I hate how this article is written. The article makes it seem like the redaction in 1876 was done for purposes of hiding the treaty obligations to Indians. But it never proves that implication. Instead, it admits halfway through that the entire text of the provisions inherited from the Articles of Separation were also redacted:
> Sections 1 and 2 of Article X were also redacted in 1876. They covered when the first Maine legislature would meet, when initial elections would be held, how Senate and House seats would be allocated as between the counties and towns, and what the initial terms of Maine’s elected and appointed officers would be.
In reality it seems like the redaction was done to eliminate from the printed copies provisions specific to the implementation of Maine’s separation from Massachusetts.
> In reality it seems like the redaction was done to eliminate from the printed copies provisions specific to the implementation of Maine’s separation from Massachusetts.
Sounds like a great way to sell "hey let's not talk about that whole Wabanaki thing" without having to come right out and say "hey let's not talk about that whole Wabanaki thing." A political tactic as old as the hills: package your unpalatable agenda in something that sounds totally reasonable on its face. I'm not saying that's definitely what happened here, but I am saying that just because they also stopped printing other sections and billed it as something benign doesn't necessarily mean that was the actual motivation.
Among other things, you’re projecting modern sensitivities onto people in 1876. At the time, I doubt anyone was talking about it in 1876 or the public would have cared if the relevant text was more visible.
Any reason why your doubts have any higher validity than their suppositions? If you want to shut down their viewpoint, you could augment your statement with examples backing the level of confidence you seem to display about your stance despite it being a assertion based entirely on your personal feelings.
I doubt you can make a claim on the self imagined apathetic response of a faceless group of people 150 years ago. You "doubting" isn't any more valid. I don't see it as unreasonable that institutional discrimination existed in 1876.
I think that the burden lies with those making a positive claim of intent.
As far as the facts:
1) The legislature and courts in Maine were ignoring the treaty obligations long before this change.
2) There is no evidence that this made it easier to ignore treaty obligations
3) The change had no bearing on actual application of the law with respect to treaties
4) The vast majority of the content marked for redaction is procedural, describing the how the state of Maine would be formed. When elections happen, who gets the guns, and who has the treaty obligations.
5) Treaty obligations are not typical contents of constitutions, nor do they need to be to be binding.
I dont think that you need to deny the existence of institutional discrimination to make this case
> 1) The legislature and courts in Maine were ignoring the treaty obligations long before this change
The change took place one month before the courts decided against the Passamaquoddy Tribe in a land ownership case. The state would have been under treaty obligation to compensate them for losing the case - except that you are right, and Maine never really felt obliged to uphold those treaties.
Instead, the courts found that the Passamaquoddy Tribe has to pay compensation for Granger’s costs and damages (he won his land claim).
> 2) There is no evidence that this made it easier to ignore treaty obligations
Correct. There is no direct evidence, only inferences based on the people involved and how it benefited Maine over the Passamaquoddy Tribe.
In any case, those treaty obligations are still valid now, so continued redaction would suggest that relationships between the state and tribes still isn't that important or worthwhile.
> 5) Treaty obligations are not typical contents of constitutions, nor do they need to be to be binding.
That point seems irrelevant. Maine's obligations do exist, and they are binding, due to the Articles of Separation that were incorporated into Maine’s constitution.
"As part of that division, Maine assumed all the “duties and obligations” Massachusetts had as regards the “Indians within said District of Maine.” The Articles also required that its terms and conditions “be incorporated into, and become and be a part of any Constitution, provisional or other, under which the Government of the said proposed State, shall, at any time hereafter, be administered; subject however, to be modified, or annulled by the agreement of the Legislature of both the said States; but by no other power or body whatsoever." The Articles of Separation were included in the Maine Constitution as Section 5 of Article X. This was one of the Sections redacted from printed copies in 1876." - https://www.mitsc.org/library/research-report-on-the-1876-re...
Re 1) this point is diminished by the fact that Maine had been ruling against tribes for since formation. The Passamaquoddy case represented more of the same, not a change.
Re 2) see 1
Re 5) I agree, but You missed my point. My point was that you don't need an alternative motive explanation for reacting them. They were binding either way, and this type of content normally isn't in constitutions, so redaction as simplification seems entirely plausible. They didn't need the parts about voting days and how Maine and mass will split militia guns either.
So what is your hypothesis for why the text was redacted?
1) negligence? ("Oh, we didn't see the text was there")
2) the belief it was historical cruft of no importance (so why say it was still in effect?)
3) the belief it was a minor thorn that could be swept under the rug, but of no current impact
4) the belief it was a thorn with near-term impact on a pending case - and a case the redactionists likely knew about.
5) something else?
You seem to be saying that #2 is the most likely, so #4 should be dismissed.
My point was the relationship between the Passamaquoddy and Maine have changed since the 1800s - and certainly improved since the Carter era. Why continue with the redaction given that points 1-4 would seem to put a chill on that relationship?
>You seem to be saying that #2 is the most likely, so #4 should be dismissed.
Absolutely. to answer your questions.
>2) the belief it was historical cruft of no importance (so why say it was still in effect?)
It had to stay in effect because the text said it could not be altered or removed without the approval Massachusetts. The cruft Hypothesis is supported by the fact that the sections were suggested by a panel charged with identifying cruft, discussed as cruft, and 99% of the material WAS cruft.
>4) the belief it was a thorn with near-term impact on a pending case - and a case the redactionists likely knew about.
This is undermined by the fact that legally, the change has no impact and said so. Maine was already routinely ignoring treaty obligations. The best argument that can be made here is that it was some sort of implied signal or dog whistle to to the court, emboldening it to keep doing what it was doing. But then again, that supposes that the a signal was both necessary and needed to be covert, in a time where people casually and openly ignored their treaty obligations.
Putting this together, I think it is most likely that people (redactionists and voters) felt it was cruft. The Passamaquoddy tribe was down to a few hundred people in the mid 1800's out of Maine 600,000.
>My point was the relationship between the Passamaquoddy and Maine have changed since the 1800s - and certainly improved since the Carter era.
I have no problem whatsoever with reversing the redaction. I just dont think we need to invent or believe an unlikely conspiracy theory to justify doing so. It is just as easy to say they thought this was cruft then, but we dont now, because we think it is important to highlight and honor our agreements.
>Why continue with the redaction given that points 1-4 would seem to put a chill on that relationship?
I honestly dont understand what this means. Are you saying that we should actively define history as to not put a "chill on the relationship"? If so, I think this is the kind of revisionist history that other people are reacting to. We shouldn't need to build some loosely supported theory about why and how things happened, if the goal is to simply reverse a redaction.
That interpretation - which may be correct, but there is little evidence one way or the other - isn't that much better. It reflects the then wide-spread view of Euro-Americans that their culture to be superior, and the native tribes should be treated essentially as children or second-class citizens, with inferior claims to white people and the state.
