(1) Treat the natives like any other citizen, so no special land reservations etc, or
(2) Grant them completely separate sovereign nation status and end this ridiculous quasi-sovereign state of affairs we find ourselves in. No person deserves special rights or recognition because their grandfather (or grandmother) was of a certain race. That is antithetical to a free society. The easy solution here is to cede all land back to them, and establish proper international relations.
Understandably, natives want their own land. That's great, but they can't get that if there's another government in their way. Understandably, states want full sovereignty over their own land, but they can't get that if there exist quasi-nations in the way. The obvious solution is to allow them actual self governance.
That viewpoint is needlessly absolutist. There's obviously no way that native nations could even afford to negotiate with the US Federal Government. That was true 184 years ago, and it's still true now. At the same time these people do deserve special treatment, being the subjects of systemic oppression that continues to this very day. If we really believe that native Americans are valuable as native Americans (and I think that they are) then we need to provide governance structure that can work for them.
It's yet more evidence, as if more was needed, that the idea of a "melting pot" is fundamentally the wrong way to think about multiculturalism.
> If we really believe that native Americans are valuable as native Americans (and I think that they are) then we need to provide governance structure that can work for them.
An individual who is a native american is valuable because they are a human. Their race does not factor into their worth, thank goodness. We need to provide governance capable of working for the 300(400?) million people that call the United States home. None of those people should get outsized consideration, and especially none for their race.
No nation can actually afford to negotiate with the US federal government as equals. Perhaps China and Russia are two exceptions. My proposed nations would nevertheless enjoy the same sovereignty that many other nations enjoy. If they would like US help, they can ask for protectorate status (like the Mariana islands), and the US should comply, because we should be friends with our neighboring countries, especially what would functionally be ex-colonies. The US needs to wash its hands of this kind of colonialism now, or it will fester and get much much worse.
The point of reconciliation/reparations is acknowledging that have been long-standing systemic oppression of these groups— it isn't a matter of just bucking up and working hard when you're subject to multi-generational trauma. I don't know as much about the US situation, but in Canada there was a long period of intentional attempted cultural genocide, where indigenous kids were literally ripped from their parents' arms and sent to far off boarding schools and taught to behave white. That would be bad enough if it wasn't also an environment with almost no oversight that led to rampant other abuses, including sexual.
And this wasn't really all that long ago— the last of these residential schools didn't close until 1996.
If you're interested in more about this, APTN did a terrific series called First Contact, which featured everyday Canadians with neutral-to-negative feelings about indigenous people touring the country and learning first hand about it:
I acknowledge there has been long-standing government oppression of these groups. In response, I suggest that these groups no longer be subject to the government that oppressed them. When a parent is mean to a child, a child deserves its parents apology. When a friend is mean to a friend, they won't be friends anymore. In a partnership of equals, the behavior you described would result in the equals separating their interests and continuing on with their existence, not continued apologies starting again the cycle of abuse.
>In response, I suggest that these groups no longer be subject to the government that oppressed them.
I'm curious what your experience is with historically oppressed populations. A lot of your comments in this thread come off, frankly, as overly simplistic and as ignoring the very real lasting effects historical oppression can have in the present.
To use your analogy: if your friend forcibly removes you from your house and makes you live in a cardboard box in the alley, ruling the alley and not being friends anymore is hardly a just resolution.
I mean, I'm a minority in America from a historically oppressed faction in my parent's country. I have experienced racism first hand from peers, as well as systematic racism from government agents. So my experience with 'historically oppressed' populations is quite broad, and informs my belief that the first step to reconciliation between an oppressing group and the oppressed is that the oppressed group gets to be treated as absolute equals. You seem to want to treat them paternalistically. As a current father, I can tell you that the relationship between me and my child is not one of equals.
> To use your analogy: if your friend forcibly removes you from your house and makes you live in a cardboard box in the alley, ruling the alley and not being friends anymore is hardly a just resolution.
Exactly. This is what has happened to the Native Americans. The US removed them from their home and is making them live in a cardboard box (reservations) in an alley (the nation of America) that is ruled by the federal government. I advocate carving out the cardboard boxes from the alley's jurisdiction, allowing the box occupants to leave and make deals with, purchase goods from and sell goods to other neighbors on neighboring streets. You want to simply promise to be a nicer alley owner as long as they stay in their boxes.
My belief is that if someone is wronged, they deserve to be made whole. If they are systematically wronged, then the just thing to do is to change the system to make them whole. If you tilt the scales in one direction for generations, and then suddenly cry "everyone is equal, no more favoring anyone", you're not actually treating people equally. You're papering over real inequality and pretending it doesn't exist.
>I advocate carving out the cardboard boxes from the alley's jurisdiction... You want to simply promise to be a nicer alley owner as long as they stay in their boxes.
Not at all. I want to help them build a new house.
