit like forcing a square peg through a round hole. >One of the reasons that many continue to think that aboriginal Americans had no concept of private property, however, is because many tribes did regard land as being communally owned. Carl Watner explores the topic in The Journal of Libertarian Studies The article seems to conflate "private property" with land ownership. Even this particular paragraph speaks of "communal ownership" which isn't quite the same as the concept of ownership in modern US law, though there are certainly provisions for group ownership. Point is that article only supports what I'm saying, that it's borderline slanderous to assign morality to the behavior of cultures from 300+ years ago according to modern laws and ideas. Regarding this discussion, "theft" certainly becomes a strong word when you consider how different (and heterogeneous) concepts and practices were back then.
  - spaginal 6y ago
    I'm amused that you possibly think war is just two sides in distinct colors simply lining up and shooting volleys at each other until one side surrenders from the field with a white flag in the air. That may be more civil and gentlemanly, but it's far from how wars are mostly fought. Deception, killing, accepting/breaking agreements, and taking things is basically war in a nutshell. It is an extension of diplomacy. How you execute these parts is a matter of your goals, and your morals and ethics. But it's not THEFT. There is no such thing as theft when it comes between two nation states, it's either yours or it's not yours, and how well you can defend it basically is the rule of the game. If you deceive yourself enough to assume you aren't at war, while the other side sends you all the signals that they are at war with you, whose fault is it when you eventually fall? You may hate it, but don't redefine something basic to the politics of humanity.
- sophacles 6y ago
  You have a distinctly queer idea of physics. Just because many many assholes in the past have used violence to steal land, does not require any of the following: * current or future people honor the validity of those assholes' decisions and actions * current or future people choosing to make right the bad things their ancestors did in the past, and giving back what was taken. * current or future people changing the structure of governance to allow groups to co-exist All of these things are possible actions humans can take. Physics does not stop it - post war "happenings" are just human decisions. So why does your post read like the current situation is immutable just because it was preceded by war?
  - spaginal 6y ago
    Because that is how this world works. You may be new out of the womb intellectually speaking, but if a child shows up at my doorstep one day and tells me I'm on his ancestors land from 300 years prior and I must vacate the home I bought and have legal title too, on the land my ancestors fought and bled over 300 years prior, even if they were assholes about it at the time, I have zero obligation to hand it over because of feelings. That is why. You may not find it fair, but there does come past a point where the only fair thing to the present society, that had no hand in the original act, is to "keep on trucking" as they say.
    - sophacles 6y ago
      This argument translated to other situations: * we can't just end slavery - this is not how this world works. There have been slaves forever. We can't change slavery because of feelings. * we can't give women the right to vote. This is not how this world works, women are supposed to be property of their men. We can't just let them do it because of feelings. * we can't try to have a geneva conventio. This is not how this world works, excessive torture and cruelty have always been part of war. We cant just expect or troops to show humanity. * we can't give land ownership rights to commoners. This is not how the world works, nobility has always had special privelege to own a thing. We cant just expect to let lesser humans have land because of feelings. Finally: if your argument applies equally to a pro- and anit-Isreal stance - it's existence both proves and violates your exact point at the same time, depending on which stance you are already more inclined to.
- 49531 6y ago
  This is a unique idea, that feels to be mostly semantic. Ok, you don't want to call it theft, but does that change the justice of the situation? America conquered a series of less developed nations of people through sometimes dubious means, and has spent the years after that conquering trying to erase or marginalize the conquered peoples. America won, so it's not theft, but whatever you call it it's unjust.
jorblumesea 6y ago
Might makes right. Land has no true owners, only those with the means to defend it. Florida could be part of "greater Canada" if the US government was weak and the Canadian government felt it was worth it.
- maxmamis 6y ago
  You're literally justifying genocide.
  - jorblumesea 6y ago
    I don't think I'm saying any of this is fine, just pointing out that geopolitics isn't about what's morally correct. Anyone can own any piece of land for just about any reason so long as they have the firepower to back it up.
    - ianai 6y ago
      This part of humanity's impulses has me thinking we’re closer to the cosmic equivalent of “orcs” than to anything resembling a highly evolved species. Our impetus is to define things in terms that lead to conflict or must use conflict to resolve problems. We’re evolved mammals with a distinct us/them complex. Whereas if we were highly evolved organisms with a more hive like ancestor we might not war with each other as much or ever. I’m thinking like fungi or something.