> The Passamaquoddy tribe was down to a few hundred people in the mid 1800's out of Maine 600,000.
Don't forget the Penobscot, who also had treaty obligations.
I have a hard time accepting the "cruft" hypothesis. The tribes had non-voting representation at the capital, and https://umaine.edu/nativeamericanprograms/wp-content/uploads... shows the Euro-American population of Maine were mighty annoyed by those 'few hundred people' in the mid-1800, for example;
"Perry citizens collectively petitioned Maine twice in 1839, complaining that Indians took birch bark from their land to make fishing torches and that they dismantled fences around their farms for firewood.67 In all these attempts to obtain retribution for damages, many of which supplied ample evidence, the Maine legislature dismissed the requests. Maine had not sorted out the idea of property and homeland, the latter of which entailed the continual use of resources. Ambiguities remained around absolute property title to the land, especially around harvesting resources."
and
"In April 1857 Maine governor Joseph Williams wrote to the Indian agent expressing his “displeasure” about repeated trespass by the Passamaquoddy on private property in Perry. He stated that the charges violated the 1794 treaty in which the Indians agreed not to molest any townspeople."
That was less than 20 years before the redaction.
> It is just as easy to say they thought this was cruft then
So why did the well-trained lawyers of the constitutional committee think it was cruft?
> I honestly dont understand what this means
I mean is there any interpretation of the history which justifies keeping the text redacted when there are ongoing and improved relationships between Maine and the tribes?
If the text continues to be redacted, why shouldn't is be interpreted as a continuation of the history of treating the local tribes as cruft?
There was an ongoing trial, "Joseph Granger v. Peter Avery in 1874, a case related to the Passamaquoddy Tribe’s 1794 Treaty with Massachusetts. The case began over a dispute whether the Tribe or Calais lawyer Joseph Granger owned Grass Island in the St. Croix River." - https://www.mainememory.net/sitebuilder/site/3283/page/5208/...
As https://mainemorningstar.com/2023/10/09/a-matter-of-not-hidi... says, "The reason officials had for redacting sections of the Constitution are still being debated due to sparse historical evidence", but there are enough connections that surely people were talking about it then.
How common were these Indian cases in the 50 years before the redaction? Is there any reason to believe it’s not a coincidence? Especially since the redaction, by its own terms, has no legal effect on any obligations to the tribe.
It appears there simply isn't strong evidence for the reason for the redaction.
There are several views. Yours seems to be the members of the 1876 commission were either negligent when they redacted the state's obligation to the tribes, or believed it wasn't relevant any more. Neither put them in a good light.
On the other hand, there is enough evidence to cast strong doubt on the 'At the time, I doubt anyone was talking about it' statement.
The fact remains that the redaction exists, there doesn't seem to be a good reason for it, and none of the suggested reasons seem like something to perpetuate.
I feel like this section doesn't really _answer_ that. Like, it has the _what_, but not the _why_.
Very odd. I was expecting it to either be some sort of particularly arcane issue with actually printing (maybe characters not representable in Unicode?), or, at an outside chance, obscene material.
Vaguely reminded of Charlie Stross's Laundry Files, where Section 3 of the Official Secrets Act is itself secret, because it self-classifies under Section 2.
Agreed, though I'm guessing the "why" is that those parts of the constitution are not considered relevant anymore. It's like the part of article 1 section 2 of the Federal Constitution that describes the initial apportionment of seats in the House [1]. It makes sense it was put in there, but nowadays it's irrelevant.
Next year: "If approved, this amendment would mandate the use of Unix-style slashes (hereafter 'forward slashes', or '/') in place of whack ass Windows-style backslashes."
Judging by the other two sections redacted, it seemed more to get rid of the establishment cruft than any nefarious purpose. The full text of section 5 is rather long and contains a lot of things not really relevant after they were an established state. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_of_Maine#Text_of_...
If they wanted to renege on their treaties with Native tribes, they likely would have openly done so. That's what was happening in most of the US around 1870.
> The Articles also required that its terms and conditions “be incorporated into, and become and be a part of any Constitution, provisional or other, under which the Government of the said proposed State, shall, at any time hereafter, be administered; subject however, to be modified, or annulled by the agreement of the Legislature of both the said States; but by no other power or body whatsoever."
They couldn't remove the sections because the terms of their statehood had them inherit obligations from Massachusetts that supersede their state constitution.
As far as I can tell the historical context around the decision is lost, but I wouldn't be surprised if Massachusetts could have been a legitimate barrier to actually eliminating the sections. One piece of historical context we do have is this:
> In 1967, Maine’s first Indian affairs commissioner, anthropologist Edward Hinckley, discovered Maine had received $30,000 from Massachusetts in compensation, but the state never actually set aside new land for the tribes.
If you're Mass. and you created those articles for a reason then I wouldn't find it surprising if you didn't want to help Maine throw them out after they've already violated your will at least once.
All of that is secondary to the fact that they did renege on their promises repeatedly and unabashedly for the next century. Hiding the sections from print could have been an attempt to stop legal challenges before they started, it could have just been out of spite. Who knows, maybe they were very eco-friendly and were worried about all that wasted paper! I find it quite silly to extend such extreme benefit of the doubt to the state government that we already know wanted to escape those treaties and successfully did so before, during, and after passing this amendment.
>If you're Mass. and you created those articles for a reason then I wouldn't find it surprising if you didn't want to help Maine throw them out after they've already violated your will at least once.
If you created those articles, you were probably dead by 1870, and definitely dead by 1967. Any generation of lawmakers would have been willing to renegotiate the terms if it benefited them.
>find it quite silly to extend such extreme benefit of the doubt to the state government that we already know wanted to escape those treaties and successfully did so before, during, and after passing this amendment.
I said that the US at that point cared so little about honoring treaties with Native tribes that I doubted they'd bother formally amending a constitution to do so. That's not giving them the benefit of the doubt.
> I said that the US at that point cared so little about honoring treaties with Native tribes that I doubted they'd bother formally amending a constitution to do so. That's not giving them the benefit of the doubt.
I see where you are coming from here, but I see actions like this as one of many that contribute to creating the environment where they can pursue the goal of violating the spirit of the law. They probably could have gotten away with much the same without any one anti-native action including this one, but the collective effect is a government system and electorate that endorses and upholds an unjust status quo.
Essentially, both liberals and conservatives can agree that... if the United States entered into a treaty... and the United States government never explicitly overrode that treaty... then it still stands.
Which, fair, but still nice to see recognition even when the question has repercussions for the eastern half of Oklahoma, the state is opposed, and the facts are inconvenient.
> Essentially, both liberals and conservatives can agree that... if the United States entered into a treaty...
I think it would be more accurate to say that liberals and Gorsuch, who is uncharacteristically liberal on native american issues, can agree. Gorsuch's footnotes do a good job imo of making clear that the four conservative dissenting votes have very little respect for the treaties and promises made.
