US should return stolen land to Indian tribes, says United Nations

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guardian.co.uk/world/2012/may/04/us-stolen-land-indian-tribes-un
A United Nations investigator probing discrimination against Native Americans has called on the US government to return some of the land stolen from Indian tribes as a step toward combatting continuing and systemic racial discrimination.
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James Anaya, the UN special rapporteur on the rights of indigenous peoples, said no member of the US Congress would meet him as he investigated the part played by the government in the considerable difficulties faced by Indian tribes.
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Oh, boy. More secular pipe dreams and attempts by the UN to dictate to the US what to do. :rolleyes:

First impression:

“Will never happen. Never. No can do. Forget it.”

Nor should it.

Sorry if that statement offends some sensitive souls here. 🤷

Anyway-----discuss, please.
 
What will happen if we give it back? Those American Citizen’s who have lived on those lands for decades are going to be pushed off now?

This is a different age, and giving them back the land would solve nothing. only cause more issues.
 
SpeakInSilence said:
What will happen if we give it back? Those American Citizen’s who have lived on those lands for decades are going to be pushed off now?

This is a different age, and giving them back the land would solve nothing. only cause more issues.
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Indeed.
 
Sorry. I differ. Some of my ancestors were among those ripped off. Even a small percentage might reduce the hard feelings. It would not do to push you all back to Europe-- I agree that is unrealistic. 😃

Take a look at our National Parks-- the US does not do well with them-- why not turn some of that land over.
 
SpeakInSilence said:
What will happen if we give it back? Those American Citizen’s who have lived on those lands for decades are going to be pushed off now?
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They lived on those lands for hundreds if not thousands of years. So that argument is void.
SpeakInSilence said:
This is a different age, and giving them back the land would solve nothing. only cause more issues.
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Yes it is wrong to do so in this age, because in this age. It is your land.
 
To be honest, I thought reservations had rights to some limted self-governance and self-governance already, Carnelian.

For example, as far as I know, if you live in an Indian reservation, you do not have to pay any taxes, period. 😛

I would call that (if true) more than enough “make up” for the past. 😃
 
I don’t know. As someone who is mostly assimilated, I really can’t speak for Natives. To me, that has an apartheid flavor. I think a lot of the BIA is corrupt, and tribes ought to be given more self-government, unless the BIA were turned into an agency by the tribes, for the tribes.

Solzhenitsyn had some interesting opinions about it-- If the Native Archipelago were given self government as a whole-- it might work. That way the tribes most severely affected by the various ills could receive culturally sensitive rehabilitation form the other tribes. Without some cultic quacks stepping in. If you know what I mean. 😃
if you live in an Indian reservation, you do not have to pay any taxes, period.
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BS
 
Jerusha said:
Sorry. I differ. Some of my ancestors were among those ripped off. Even a small percentage might reduce the hard feelings. It would not do to push you all back to Europe-- I agree that is unrealistic. 😃

Take a look at our National Parks-- the US does not do well with them-- why not turn some of that land over.
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We took those fair and square. 😛

Seriously--------most Indian tribes were nomadic anyway. They did not have “towns” on those lands. They hunted and kived in them, but they did’n’t “own” them . And many of them stole THOSE lands from other tribes in the numerous pre-white and post white wars they engaged in which you never hear about in “politically correct” textbooks.
Theodore Roosevelt basically said the same thing over a hundred years ago.

And also remember---------as Louis L’Amour commented years ago in an interview----there was unnecessary cruelty and injustice on BOTH sides. 👍

Just saying.

Yep.
 
There was no stolen land between the tribes because there was no concept of land ownership. That is the reason why the Europeans could exploit them so easily.
 
Well… I’m waiting for the UN to say “Hey UK, let’s talk about Ireland, shall we?”

When they start calling out every country, then we’ll have a discussion.
 
SpeakInSilence said:
What will happen if we give it back? Those American Citizen’s who have lived on those lands for decades are going to be pushed off now?.
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Why not? They lived on those lands for 10 thousand years and we “pushed” them off. Or actually just killed most of them. The Israelis don’t seem to think shoving the Palestinians off the land they’ve lived on for a couple thousand years is a problem. Pushing people off their land is standard human behavior.
 
Jerusha said:
Take a look at our National Parks-- the US does not do well with them-- why not turn some of that land over.
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This is an excellent idea. Especially if the aboriginal people reinstituted the forest management practices of their ancestors, those giant wildfires would be a thing of the past.
 