    - maxmamis 6y ago
      "Might makes right" certainly implies a moral stance.
bufferoverflow 6y ago
Didn't they steal that land from the tribes before them?
- _-david-_ 6y ago
  I am not an expert in Native American history but the Creek Nation are almost certainly not the originally inhabitants. This is one of my biggest issues with stuff like this. Why should the Creek Nation get this land and not the tribe that lived there previously? Why not the tribe before that tribe? Americans often did not treat the natives well but this is an issue with all countries. It was quite common for Natives to kill other tribes and take over that area. It sucks but that is how a country is formed.
  - krapp 6y ago
    >Why should the Creek Nation get this land and not the tribe that lived there previously? Why not the tribe before that tribe? Because the US government entered into a treaty with the Creek Nation, who were the inhabitants of that land at that time.
    - _-david-_ 6y ago
      I get the US made an agreement. I was talking more of a general principle than this specific case. I have seen several comments here saying the US was wrong to take land through violent means and as such the US should return the land. When the natives did the same thing to other natives nobody seems to think they should return it to the people they took it from. There is a double standard and I don't like it. If we are going to return the land we should return it to the original inhabitants. Of course there isn't actually a way to figure out who occupied the land thousands of years ago.
djrogers 6y ago
Every country in the world that exists today is occupied by a people who can be traced back to a conquering nation. If you think through the implications of your statement, you'd see you're talking about wiping out 10,000 years of history and forcibly moving 7 billion people somewhere else.
- 49531 6y ago
  Proximity in time and space add important context to the issue. There are still many places in the world where injustices are happening due to this kind of problem, saying that it has always been this way doesn't add anything to the conversation.
  - rukittenme 6y ago
    > Proximity in time and space add important context to the issue. It really doesn't and saying otherwise doesn't add anything to the conversation (see what I did there). Do you really believe the Russian and German empires should reclaim their "rightful" territories in Europe? Do you believe Europe should reassert its domination over Africa because it had strong political control over it in recent history? What about the British Raj? What about Hong Kong? "Time and space" is a bullshit argument and you don't believe it yourself. How could you? "So and so" holding "such and such" lands at "this and that" time is the basis of 99% of wars throughout history. Its a stupid way to think. Its a stupid way to govern.
  - buzzerbetrayed 6y ago
    > Proximity in time and space add important context to the issue So how long do non-native Americans have to wait for it to no longer be stolen land? What's the date? Because in order to believe that your line of thinking is logical, surely you at least have a vague answer to that question.
    - jMyles 6y ago
      The answer doesn't lie in the temporal dimension at all. We can stop stealing the land by choosing to live on it differently, and by respecting indigenous leadership with respect to use of and trust in the land. The idea that the land was stolen in discrete acts, decades or centuries ago, does not comport with what I am hearing from indigenous leadership. The land is still being stolen today, all the time.
abqio 6y ago
No thank you. As someone who lives in one of those states this is a worrying precedent. Maybe if their laws didn't apply to me as a non citizen I would be ok with this. As it is, I can be arrested for stopping at the wrong gas station with a firearm in my car. I have no choice but to pass through reservations on a regular basis. And I have no input in the government that makes their laws. Nor any hope of ever being heard. Yet those laws apply to me just the same.
- krapp 6y ago
  >And I have no input in the government that makes their laws. Nor any hope of ever being heard. Yet those laws apply to me just the same. It's almost as if they stole part of your country from you, ignored your laws and customs and forced you to submit to their authority without your consent. That must just be terrible.
  - ekam 6y ago
    Two wrongs don’t make a right
    - krapp 6y ago
      It isn't two wrongs, it's a wrong and the recognition of a right.
      - rukittenme 6y ago
        The recognition of what right? How is it right to govern without consent? Take a moment to consider that the world can not go back to 1950 as some Republicans would like and it can not go back to 1850 as apparently some Democrats would like. You believe its right to subject a person who lives in Oklahoma, who has never lived in a country other than the USA, who has never stolen anyone's land, to the non-representative rule of a person (who's land was never stolen) because of their racial origin? I'm very interested in the ideology that led you to these beliefs.
dang 6y ago
We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23782234 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23782234.