I agree that I'm playing kind of fast and loose with the terms. I think you could definitely make an argument that Gorsuch argues the position from a small-c conservative "rule of law" perspective. In my view the dissent is operating on a very different rule-of-law, one that Gorsuch is happy to dabble in with most other issues:
> Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.
It's satisfying to raise issues above the partisan or ideological divide, but if the people that call themselves conservative consistently find ways make the law protect their own while restraining others, as four of them try to do here, then its naive to assume that the issues are really transcendent of that.
Do you mean on this specific issue? I don't think that's surprising at all, because, a decade ago, "we should abide by treaties" was pretty much a consensus idea in the US. The "smart conservative" (I don't particularly buy that there's anyone smart left in the US Republican Party, but YMMV) may keep quiet about it now because Dear Leader has contempt for treaties as a concept, but a decade ago they'd have been publicly pretty horrified by the idea of doing this, and maybe they still are, privately.
Conservatives have always chaffed at treaties because they’re generally hostile to the idea of international law, and they’re skeptical of giving the government in the present the power to bind the flexibility of the government in the future. The general rule is that what one Congress does today, a different Congress can undo tomorrow.
And of course there are smart people in the Republican Party. Conservatives make up maybe 10% of lawyers, but over the last 40 years have been rolling back a generation of liberal jurisprudence. For example, they have made the case for textualism so strongly that even liberal judges feel the need to fight on that turf. As a result, the arguments made by liberals a generation ago wouldn’t fly with liberal’s of today’s generation. (Credit also goes to Justice Ginsberg, who despite her left of center bent made an entire career advancing a textualist construction of the 14th amendment.) You saw this with Roe, where the left could offer no real argument that Roe has been decided correctly on the merits to begin with, and resorted instead to emphasizing how long ago it was decided. That happened because over 50 years, conservatives completely chipped away the intellectual underpinning that made Roe defensible in the first place.
More or less. But in 1973, exercising “raw judicial power” in dispensing “Justice” was seen differently than it is today. It was quite interesting to see commenters who went to law school post 2000, like Vox’s Ian Millhiser, talk about Dobbs. Their arguments focused on things—stare decisis and public opinion—which couldn’t have justified Roe in the first instance, and couldn’t justify a similarly sweeping decision today. You can state the basic conservative position quite simply, as you have, but it took a lot of work to drag the law away from the notion of judging as an exercise in applied philosophy.
There was a 1874 court case where Granger claimed he owned the land by a deed granted the same year Massachusetts signed a treaty with the Passamaquoddy Tribe. The court decided for Granger. Under the treaty obligation, "it was Maine’s duty to compensate the Passamaquoddy for the value of the lost land, and to pay the Tribe's court costs and damages—neither of which happened."
Maine couldn't simply change its constitution as the Articles of Separation requires "bars Maine from altering the Articles of Separation without the consent of Massachusetts and requires their inclusion in the Maine Constitution."
To be clear, it appears there is no smoking gun which explicitly says this is the reason, but the people involve knew, or likely knew, about the case when developing the 1876 change.
It's just a coincidence that Maine has repeatedly reneged on its responsibilities stemming from those sections:
> If the constitutional commissioners who proposed the 1875 suppression of Section 5 intended to ensure the state’s obligations were forgotten, they were successful. Rather than protecting the Indians’ trust lands, Maine authorized some tracts to be flooded by dams, others to be annexed for the laying out of highways, and thousands more acres transferred to white owners. In no case was compensation given to the Indians, in violation of treaty obligations. In 1893, Maine courts even ruled that the Passamaquoddy tribe didn’t exist because it lacked sovereign powers.
The redaction had and has no bearing on the law, because the redacted portion is still fully binding.
What exactly is the meat of this conspiracy theory. That The judges were duped with misleading constitutions? That it was some sort of government psyop to influence public sentiment in the long run by distributing misleading documents?
Its not really a conspiracy theory. I think Maine would have ignored its obligations regardless of whether they were written in the documents or not so I don't think there is any influence or duping there. Essentially my view is that they were knowingly ignoring their treaty obligations, and so it was convenient for them to remove them from the constitution.
The whole thing is worth reading, but I'll copy and paste a relevant portion here.
> It is likewise remarkable that the court did not rule on
Granger until after the legislature agreed to the put the redaction before voters and that final judgement did not come until after voters had given the redaction final approval, ensuring that the part of the constitution con-taining Maine’s responsibilities regarding Native treaties was no longer being printed right when Maine became liable for paying the tribe for its lost treaty land and covering the costs of safe-guarding that land. After the redaction officially took effect on January 1, 1876, Maine never compensated the tribe for the fifteen islands it lost due to the ruling. It also charged Granger’s damages to the Passamaquoddy Trust Fund in defiance of the unprintable Article X, Section 5. In 1878
the Committee on Indian Affairs strongly suggested that these actions violated the terms of Article X, Section
5, but the government remained silent. The redaction of Article X, Section 5
all but authorized the existing and ongoing practice of disregarding Maine’s constitutional obligations regarding Wabanaki treaties made with Massachusetts.
"pretty clear" is an overstatement, I read it and I didn't understand it. I'm not a lawyer, but the article could have included... you know... your exact comment somewhere.
As has been pointed out, there are copies of it that contain the unprintable sections.
With that said it's worth mentioning that many laws, even in the U.S., aren't exactly printed or documented per say. Plenty of countries have unwritten constitutions; for example in Canada there is no mention of the Prime Minister in any constitutional document, it exists by legal convention.
I think it would be more accurate to state that the Prime Minister's power and authority exist at the pleasure of the British Monarchy. Legally, the British Monarch, and by extension, the Governor General of Canada has ultimate authority over the Canadian government.
I'm amazed Canada has retained this system of government for so long.
This is the case in almost all Commonwealth countries no?
The system works because the country is still relatively healthy. Nobody really cares at the end of the day what leadership style the country has, as long as the leadership ensures that the laws represent the ethics, that there is some concept of justice, and general healthy HDI (whether it's safety, work opportunities, housing, education, whatever).
Democracy is usually seen as some way to achieve this, but there is also a sharp difference between healthy democracies and democracies that start and end at the ballot. You can equally have dictatorships that are just as healthy, if not healthier, than many democracies (for example the UAE or Oman).
Canada has it's own monarchy, legally separate from the British one. Except the monarch is the same person and the rules of succession are the same. But King of Canada is a separate title.
I thought Canada was legally distinct, and only the person Charles III is shared with the UK? I.e. he's the King of Canada. It seems like it's primarily tradition at this point which makes this happen, rather than a hard requirement.
First off its the king of canada, which technically is a separate position that just happens to be held by the same person (personal union), with same succession rules, and also a treaty where everyond is supposed to agree before changing succession rules.