Sure, and you can then agree with me that the first step in building a house for someone on land you own is to give them title to that section of land. Then you get to help them build. Otherwise, you're just holding them hostage.
> My belief is that if someone is wronged, they deserve to be made whole
You can't make someone whole after killing off all their ancestors. The US has done undoubted wrong. You can't fix it. It's only pride that makes you think that the government is in any way capable of making this whole. Leave that to God, man can't do it.
I have no support for this supposition, but it seems to me that this could easily result in abuse if Native Americans no longer had the protections of being a US citizen.
Can you imagine two British, on verge of losing their empire, sitting around thinking 'what will happen to those poor Indians. Once they become an independent nation, they won't have the protections of being British subjects. We must fight for the right of Indians, South Africans, Syrians, etc to be British subjects'?
Because if you can imagine it. That's exactly what you're arguing for here.
> So our government oppresses a group of people for centuries, and the response is to wash our hands of the situation and wish them well.
Of course not. There is room for arrangements with the United States regarding foreign aid, defense assistance, policing assistance, etc for some number of years. These are to be negotiated as treaties between two co-equal nations, not as laws between a country and its citizens. We make these arrangements with poor countries around the world everyday. Why do we treat the native americans worse than literally every other oppressed nation?
They’re not. You’re choosing maximally loaded phrasing at all points and then acting like you’ve been wronged when your posts are read into with the tone with which you decided to write them. If you are actually interested in discussion, it would help if you didn’t have a predilection for immediately poisonous phrasing after which you want to be granted generosity and assumptions of good faith.
Like, we've had this discussion before. You don't get to write like a jerk and then take umbrage when people react to you like you're a jerk. You get out what you put in.
> If you are actually interested in discussion, it would help if you didn’t have a predilection for immediately poisonous phrasing after which you want to be granted generosity and assumptions of good faith.
I am interested in discussion that does not add to what I've said based on other kinds of people that may have beliefs similar to me. That is surely not too much to ask for. What maximally loaded phrasing have I used in this discussion? Certainly suggesting the native americans get countries shouldn't be met with accusations of not wanting to provide them whatever compensation should be deemed necessary by treaty. The two issues (sovereignty and aid) are not necessarily related, as has been suggested.
I'm honestly quite curious, because I often do use loaded phrasing, but in this instance, I don't really see what is loaded. Perhaps something is loaded for you that is not loaded for me?
Man, I’m not going to play this game. This is /r/iamverysmart “ah, but you assumed” stuff, and I feel like you are easily smart enough to know that.
Perhaps, if you don’t want people to assume that you are advocating dumping people in the middle of nowhere without the protections of U.S. citizenship, you should not write in such a thuddingly absolutist manner that makes that assumption the apparently-obvious one, because there are plenty of internet edgelords who try to troll with exactly the half-a-position you led with--but hold only that half a position, ‘cause they’re as a general population racist pricks. I get that it requires some exercised empathy to critically read one's own stuff with an outsider lens, but if that's not something you can easily do you can also default to indicating that you have thought this through at more than the prima facie level that a normal-person reader would infer, to explicitly saying more than the barest minimum that invites misapprehension.
What I’m saying is that if you want to be afforded good faith, it helps to act like you deserve it and are giving it to others. But you write like you’re comfortable being perceived as a jerk, and that comes with some downsides, yeah? If you’d like to not be perceived as such, there are ways to work on more empathetic communication. Maybe try some?
Your argument is that, because some people you've talked to only say things without believing in them to troll, i must be trolling too. I mean okay. I still don't want words put in my mouth and that is a very reasonable thing to ask in a discussion.
I write my opinion forcefully because my opinion is absolute. This is a good thing that more people ought to work on. We should all know what the other thinks and we shouldn't feel the need to hide behind ambiguity to make ourselves more popular
But if you cant have a discussion without ad hominems, then i think im done here. Have a great day!
Well most native american tribes with land claims no longer exist any more (given that most were decimated by the varying colonial armies if they hadn't already been decimated by the spread of small pox), so the US would be just fine. But, to clarify above, I meant the boundaries already agreed to as boundaries of the quasi-sovereign 'nations' that are referred to (in a remarkably politically incorrect manner for this day and age) as 'Indian reservations'.
This would not be controversial were it not for most Americans' -- whether hick conservatives or rich white liberal -- love of continued colonialism and conquest. Functionally, and by US law, the reservations are to be treated as individual, sovereign nations. However, again by US law, they are not allowed to address foreign non-US nations as equals, because the US government will intervene. This is akin to the relationship between a parent and a teenager on the cusp of adulthood -- we will treat you like an adult, but don't get the false impression that you really are one. This American paternalism needs to end.
Yes a reservation is federal land held for the tribe. The tribal government however is a separate sovereign nation. You are making a distinction between indian reservations and indian nations that is the same as the distinction between the Vatican City State (being the area that houses the bishop of Rome) and the Holy See (being the actual entity that enjoys diplomatic sovereignty).