You have a distinctly queer idea of what happens after a war. This isn't an American idea to take land after conquest, it's how it's always worked throughout human history, even with the Indians that warred amongst themselves prior to the American government becoming the ultimate victor against them. You may disagree with the foundations of the conflict, and you can argue on those merits if you choose, but the results are the results all the same, and it's not theft when you win.

S33V 6y ago
I find it amusing that you hold a blanket thought that the theft of Native American land was the result of war games and not a mixture of deception, racism, genocide, breach of trust, and thievery.
- defen 6y ago
  > a mixture of deception, racism, genocide, breach of trust, and thievery. Were there rules against that? And if so, who would enforce them?
- mensetmanusman 6y ago
  War is hell... and all of those things
- mtgp1000 6y ago
  How do you think warring tribes treated each other? You are aware that some proportion of native tribes kept both native and black (and probably white to a lesser extent) slaves, right? It's also interesting that you choose the word "theft" as though the natives even had a concept for land ownership. Seems people are too eager to view history through a modern moral lense these days.
  - __s 6y ago
    > It's also interesting that you choose the word "theft" as though the natives even had a concept for land ownership There were many tribes living without telecommunications across the Americas with all their varying climates causing different socioeconomic structures to emerge https://mises.org/wire/did-indians-understand-concept-private-property https://mises.org/wire/did-indians-understand-concept-privat...
    - mtgp1000 6y ago
      >all their varying climates causing different socioeconomic structures to emerge Which supports my point, that trying to view native practices through modern concepts is a bit like forcing a square peg through a round hole. >One of the reasons that many continue to think that aboriginal Americans had no concept of private property, however, is because many tribes did regard land as being communally owned. Carl Watner explores the topic in The Journal of Libertarian Studies The article seems to conflate "private property" with land ownership. Even this particular paragraph speaks of "communal ownership" which isn't quite the same as the concept of ownership in modern US law, though there are certainly provisions for group ownership. Point is that article only supports what I'm saying, that it's borderline slanderous to assign morality to the behavior of cultures from 300+ years ago according to modern laws and ideas. Regarding this discussion, "theft" certainly becomes a strong word when you consider how different (and heterogeneous) concepts and practices were back then.
- spaginal 6y ago
  I'm amused that you possibly think war is just two sides in distinct colors simply lining up and shooting volleys at each other until one side surrenders from the field with a white flag in the air. That may be more civil and gentlemanly, but it's far from how wars are mostly fought. Deception, killing, accepting/breaking agreements, and taking things is basically war in a nutshell. It is an extension of diplomacy. How you execute these parts is a matter of your goals, and your morals and ethics. But it's not THEFT. There is no such thing as theft when it comes between two nation states, it's either yours or it's not yours, and how well you can defend it basically is the rule of the game. If you deceive yourself enough to assume you aren't at war, while the other side sends you all the signals that they are at war with you, whose fault is it when you eventually fall? You may hate it, but don't redefine something basic to the politics of humanity.
sophacles 6y ago
You have a distinctly queer idea of physics. Just because many many assholes in the past have used violence to steal land, does not require any of the following: * current or future people honor the validity of those assholes' decisions and actions * current or future people choosing to make right the bad things their ancestors did in the past, and giving back what was taken. * current or future people changing the structure of governance to allow groups to co-exist All of these things are possible actions humans can take. Physics does not stop it - post war "happenings" are just human decisions. So why does your post read like the current situation is immutable just because it was preceded by war?
- spaginal 6y ago
  Because that is how this world works. You may be new out of the womb intellectually speaking, but if a child shows up at my doorstep one day and tells me I'm on his ancestors land from 300 years prior and I must vacate the home I bought and have legal title too, on the land my ancestors fought and bled over 300 years prior, even if they were assholes about it at the time, I have zero obligation to hand it over because of feelings. That is why. You may not find it fair, but there does come past a point where the only fair thing to the present society, that had no hand in the original act, is to "keep on trucking" as they say.
  - sophacles 6y ago
    This argument translated to other situations: * we can't just end slavery - this is not how this world works. There have been slaves forever. We can't change slavery because of feelings. * we can't give women the right to vote. This is not how this world works, women are supposed to be property of their men. We can't just let them do it because of feelings. * we can't try to have a geneva conventio. This is not how this world works, excessive torture and cruelty have always been part of war. We cant just expect or troops to show humanity. * we can't give land ownership rights to commoners. This is not how the world works, nobility has always had special privelege to own a thing. We cant just expect to let lesser humans have land because of feelings. Finally: if your argument applies equally to a pro- and anit-Isreal stance - it's existence both proves and violates your exact point at the same time, depending on which stance you are already more inclined to.
49531 6y ago
This is a unique idea, that feels to be mostly semantic. Ok, you don't want to call it theft, but does that change the justice of the situation? America conquered a series of less developed nations of people through sometimes dubious means, and has spent the years after that conquering trying to erase or marginalize the conquered peoples. America won, so it's not theft, but whatever you call it it's unjust.

jorblumesea 6y ago

Might makes right. Land has no true owners, only those with the means to defend it. Florida could be part of "greater Canada" if the US government was weak and the Canadian government felt it was worth it.

maxmamis 6y ago
You're literally justifying genocide.
- jorblumesea 6y ago
  I don't think I'm saying any of this is fine, just pointing out that geopolitics isn't about what's morally correct. Anyone can own any piece of land for just about any reason so long as they have the firepower to back it up.
  - ianai 6y ago
    This part of humanity's impulses has me thinking we’re closer to the cosmic equivalent of “orcs” than to anything resembling a highly evolved species. Our impetus is to define things in terms that lead to conflict or must use conflict to resolve problems. We’re evolved mammals with a distinct us/them complex. Whereas if we were highly evolved organisms with a more hive like ancestor we might not war with each other as much or ever. I’m thinking like fungi or something.
  - maxmamis 6y ago
    "Might makes right" certainly implies a moral stance.

bufferoverflow 6y ago

Didn't they steal that land from the tribes before them?