More importantly it is a constitutional monarchy. The crown can't just do what it pleases but is bound by the constitution.
A big part of that is the king must listen to the advice of the prime minister/the privy council, and that the prime minister must have the confidence of the legeslative branch.
In practise the king lacks pretty much all power. There are a couple edge cases (fire the governor general maybe) and still a lot of soft power, but he is essentially a distant figurehead.
Except that the Governor General actually does have some power and it's come up in practice: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1975_Australian_constitutional.... So the ability to hire and fire the Governor General at will is actually a pretty major power, even if it's only been used that one time.
I wouldn't say just that one time - well it didn't get to the level of the australia one, there have been recent times where governor general has mattered in canada.
I guess whether Canada or Australia want to be constitutional monarchies or not is up to them, and not my business being neither Canadian nor Australian, but it just seems strange to me for them to allow the monarch anything more than symbolic power.
Then again, I live in Massachusetts, and historically we're...not huge on kings here.
I mean, personally i kind of like it because it helps stop cults of personalities a little bit - when everything is done in the name of the (absent) king, people are less likely to form a cult around the PM who has real power.
However i think most canadians just dont really care and it would be a big fuss to remove the king. Anytime anyone tries to change the canadian constitution everyone tries to get their interests in so its easier to just let sleeping dogs lie. See also https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meech_Lake_Accord
About the same as any government document which contains secret / sensitive / obsolete / too-long sections. There are two separate versions - one is "anybody can see this", and the other is "restricted distribution only".
This generally applies to executive documents. I fail to see how the same could apply to a constitution. (E.g., one might imagine a secret section that nullifies the publicly visible constitution in its entirety and substitutes it by a secret one. What would be the base of government and law?)
Why can't it apply to a constitution? Actual government is in the minds and actions of the people; it is not some "you are never allowed to skip a step" mathematical proof that gets printed in a research journal. There are nations with constitutions which are not merely unprinted, but unwritten. And plenty of nations (the U.S. included) which simply ignore clearly-printed parts of their own constitutions, when they find it convenient to do so.
In positive law, it's literally "nothing exists outside the constitution". So, if the constitution is an unknown quantity, there is no rule of law. Now, if there is a constitution, but it is not to be known, it may be a positive system or not – either way, you can't tell…
Also, considering the case of a secret substitution: You're appealing to the supreme court, referring to the publicly known constitution, but your case is dismissed based on the notion that your appeal refers to an invalidated section, but you're not allowed to know, what the actual, valid section is. This is Kafka at his best.
I thought the same! Some non-English writing, perhaps native Indian writing or something was stuck in the physical books. Nope, just omitted legal text.
The title is a little misleading: the sections are not "unprintable" due to technical reasons, they are just currently not printed because the constitution itself says they shouldn't be printed...
Even better approach: do it like the British. An 'unwritten' constitution. No need to even have a document for the plebs to read and criticize. Whatever gets a majority in Parliament ends up being the so-called constitution.
I don't think you're being fair to the British here. Their constitution, though not written as a single constitutional document, has at least parts that are written (most notably, the Magna Carta). The whole functions as something significantly more rigid than what a majority in Parliament decides.
I'm amused at the brash confidence that the laws of the language the word was borrowed from override the laws of the language it was borrowed into.
Seems to me the grammar police are overstepping their jurisdiction and we're going to have to get the interlingual grammar courts involved to sort this out.
Hope they do it soon, because English lets its speakers participate in government and this Latin sounds like a threat to democracy.
Sure, but that's a different justification rooted in English conventions (and even then, not perfectly reliable) rather than Latin ones. It would be as true for Harry Potter, no appeal to a foreign grammar needed.
Rigid maybe, but still rather pointless (or at least, much weaker than the constitutions of countries such as the US). Parliament is sovereign in the UK - I'm not aware of any act of Parliament being struck down in recent history for violating the Magna Carta, nor could such a thing happen as I understand it.
> I'm not aware of any act of Parliament being struck down in recent history for violating the Magna Carta
No. What happens is that successive acts of Parliament overrule more and more of Magna Carta, until there's only one or two clauses still in effect.
When we say "The UK doesn't have a constitution", we mean that there are no laws governing what legislation Parliament can enact, other than international treaties; and those can be repudiated even without any act of Parliament - a treaty can be revoked by stroke of the executive pen.
A shame it is. With the state of the current government and its power creeping over more and more of our lives, Magna Carta could do with a comeback. I see it now:
Apparently it includes allowing for sending people to prison because they criticize politicians and jailing people who are carrying a chisel or pair of scissors though.
EDIT: And because I watched it on Sunday. Remember as always ENGLAND PREVAILS!
Yep. One of the strengths of the British Constitution is also one of its weaknesses - under the concept of Parliamentary Sovereignty "[the parliament] may change or repeal any previous legislation and so it is not bound by written law or by precedent. "
So, the things you like in a constitution are not set-in-stone and can be overturned, but so can the things you don't like.
It all depends on the rulers respecting the spirit of the law more than twisting and revising the letter until it becomes oppressive.
Unfortunately we've not had anyone who respects our liberty for some time. It's a shame - I think the 'loose arrangements/don't be legal-heavy' approach is what brings the most freedom, you're let alone and the common law governs interactions only when necessary. I am sure someone can point out why it isn't perfect but it is much more preferable to many other governments.
Now that feeling that the government is more on our backs is growing. (Online "safety" bill? What in Blighty!? Who asked you to decide what was "safe" for me??)
Interesting to see how it plays out conversely in the US, where it was all written down in what the founders thought was unambiguous language, but now the goal is to stuff the Supreme Court with judges who will interpret the constitution with a bias towards the way your side prefers.
Yeah, in the U.S. the people retain sovereignty instead, and our Constitution, the first codified constitution in history, provides a narrow set of powers for the federal government that serves us, written after we defeated the most powerful empire up to that point near the peak of their power in the first successful war of independence.
Statutes can always be tossed or repealed, but our rights may only be overturned via amendment (Gödel's hack).
Yes, that's one of the principles, but I'd strongly dispute the characterisation in the post I replied to that this is to prevent the "plebs" having something to "criticise". On the contrary, it helps ensure that elections are meaningful, as there are no constraints on what the legislature thus elected can do. They are not bound by the actions of previous parliaments. The UK could far more easily repeal its gun laws than the US could repeal the 2nd amendment, were the population to want that.
Not that I'm claiming the US model is inferior in some way, of course. Constitutional questions are complex and heavily dependent on a country's history and culture. One apparent weakness of the US system is that enormous power is placed in the hands of a group of unelected officials, appointed and approved by the current executive and legislature, who then wield that power for life. I could make that point by pointing out that the law on one of the most contentious issues, abortion, has been determined for decades by the partisan composition of the supreme court rather than by public opinion. I could say something like "the US constitution is there to prevent the hoi polloi having a say" but it wouldn't make any point worth making or lead to a reasoned discussion. The issue is rather more nuanced than that.