> An Indian tribe recognized by the United States government usually possesses tribal sovereignty, a "dependent sovereign nation" status with the Federal Government that is similar to that of a state in some situations, and that of a nation in others. Depending on the historic circumstances of recognition, the degree of self-government and sovereignty varies somewhat from one tribal nation to another.
The designation of 'tribal sovereignty' means they enjoy limited national sovereignty. Whereas the United States federal government allows other sovereign nations (with the exception of the 50 states that make up the united states) to interact with one another as equals, it restricts the ability of the tribes to do so. It does not allow the tribes to exercise full sovereignty over their land (as you point out).
> is the full right and power of a governing body over itself, without any interference from outside sources or bodies
From what we read of tribal sovereignty above, the US government recognizes (as per the Constitution) that tribes have an inherent right to govern themselves, which is exactly sovereignty. Thus, I stand by what I said that, functionally, by US law, tribes are to be treated as individual sovereign nations.
I am arguing that these tribes ought to enjoy full sovereignty and the land held by the USA in their name (an infringement upon their demanded sovereignty) be remitted to them.
I suppose you may object to my usage of 'reservations' above. I do apologize, that was a mistake on my part. I should have said tribes. Reservations are not people. They are land.
I object to calling them sovereign nations when they're clearly not.
If they were truly sovereign you wouldn't feel the need to throw in the adjective "functionally".
A perfect counter-example is that post 9/11 the US stopped accepting VISA's given by the tribes. And federal law enforcement ABSOLUTELY has jurisdiction over tribal land.
Those 2 things by themselves put the nail in the coffin of the idea of tribal sovereignty.
> I object to calling them sovereign nations when they're clearly not.
Are the individual states sovereign? By the highest law of the land (the Constitution), they are.
Nevertheless, this is not an objection or an argument against the viewpoint I espoused: that they need to be granted full sovereignty. If they lack all indicators of sovereignty, as you claim, then this simply makes my claim that much more urgent.
> A perfect counter-example is that post 9/11 the US stopped accepting VISA's given by the tribes. And federal law enforcement ABSOLUTELY has jurisdiction over tribal land.
Um, sure. The feds also have jurisdiction over state land, but that doesn't mean the states lack sovereignty by federal law.
Also, the USA can object to any other country's VISA's for anyone entering its territory.
> Those 2 things by themselves put the nail in the coffin of the idea of tribal sovereignty.
You object to the law as it is? The current policy of the federal government is to grant certain parts of self direction to the tribes. The tribes are above certain US laws. This is a quasi-sovereignty, and I think it needs to be ended, because it is anti-thetical to a free nation (the United States). There are two ways to do this: get rid of tribal nations and Indian land entirely, or let them exercise their full rights as the nations the federal government claims they are.
Also, I am again arguing that they be granted full sovereign status. If they lack any sovereignty currently, that does not detract from my argument. They are clearly a separate people and want self-direction, as indicated by the fact that they established an entire justice system and government when allowed to. If -- as you claim -- these are not indicators of sovereignty, then these governments -- who claim sovereignty -- are in effect separatists. I am arguing that we should follow their desire to separate.
2. You used to be able to go to other countries using tribe issued travel VISA's. You no longer can.
3. The tribes are not "above" certain US laws. Federal laws still apply to them, local laws do not (state, city, etc). This claim of yours is akin to stating New York is "above" certain US laws because the laws of Nebraska do not apply in New York.
4. The federal government does not claim they are their own nation.
5. What you're suggesting is that the US government renege on agreements it made. Not a good look.
> In a 2-2-2 opinion, the Supreme Court held that the Cherokee Nation __was not a state or a foreign nation__, and that the Court therefore did not have original jurisdiction and could not hear the case..
In addition you should read up on "Indian Trust Responibility", and understand that these things are the way they are because our government signed treaties.
And finally:
Many (most?) of your statements in this conversation have been factually incorrect. Which is why I bothered to comment. I don't have an opinion, but I felt that you formed your opinion based upon incorrect information and you should be given the opportunity to reassess.
However, your last paragraph above leads me to believe your opinions are racially motivated. It's certainly not an accurate portrayal of widely held opinions of Native Americans. What next, Asians are separatist because China Town is a thing?
I won't be continuing this conversation, I find this distasteful.
(1) Treat the natives like any other citizen, so no special land reservations etc, or
(2) Grant them completely separate sovereign nation status and end this ridiculous quasi-sovereign state of affairs we find ourselves in. No person deserves special rights or recognition because their grandfather (or grandmother) was of a certain race. That is antithetical to a free society. The easy solution here is to cede all land back to them, and establish proper international relations.
Understandably, natives want their own land. That's great, but they can't get that if there's another government in their way. Understandably, states want full sovereignty over their own land, but they can't get that if there exist quasi-nations in the way. The obvious solution is to allow them actual self governance.