_-david-_ 6y ago
I am not an expert in Native American history but the Creek Nation are almost certainly not the originally inhabitants. This is one of my biggest issues with stuff like this. Why should the Creek Nation get this land and not the tribe that lived there previously? Why not the tribe before that tribe? Americans often did not treat the natives well but this is an issue with all countries. It was quite common for Natives to kill other tribes and take over that area. It sucks but that is how a country is formed.
- krapp 6y ago
  >Why should the Creek Nation get this land and not the tribe that lived there previously? Why not the tribe before that tribe? Because the US government entered into a treaty with the Creek Nation, who were the inhabitants of that land at that time.
  - _-david-_ 6y ago
    I get the US made an agreement. I was talking more of a general principle than this specific case. I have seen several comments here saying the US was wrong to take land through violent means and as such the US should return the land. When the natives did the same thing to other natives nobody seems to think they should return it to the people they took it from. There is a double standard and I don't like it. If we are going to return the land we should return it to the original inhabitants. Of course there isn't actually a way to figure out who occupied the land thousands of years ago.

djrogers 6y ago

Every country in the world that exists today is occupied by a people who can be traced back to a conquering nation. If you think through the implications of your statement, you'd see you're talking about wiping out 10,000 years of history and forcibly moving 7 billion people somewhere else.

49531 6y ago
Proximity in time and space add important context to the issue. There are still many places in the world where injustices are happening due to this kind of problem, saying that it has always been this way doesn't add anything to the conversation.
- rukittenme 6y ago
  > Proximity in time and space add important context to the issue. It really doesn't and saying otherwise doesn't add anything to the conversation (see what I did there). Do you really believe the Russian and German empires should reclaim their "rightful" territories in Europe? Do you believe Europe should reassert its domination over Africa because it had strong political control over it in recent history? What about the British Raj? What about Hong Kong? "Time and space" is a bullshit argument and you don't believe it yourself. How could you? "So and so" holding "such and such" lands at "this and that" time is the basis of 99% of wars throughout history. Its a stupid way to think. Its a stupid way to govern.
- buzzerbetrayed 6y ago
  > Proximity in time and space add important context to the issue So how long do non-native Americans have to wait for it to no longer be stolen land? What's the date? Because in order to believe that your line of thinking is logical, surely you at least have a vague answer to that question.
  - jMyles 6y ago
    The answer doesn't lie in the temporal dimension at all. We can stop stealing the land by choosing to live on it differently, and by respecting indigenous leadership with respect to use of and trust in the land. The idea that the land was stolen in discrete acts, decades or centuries ago, does not comport with what I am hearing from indigenous leadership. The land is still being stolen today, all the time.

abqio 6y ago

No thank you. As someone who lives in one of those states this is a worrying precedent. Maybe if their laws didn't apply to me as a non citizen I would be ok with this. As it is, I can be arrested for stopping at the wrong gas station with a firearm in my car. I have no choice but to pass through reservations on a regular basis. And I have no input in the government that makes their laws. Nor any hope of ever being heard. Yet those laws apply to me just the same.

krapp 6y ago
>And I have no input in the government that makes their laws. Nor any hope of ever being heard. Yet those laws apply to me just the same. It's almost as if they stole part of your country from you, ignored your laws and customs and forced you to submit to their authority without your consent. That must just be terrible.
- ekam 6y ago
  Two wrongs don’t make a right
  - krapp 6y ago
    It isn't two wrongs, it's a wrong and the recognition of a right.
    - rukittenme 6y ago
      The recognition of what right? How is it right to govern without consent? Take a moment to consider that the world can not go back to 1950 as some Republicans would like and it can not go back to 1850 as apparently some Democrats would like. You believe its right to subject a person who lives in Oklahoma, who has never lived in a country other than the USA, who has never stolen anyone's land, to the non-representative rule of a person (who's land was never stolen) because of their racial origin? I'm very interested in the ideology that led you to these beliefs.

dang 6y ago

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23782234 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23782234.