Except for all the times that happened – like when the High Court ruled that this passage of the Crime and Courts Act 2013 (amending section 76 of the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008: marked F3 and F4), creating a new category of “grossly disproportionate force”:
> [F3 (5A) In a householder case, the degree of force used by D is not to be regarded as having been reasonable in the circumstances as D believed them to be if it was grossly disproportionate in those circumstances.]
> (6) [F4 In a case other than a householder case,] the degree of force used by D is not to be regarded as having been reasonable in the circumstances as D believed them to be if it was disproportionate in those circumstances.
does not “give householders carte blanche in the degree of force they use against intruders in self-defence” (ref: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-43652308) – in essence, making the legal situation basically the same as before this amendment was made. (Apparently the lawmakers didn't quite understand how a “self-defence” legal defence worked in court, when they were writing this one up.) As I understand, as of the ruling, there's no legal distinction between “disproportionate force” and “grossly disproportionate force”.
Sure, the High Court didn't overturn it… except for the part where they basically did. They also “quashed with prospective effect” an amendment to primary legislation (the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988) made by a statutory instrument (The Copyright and Rights in Performances (Personal Copies for Private Use) Regulations 2014). There are many other instances of primary legislation on the books that manifestly say one thing, but that according to the High Court mean something different.
Yes, and I believe the authority of courts to do such things hinges on the difference between "legal sovereignty" (which parliament has) and "political sovereignty" (which it does not). Long article on that here [1] which I'm still reading.
My great-grandmother and her sister were the last two women who wore the tribal clothing of the tribe I suppose I belong to. That tribe no longer exists; we are all Dutchmen in the nation of the Netherlands now. Is that bad? I don't think so: cultures evolve, humanities' future seems to be aimed towards larger groups, and trying to stick to a tribal structure that would have largely rejected the progress made in the outside world, had they had the chance, would have been a miserable existence. Instead of doing silly dances for tourists I'm a software engineer working for a major space agency, and I'm fine with that. Something unique may have been lost (a language, a clothing style, and a harsh way of life), but so much more has been gained (access to all the world has to offer).
The tribal structures that still exist in many parts of the world aren't really about preserving culture or identity anymore; to me they seem to be mostly about preserving the power of a handful of tribal elders, and upholding discriminatory practices both inside and outside the tribe. Those structures are a relic that wouldn't have survived anyway, European colonists or not, and casting them aside now, and joining the rest of the world in the 21st century is neither shameful nor bad.
Just to be clear: I applaud anyone who wishes to celebrate their culture and their identity, and I think having those preserved enriches our world. But staying within the confines of a preserve, where life is hard and opportunities are few, just because you were born there, makes no sense to me. You can be both proud of your heritage and a citizen of the 21st century.
So the question, then, is this: are tribal entitlements necessary for the preservation of something worthwhile, or are they merely tools to further disadvantage a group that is already severely lacking in opportunities? If it's the first, there is a place for them. If it's the second, it's time they were dismantled.
"Something unique may have been lost (a language, a clothing style, and a harsh way of life), but so much more has been gained (access to all the world has to offer)."
I mostly agree with your overall gist, but I will poke a little hole here just for completeness: What does all the world have to offer? A spectrum of other cultures? Today yes, but only because the process of loss and homogenization you just said was a good thing has not yet completed. Give that same process a few more generations and the whole world will be the same, and any differences won't matter at all. It's already almost like that today. When I go on vacation on the other side of the world, it's hardly any different. If it weren't for the history and the interesting ancient structures, there would hardly be any point in travelling from any place to any other place.
The process is not complete, and so today, sure, there is still a lot of point to travel. But that is merely mass and inertia and it's eroding away.
Life is getting better in certain material ways, which are undeniably valuable, but it is not getting richer. It WAS getting richer for a while when communication and travel gave more people more access to the wide varied world than was possible before, but now, that wide varied world is becoming less varied, and so the richness is decreasing.
What place do entitlements play in preserving such diversity, and would other means perhaps play a better role? There are examples that indicate they might cause the opposite to occur, such as with casinos. What are the examples or arguments for how they help?
>> are tribal entitlements necessary for the preservation of something worthwhile
> I mostly agree with your overall gist, but I will poke a little hole here just for completeness
So I guess, your comment was non sequitur? I mean I assumed since the grandparent comment was about entitlements, and the parent comment about entitlements, that your response poking a hole in their argument about entitlements was also about entitlements.
I mean if you’re just saying “diversity is good” we can agree with that. But this whole thread stems from the Maine’s constitution entitlement rights for Wabanaki having been removed from print.
Do you perhaps fall on the aspergers spectrum? I realize I often make assumptions on how others mind’s work so I’m curious. I’ve heard that often conversations seem derailed when those on the spectrum pivot to subjects they are interested in versus a current topic. So it’d be helpful in identifying if that’s the case so I can understand other similar comments in the future.
I am not the one making any assumptions. There is no need to specially interpret my comment, since it was not terse and cryptic, it was wordy and explainatory. One must go actively out of their way to convert it into some unspoken meaning.
I could have reached for the same cheap "are you mentally abberrant?" but did not. That alone does in fact perversely make me aberrant I guess, in that it feels like the norm to do that when one can't figure out if they are actually right and if so how to articulate it. Attack the personality if you fail to attack the argument. Anything but admit you said something silly once you've said it.
This is a thoughtful and insightful comment, and brings up issues I wouldn’t have thought about or understood.
Even though the parent comment was terse, this comment shows why we shouldn’t be downvoting / flagging opinions into oblivion. Free speech and listening to opposing views can bring about meaningful discussions and help is all understand the world better.
Flagging uncomfortable topics because they violate modern wokeism is a disturbingly Orwellian practice.
Could there be value in cultural diversity analogous to value of biodiversity?
I think of Andrian Berry’s warnings about a world state. I fear a world monoculture is one step in that direction. (Just googled him, seems time has been unkind to his books and reputation. Still, his Next 10,000 Years was so inspiring to me, not so much for the specifics but for the vision and the first-principles thinking around how we may get stuck.)
Biodiversity is important because a diverse population is less likely to get wiped out by an event that kills all individuals matching some criteria. For cultural diversity to have value analogously there would need to be some threat to cultures that is separate from biology (because we're still all human). I can't imagine what that could be.
As a theoretical example, if the internet eroded attention spans in first-world-liberal-democracy type cultures to a degree that eventually lead to their extinction, the Amish would be immune and our species would survive.
As Michael Burnham from Star Trek so wisely put it “It would be unwise to confuse race with culture.”
Culture, unlike genetics, is fluid and easily changed (compared to genes)
For something like what your suggesting to occur, the loss of attention, or the inability for loss of attention span would have to become heritable.