Jerusha said:
There was no stolen land between the tribes because there was no concept of land ownership. That is the reason why the Europeans could exploit them so easily.
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Ok--------
But they DID take and claim ownership of land that once was “used” by the conquered tribes, now, didn’t they? 🙂

I admit the Iroquis Federation/Tribes in the NorthEast may have done differently since they had a sort of “proto-democratic”-type of government established there, but I admit I do not know enough about them to make a definite statement about it. 😛

Perhaps you or somebody else can knows about it and shed light on this for us here who slept through that subject (unfortunately) in high school and college. 👍

Seriously.

Anybody?🤷
 
The UN is about the most irrelevant organization on the planet and so I doubt few people take UN opinions on anything seriously.
 
I think some of the land should be returned to all the Tribes that want reparations. If some tribes are happy with what they have than problem solved. I also feel that once the queen of england croaks Ireland should push once more for unification of Ireland under the Republic. No more “Northern Ireland” as part of the UK, just the Republic of Ireland. The British Empire when it dissolved the Queen returned canada, its stakes in India and the worldover except one little island somewhere off the coast of africa I believe (not sure on that one) and then six counties in Ireland and she didn’t return those out of a personal grudge because her uncle (I believe) was killed during the troubles fighting against the Irish freedom fighters.
 
You know the Fed, State and Local governments do this all the time. If they decide to build a freeway through or a business center in your neighborhood, they will simply force you to move and pay you a pittance in terms of what your property would fetch normally.
 
We’ve got a thing called Native Title over here, which frankly I don’t really understand, partly because various Aboriginal tribles had overlapping boundaries. And it’s mainly a case of recognition, and not a lot else. I have my concerns though that at some stage, a huge claim for monetary compensation could be lodged using Native Title as the basis.

It would send this country broke if that happened.

However this whole discussion raises the issue of land rights everywhere. Most of the world these days is becoming Westernised, and frankly, this was largely done by force. The British colonised India, Western powers colonised China, Africa, the Middle East, North and South America and Australia; Spain and the US colonised the Phillippines (I don’t want to leave the good old USA out). The US forced Japan to open up to Western trade, but the Japanese adapted Western culture to avoid being colonised, and did so very well.

The communists colonised what is now the Russian Federation, and brought in Westernisation in doing so. Whatever else you want to say about them, they took over a feudal society under the Tsars, and challenged the rest of the world militarily within a couple of generations, and started the space race.

Wherever Westerners went they set up Western (European) values, for good or bad. And this same West had Christianity as it’s main religion.

But suppose they hadn’t? I wonder how long the Indian, African, American and Australian tribes would have been allowed to continue with their tribal ways before outside interference occurred, from another source?

Personally I think God is going to push us into space, and attempts to regress are doomed to failure.
 
Julia_Mae said:
Why not? They lived on those lands for 10 thousand years and we “pushed” them off. Or actually just killed most of them. The Israelis don’t seem to think shoving the Palestinians off the land they’ve lived on for a couple thousand years is a problem. Pushing people off their land is standard human behavior.
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OTOH--------

If we had given back some of those lands a hundred years or so ago and stopped expanding into certain areas of the country because it was “indian land,” many of us would not be here, now, wouldn’t we?

:rolleyes:😛

At least some of us would be here under VASTLY different circumstances----I can’t even imagine what this country would have been like if that had happened. Maybe for the good, maybe for the bad.

Remember, we had “manifest destiny” in those days-----it was our “destiny” to spread from sea tohining sea and make a nation…

Had an African-American professor talk about this once in Black History class----on the relations between the Black “genocide” and the American Indian “genocide”-----he said the whites should have “shared the land.” I don’t think that idea was even considered in those less good times, to be honest. Would have been almost impossible, from my pov, anyway.

Hate to sound like aheartless so-and-so and sacrilegious person, but I can’t help but think that maybe God intended what occurred to occur the way it did in the manner that it did.

And again---------Native Americans committed just as many atrocities and horrible things as whites. They also practiced slavery as well against blacks. Which many do not read about in textbooks.

Sorry, but I’m not very politically correct, anyway. I wish I could feel more “compassion” towrds NAs in this sense----but I simply can’t.

Maybe I need to pray more about it.
Seriously.

My opinion, ultimately. As always.
 
You must agree in MOST (not all) issues, they are a paper tiger.

And they are also genuinely trying to push a secular, godless agenda onto the world.

Even you would admit that. 👍👍
 
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