Comment by b112 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by b112 | Hacker News Reader

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Everyones land was "stolen" from someone else. Everyones.

There is no place on this entire planet, where a domicile sits, that wasn't taken from another by force. No where. Nada.

You think natives didn't ever kill each other over territory? Hunting rights, especially in times of famine? You do realise that all of the Americas were settled, then resettled again, and again, in multiple waves of europeans (all natives settled the new world too, they didn't evolve here), by those we call natives, with blood and spear?

We just displaced the last "thieves", who displaced those before us, and so on.

The only unfairness is if we signed treaties, to end the fighting, and then did not honour them.

Those are being addressed, at least in Canada, by the courts.

Note: where's my family's land, from 500 years ago, taken when the French invaded, or 2000ya when the Romans, and so on??

Why don't I get my people's land back?

Is it because I am white? Or, because it was 500 years ago, not 200?

Is it OK, because a white man killed my family and took the land of another white man?

Or...? Why?!

Natives lost their land, as did billions before. But none are alive today, and I could care less about historical loss.

I do care about poverty, and right to societal cohesion and access. I don't care why, what historical reason led to things, I just care about fixing what is a problem now.

If you look at native americans, their reservations are their biggest source of poverty.

Enough.

Make sure every child has access to good food, clean water, housing, and education. The rest will solve itself.

If you don't think it's a problem that land was stolen, then I'm sure you won't object to that land being stolen again from the current owner and used for it's highest society-wide agreed-upon purpose (not just the purpose that the current owner prefers)

This comment's type of thinking wants to have it both ways. In this mindset, the landowner gets to decide what to do with the land and to control it because they 'own' it. This ownership is because they are descendants (or paid them) of the first white people who took land from native peoples. This 'right' is sacrosanct, and the government (i.e. other people) have no right to tell them not to mountain-top-removal mine it, etc etc.

However, this sacrosanct ownership right is on very shaky ground, hence the hostility to questions about land use. If first-come first-serve counts, then native / indigenous folks should have the land. If people with power can take the land for other uses legitimately, then there's no reason why any particular landowner has sacred rights to their property - the government would be justified in taking the land to support buffalo habitat without ANY compensation, just as white settlers took native land by force without any compensation.

Ultimately, these folks want a simple, completely indefensible rule: "Whoever was here first gets sacred property rights to this land... except if it was an indigenous person, we took it from them fair and square. But that was OK because it was olden times, and so you can't be mad about it, and definitely you can't reverse that decision or take this land from us or even restrict what we can do with it, that would be theft!"

You really don't understand the difference between your governement, and a group of invaders?

Native North Americans are not "special". If they have claims, then everyone has claims.

Yet you failed to respond to this point, and instead, discuss race, claiming the issue is that white people did something.

What?!

In my post, I described how those found here when Westerners arrived, were not the first here. This is historical fact. There were waves and waves of immigrants to the new world, over land bridges, over the pole, and by boat.

All before the 1500s. Going back thousands and thousands of years. All resulting in displacement, war, violence, death, and seizure of territory and land.

But to you, all is important is... what? The last event?

If so, where is my historical land? When do I get it back?

But I guess that's not important too, because it is ok (as I said before) for one white group, to invade and take from another?

Here's another example. This isn't from the old world, but the new.

When the US ceeded from the UK, it took over land vacated by empire loyalists.

Do those people get their land back too? Of so, why not?

And of your response is, "it was native land, there before, so the loyalist has no claim!", then why does the native have claim, who stole it from the peoples there before them?

The point is, you either have to go back to the very first person to settle land, back millions of years in the old world, and tens of thousands on the new, and give the land back to their descendants...

Or you have to pick a point. Is it "but white people did it!"? Or is it "the last guy that had it!"?

If so, see my empire loyalist claim, and so on..

Or is it "the guy who has it now"?

Which is it?

And beyond all of this, not a single native north American alive, has had any land "stolen" from them. Their ancestors lost land, yes, but not people alive today.

How do you address this?

It sounds to me that your logic is "a people somewhere lost land, like happened all through human history", so therefore "the laws of the US should be null and void re: land ownership".

I don't get it.

It's like saying "wars happen, and people died, so it's ok if Bob murders Judy".

>The only unfairness is if we signed treaties

Apart from the literal genocide, you mean?

Your thoughts presented would cause you to be cancelled in Canada right now.

I speak them all the time, and most agree with me.

You’re not disagreeing with each other. The people doing the canceling aren’t necessarily in the majority

echo chambers are a helluva drug

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