At the moment, assuming the internet does erode attention span, those whose attention spans were most eroded would have to be heavily selected against. That means, their loss of attention span or their propensity to lose attention span with internet use would have to pass through gamete into the next generation.
If it’s not heritable, then the Amish are not “immune” because as soon as the Amish moves across cultural lines which is inevitable (many of which do, they routinely leave that culture) they’d be faced with the same issues. On the flip side, many within the non Amish community who choose not to use the internet would flourish without being Amish. (Since internet usage and its loss of attention span would be cultural and easily changed)
Natural selection only works on the level of the genes. Unless aspects of culture can be attributed to genetic diversity, then they are simply fluid, and not something that can aid in their reproductive advantage.
One could argue that the Amish do hold some genetic differences that make them seek out the culture they hold, and be as fertile as they are, but that’s definitely not clear to be the case.
If such cases were true, then perhaps one might argue for cultural diversity as a proxy for genetic diversity. But I don’t know that there has been any support to show cultures are genetically heritable. In fact I believe the opposite has been shown, when taking or moving populations out, they easily assimilate, showing that those cultures are definitely not heritable.
> The tribal structures that still exist in many parts of the world aren't really about preserving culture or identity anymore
That's not strictly true. There are real tribes in the jungles of South America and southeast Asia, for example, who still live in the forests, cook food they raise, and live in thatch/mud/bamboo houses.
I would argue that these tribes' rights (especially property ownership of land where they have houses and raise food right now) matters more than arguments about things that happened more than a hundred years ago in developed countries.
"Entitlements .. tool to disadvantage" feels deep in doublespeak. If it's a disadvantage, it's not an entitlement. Entitlements are things one can take up or leave voluntarily.
An example is the entitlement of sovereign land use that promotes disadvantage. Many Native American reserves suffer from chronic poverty, alcoholism, drug use, etc. Entitled to land use, the US government holds final title, resulting in an inability for people living on the land to do things like collect taxes, private land development, mortgage of assets, etc.
So in this way, the “entitlement” of land use reserved for native Americans actually results in chronic disadvantage.
Who are we going to give it to? Tribe A who the colonists took it from? What about the Tribe B that had their taken by the Tribe A? Should they be screwed over?
Without the European conquest, the Wabanakis may have actually been crushed by the expanding Iroquois Confederacy. Hence they, along with other Algonquin nations, joined the Americans in the Revolution, while many Iroquois sided with the British.
The Penobscots, one of the member nations of the Wabanaki Confederacy, have never been displaced from Indian Island (since settling there ~11k years ago), and acquired significant additional land holdings since the 1970s.
>The Penobscots, one of the member nations of the Wabanaki Confederacy, have never been displaced from Indian Island (since settling there ~11k years ago), and acquired significant additional land holdings since the 1970s.
How do you know that? If they took land from another tribe 9k years ago do you think we would have a record of it? What if another tribe took the land from them 8k years ago and 7k years ago they took it back? Do you think we can actually determine if that happened?
I used to live on the next island over (French Island), and your clueless questioning of Penobscot sovereignty is disappointing. Would you also suggest that maybe Natufians should control the Levant?
>Uh, what do you think we can "actually determine" from before recorded history?
That is my point. You made a claim but have no evidence to prove it.
>I used to live on the next island over (French Island), and your clueless questioning of Penobscot sovereignty is disappointing.
I don't think you understand what my point even is if you think I am doubting anybody's sovereignty.
>Would you also suggest that maybe Natufians should control the Levant?
I don't think being the earliest inhabitants of an area gives permanent ownership. My issue is we are told we need to give back land to the previous owners. It just seems ridiculous that we should do that when many of the tribes we took the land from did the exact same thing we did.
> That is my point. You made a claim but have no evidence to prove it.
I'm not claiming anything, it's right there on https://penobscotnation.org. Reach out to Chief Francis or the council if you have questions on their assertions.
> I don't think you understand what my point even is if you think I am doubting anybody's sovereignty.
Good to hear, that doesn't really seem to be the case among Mainers. Note that the Penobscot River has legally been a citizen of the Penobscot Nation since 2018. The State of Maine has repeatedly disputed their claims and legally challenged their sovereignty, finally losing their battle to control pollution in the river last year: https://www.nrdc.org/stories/22-year-court-battle-ends-justi...
> I don't think being the earliest inhabitants of an area gives permanent ownership.
Okay, so who should control the Levant then?
I understand how one could extrapolate from other geopolitical tensions, but there doesn't seem to be much uncertainty in this case regarding Penobscot claims. Yes they lost most of their wider territory through illegal treaties, but they never lost their "capital" on Indian Island. I'm not aware of any other New World peoples who weren't displaced from their ancestral headquarters by European settlers and have maintained continuity of government since before Columbus set sail.
The Penobscots asserted their claim on over half of the land in Maine in the 1970s, and reached a settlement for over $80M in 1980, which they've used to acquire more territory [1]. The only question has been over sovereignty, specifically in terms of environmental rights, with the State of Maine taking on both the tribe and the feds in their failed battle for control over the river.
>I'm not claiming anything, it's right there on https://penobscotnation.org. Reach out to Chief Francis or the council if you have questions on their assertions
I interpreted your statement as you making the claim. I didn't realize you were just repeating the tribe's claim.
I have no reason to believe they never fought another tribe and took their land. Perhaps they were the original inhabitants of the island, but perhaps not.
Frankly, I don't trust people who refuse to acknowledge taking land from others when their history allegedly goes back thousands of years.
>Okay, so who should control the Levant then?
My preferred solution is to build a time machine and convince the British to retain control over the area. Since that isn't happening the only short term solution I see is for some third party to take control over the area (British Mandate style). Once this third party takes over they can stop the attacks between the two sides and then work on a long term solution. Israel is too militarily strong to be able to easily be taken over so I don't really think it is practical though.
>I understand how one could extrapolate from other geopolitical tensions, but there doesn't seem to be much uncertainty in this case regarding Penobscot claims.
I'm not doubting their claims that they controlled the area when the Europeans came. I'm doubting they didn't kill, steal and cheat others to get the land.
The thing that annoys me about all these Native American claims is how people who are otherwise skeptical about historical claims just accept the Natives' claims without question. It is not just with this tribe, but with all of the tribes. I think it is just a continuation of some sort of Noble Savage Myth or something like that.
>Yes they lost most of their wider territory through illegal treaties, but they never lost their "capital" on Indian Island. I'm not aware of any other New World peoples who weren't displaced from their ancestral headquarters by European settlers and have maintained continuity of government since before Columbus set sail.
My argument isn't that the Europeans took the land from them, but they likely took the land from other tribes. We know native tribes frequently killed each other and displaced tribes.
