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So you wouldn't object to a burglar coming into your house to steal all of 'your' stuff, because, clearly, that's how it has been done "all of human history and

So you wouldn't object to a burglar coming into your house to steal all of 'your' stuff, because, clearly, that's how it has been done "all of human history and pre-history", and really, "What criteria do we use to determine which [stuff] rightfully belongs to [you]" anyway?

throwaway894345 5y ago
Of course, but the idea here is that in all likelihood, the indigenous people themselves took the land from another group in prehistory, so I don’t understand why we talk about various places which were long since colonized “really belonging” to the indigenous group. What’s the point? They were likely neither the first to the land, nor were they in control of the land when the music stopped (i.e., when we developed international norms for not colonizing other peoples). It doesn’t seem like a particularly convincing claim.
- nautilius 5y ago
  You'll have to admit that your argument only holds if you pick your time frame of reference precisely, and conveniently, to just after land grab was no longer "acceptable". I don't think an arbitrarily and conveniently defined cut-off date makes it a morally defensible argument, if it even ever was acceptable (the morality of this was even discussed at the time of the landgrab). It's like the burglars saying, "well of course if you had bought your stuff a week later, you'd be safe. But, tough luck!" It's not like that was 1000 years ago; There are people today that were alive when that happened, or knew people who lived through it.
  - throwaway894345 5y ago
    To be clear, I don’t think there’s a good ethical framework for determining who has rightful claim to a given plot of land. I agree that it’s convenient for me that the least arbitrary “cutoff” is the relatively stabilization of borders (which itself is pretty nebulous). I’m not wed to it, but it certainly seems more defensible than “whoever was there when history arrived”. The whole enterprise seems intractable. Or as another commenter put it: > the whole thing is a big fucking mess.
    - nautilius 5y ago
      Oh yeah, it's a mess, we surely agree on that ;-)

throwaway894345 5y ago

Of course, but the idea here is that in all likelihood, the indigenous people themselves took the land from another group in prehistory, so I don’t understand why we talk about various places which were long since colonized “really belonging” to the indigenous group. What’s the point? They were likely neither the first to the land, nor were they in control of the land when the music stopped (i.e., when we developed international norms for not colonizing other peoples). It doesn’t seem like a particularly convincing claim.

nautilius 5y ago
You'll have to admit that your argument only holds if you pick your time frame of reference precisely, and conveniently, to just after land grab was no longer "acceptable". I don't think an arbitrarily and conveniently defined cut-off date makes it a morally defensible argument, if it even ever was acceptable (the morality of this was even discussed at the time of the landgrab). It's like the burglars saying, "well of course if you had bought your stuff a week later, you'd be safe. But, tough luck!" It's not like that was 1000 years ago; There are people today that were alive when that happened, or knew people who lived through it.
- throwaway894345 5y ago
  To be clear, I don’t think there’s a good ethical framework for determining who has rightful claim to a given plot of land. I agree that it’s convenient for me that the least arbitrary “cutoff” is the relatively stabilization of borders (which itself is pretty nebulous). I’m not wed to it, but it certainly seems more defensible than “whoever was there when history arrived”. The whole enterprise seems intractable. Or as another commenter put it: > the whole thing is a big fucking mess.
  - nautilius 5y ago
    Oh yeah, it's a mess, we surely agree on that ;-)