If killing, cheating, stealing and displacing people is not a legitimate way to gain land then pretty much every country is illegitimate. Eventually we just have to move on. Is there a single group of people that hasn't done bad things to obtain the land and government they have? Europe has mostly moved on and there is rarely (I know Russia/Ukraine is happening) fights about regaining land lost in generations past. It sucks for people to lose land, but I don't see any solution going forward.
If we go back to the Levant example, what is the solution? Keep the existing borders and call it a day? Pro Palestinian people aren't chanting from the river to the sea for no reason. What if we give all the land to the Palestinians? Well the Israelis will feel like they just lost their land and the conflict will continue. Give all the land to Israel? Palestinians will feel like they just lost their land and will fight to get it back.
The only long term solution is get people to accept the principle of forgive and forget. Until people can accept they may not have the land their ancestors had there will continue to be conflicts over land. Maybe some slight adjustments to the existing borders need to be made for cultural, religious, and language reasons for this to work, but until we can move on from past offenses we will continue to kill and displace one another.
In regards to the natives, I don't know what the best way to make everybody feel whole. I don't think stripping land from nonnatives whose families have lived their for generations is the right way to solve this. That is the same thing the Europeans did to the natives. It will continue the animosity over the land. Forgive and forget seems like the only real solution. We may need to make some slight adjustments to borders though. I think giving the natives a few years to file any lawsuits and then calling it good is the solution. If you didn't get your lawsuit in or discovered additional land you think belongs to you, then you just have to forgive and forget.
With rule of law, you would give it to whichever tribe which the government made a binding agreement with, thereby honoring your word and contractual obligations.
The scope of government is to uphold the agreements it makes, not unravel the interactions of other parties going back to the dawn of humanity.
That could easily violate the rule of law though. Knowingly trading stolen property is often times a crime. If we know the land was stolen by the tribe we are giving it to we aren't really following the rule of law.
Considering the "we" in this case only have possession of the (allegedly and / or only hypothetically stolen) property because "we" engaged in genocide, it's kind of rich for "us" to worry about violating the rule of law.
This isn't the strong question you seem to think it is. Assuming we're the colonists who stole from A then our ethical responsibility is to return the stolen property to A. If A in turn had stolen the property from B then it's A's ethical responsibility to return the stolen property to B. It is ABSOLUTELY not the colonists' responsibility (or right) to keep screwing over both A and B by waffling over the chain of custody when they're the ones whose hands hold the stolen property.
Land can’t be stolen, only conquered when sovereigns are involved. Whichever sovereign has physical possession (rule and defense) of the land has a stronger claim to it than the other who simply says it’s theirs but are unable to rule it.
You aren’t a sovereign if you don’t rule within your claimed borders.
Conquering land is, definitionally, taking possession of a real asset by force from another who had prior possession of that same asset… in other words it’s identical in meaning to theft, hence conquered land is stolen land, unless that land had no prior occupants. QED.
This is, of course, notwithstanding the fact that wars of conquest are illegal in our modern system of international law precisely because they represent an act intended to steal another nation’s sovereign territory… you seem to thing such wars become legal if the invaded party doesn’t successfully prevent the invasion from starting at all.
Yes, the de facto situation is that successfully prosecuting a genocide means successfully stealing land, as happened in what became the USA, but it doesn’t alter the fact that the land was very definitely (in the case of the USA both de facto and de jure) stolen.
Why does a sovereign have unconditional ownership in perpetuity of a real asset? Nobody owns land by virtue of being on it or saying they own it. Another sovereign making a claim to the land is valid and puts ownership in dispute. The 2 parties have multiple ways to resolve the dispute with war being a mechanism if others paths are unsuccessful.
Yes, wars of conquest are "illegal" today but that's not a real thing - it's just a declaration by some group of humans who wish it to be. They certainly weren't "illegal" in previous times so any land acquired then is clearly not "stolen".
The one last in possession - the point of my comment is that it is not the responsibility of colonialists to decide who the land belongs to. The only certainty is who last had it.
If we don't have a responsibility to determine who the land belongs just who last owned it then it seems like the colonists should retain it. The last people to control the land are the colonists after all.
Let's look at this from a normal legal situation. You own an item that was stolen by thief A. Thief B then steals it from thief A. Should your item be returned to you or to thief A? Your logic would indicate thief A. Nobody thinks that would be the right solution and yet when it comes to native lands nobody cares. I just want some consistency.
If you make a binding contract with thief A, you should honor it.
If you recognize them as the rightful owner at the time, make an agreement for exchange, then the burden of consistency is on you. Buyers remorse is not sufficient to unwind your obligations while retaining the property.
Another way of resolving this is simply recognizing that conquest does not create obligation, but diplomatic agreement does. It is a matter of integrity and honor, literally, in the sense of do you honor you commitments or are you a liar.
While repugnant to some, I think this is quite clear. In the cases where settlers simply took land by force of arms, they created no legal or honorable obligation. Where they took land by legal agreement, they have created an obligation.
So if I am lead to believe that a thief has rightful ownership of an item and rent it from them, I'm obliged to return it to the thief instead of the rightful owner?
"What's best for the aboriginals" is a pondering that originates from a colonial mindset. It implies that one's opinion about the best course of action is more important, or superior, than those who's opinion actually matters. Furthermore, colonialists don't exactly have a good track record of making morally sound choices regarding land.
Not only is our opinion irrelevant; our opinion has been abundantly demonstrated to be awful in every single way. We need to stop.
Giving it to the last inhabitant, yes possibly conquerer, is really the only choice we have (apart from doing nothing and stealing the land) - to put things back the way they were.
Im saying that if you fully acknowledge someone to be the rightful owner and something, you dont get to change your mind about paying them, and call them a thief with no new information, and then keep it for yourself.
IF the US somehow discovered evidence that it bought stolen land, and chose to pay or return it to the original holder, that would be one thing.
Simply not paying and keeping something for yourself make YOU the thief and a liar too.
I think the fact that we now know the land was stolen was conceded much higher up in this thread ("That is certainly something the tribes should sort out, after getting the land back.") Conceding that we know the land was already stolen and arguing that our responsibility is still to give it to the immediately previous thieves and let them figure it out is what I take issue with. If we don't know whether it was stolen, that's another matter.
Fair enough. I lost track of that conceit in the hypothetical. If there is a clear victim, then yes it should go back to them, not the thief.
Because individual actors and even nations are discontinuous over the thousands of years we are talking about, we are stuck with treating racial and ethnic lineages as the actors, blurring the lines. The Thief and victim can be the same. Lets say a deceased grandfather (A) was robbed by a now deceased son (B), depriving the living grandchild (C) of their ancestral property. Living Indians, party C, are the decedents of both the thief and victim. It still makes more sense that the stolen goods should go back to them, than stay with recipient of the stolen goods.
Anchoring back to reality, I think the whole thief analogy is bogus.
At the time treaties were made with Indians, possession by conquest was considered a valid means of acquisition, and Indians were held to be in sufficient standing to enter agreements.
Rationales which try to retroactively invalidate the historic land ownership by natives, and thereby invalidate contractual obligations, are logically bankrupt if they dont also attempt to identify a rightful owner to return the property to.
The thing is that some of these treaties are expiring (e.g. one of the tribes in Snohomish county, I forget which) and, per the treaty, the land must be returned to them. This is why these treaties are seen as problematic.
Once these treaties expire, assuming they are ignored, the land does become stolen.
I don't expect the tribes to be unreasonable about the land and take up land-grabs, it will likely just be a matter of taxes going to one entity instead of another.
That's the problem with having rule of law, integrity, and honor. Sometimes it's inconvenient and costly.
Something being costly does not absolve you of your moral, legal, and honorable obligations. It is not a justification for ex post facto recontracting.
I would like to see the government uphold it's obligations, stop acting weird exceeds these obligations, I work towards permanent Solutions where advantageous. This may include buying out of contractual obligations for purchasing Indian land and rights
Why? They killed various tribes to obtain at least some of their land. If it was wrong for the colonists then we shouldn't reward tribes who did the exact same thing? Taking land from oppressor A just to give it to oppressor B is just dumb.
Name one other nation in the history of the world that has given any consideration at all to the people who's land they took. Indians were stealing land from each other for generations before "colonialism" was a thing. It's just part of human history. Time to move on, they're certainly not getting much societal benefit from government gifted land. It's only served to isolate them more and impoverish their communities. Instead of integrating they continue to live in a past that no longer exists. Either they're Americans or they're not.
Why would anyone give up land they conquered if they want to live on it? No one has a right to land outside of borders they can't defend. If you can't defend a border then you aren't a sovereign nation. You're a group of people that need to work with the sovereign nation to allow you to live on the land they conquered.
So many people have this delusion that, in a Mad-Max-ian world they'd be a badass sitting on the bones of their enemies when in fact they'd just be dead in a ditch somewhere.
There's a pretty vocal minority on HN (and in tech generally) that are unapologetic supporters of might-makes-right and wholly against the rule of law. It's at least a bit refreshing from the usual set of people who are against the same but too mealy-mouthed to say it outright.
The people, in the U.S. We can strike down any federal statute, call a convention, and simply dissolve the federal government and create a new one whenever popularly desired.
There's no monopoly on arms in this country. Every able-bodied male between 17 and 45 is in the militia and we keep a gun behind every blade of grass.
I’m sure you can’t. The sovereign nation I live under has laws and the ability to enforce them that protect my property. If you tried to take my house then I’d have a tort against you. The nation would find in my favor and imprison you. My home would remain my property.
The concept of all three of borders, nations, and sovereignty as you’re using it are relatively recent innovations that haven’t survived for anywhere near as long as, for example, feudalism did as an organizing structure, and just as feudalism died this latest iteration of “my might makes me right” will, eventually, die as well.
It seems to me that might makes right is at least as old as humanity itself. I don't see many animals organizing to resolve disputes peacefully. When it comes to relations between groups that do not engage socially with each other, might makes right seems like the default means to come to agreements.
Child molestation is also at least as old as humanity itself... you have not made a sensible or reasoned argument for continuing to do what we did in the past.
It will absolutely stop happening in the future… the only question is will it have stopped because we finally outgrew thinking with our genitals, or will it have stopped because we failed to do so?
Realistically we prevent virtually no child molestation by force (or by any other means)… we’re far too busy loudly pretending to care about keeping children safe from imaginary stranger dangers to actually do anything whatsoever to keep them safe from the real dangers represented by their family and other trusted adults.
On average it takes two decades for a victim of childhood sexual abuse to disclose their abuse… successful victories of your imaginary “might” at that remove are virtually non existent relative to the number of victims.
Some would argue that the colonialism that created the status quo was pretty obviously discriminatory. Removing the last vestige of their sovereignty would be like saying “now that we’ve undemocratically seized your land, changed how it was governed and moved in enough people to vastly outnumber you, come join in our democratic process where you’ll be overruled by our superior numbers!”
That's how conquest, war, and societal progress works. Should we go back and create entitlements for all the European tribes folded into monarchies over the last two millennia?
Entitlements are antithetical to equality. Continually attempting to right wrongs from the past simply carries them forward.
In a lot of places in Europe minorities have varying degrees of autonomy, protections and special rights (use of language, schools, sometimes more). History and legal systems are complicated and a lot of it doesn't make sense without the historical context.
> “now that we’ve undemocratically seized your land, changed how it was governed and moved in enough people to vastly outnumber you, come join in our democratic process where you’ll be overruled by our superior numbers!”
That's sort of how the world works. If you can't defend it (through power and/or political will - you have strong friends that you have a mutually beneficial relationship with) then it's not your land. There's literally no group of people that have lived on some piece of land since the dawn of humanity. In fact there have been untold thousands of groups of people wiped off the earth because another group decided they wanted to live on the land they once lived in.
Is that what you'd say if a few guys with guns came and pushed you out of your home, so that they can live there? Historically, it's correct: that's how the world works.
Correct which is why we formed tribes which allowed groups of people to form a common culture and bond which protected each other. And tribes would firm alliances with other tribes and work together to destroy rival tribes. These groups of tribes became nations which have evolved into the political organization of the nation state we see today.
Now if a few guys with guns pushed me out of my home my nation state would send more guys with better guns to remove them and my property would be back in my possession.
What happens when your "nation" doesn't have a state, or the state youre in isn't made up of your "nation", or you just have a phony rump state, as in the case here? Those guys get to get pushed around?
Just to make sure - it's fine to ignore legal treaties, etc., because if "they" aren't willing to take up arms to defend what's theirs, that's how the world works. But when I run you out of your house because I'd prefer to sleep there, then laws and the legal system are a perfectly reasonable avenue to expect to save you?
Hmm? I said the opposite - that the law is all we can rely on. Without the law, we’re left with might makes right, which is precisely how the world works.
I often see "discriminatory" used as if it proves something irrefutably. When I don't go to a shop where employees are rude, I certainly do practise discrimination on the basis of communication culture. Also I enjoy my customer's rights, and do the right thing by creating incentives for politeness. There are discriminations which are legal, and illegal, moral, and immoral, pragmatic, and useless. And everything in between.
Citizenship is a modern institution; yeah, the Athenians had it, if you're OK with a notion of citizenship that extended only to a small percentage of the population. But even in ancient Athens, the majority of the population were slaves.
In feudal Europe, most people were serfs or vassals; they came with the land, a bit like trees and game. The only people with rights were aristocrats, and then only really if they had land. Poor people might have had some rights in law, but the judge was the local baron; it was meritorious for the sovereign to promulgate "the King's justice", but it didn't happen much.
The change came with the Age of Revolutions; rights are something you have to seize. To my fury, I remain not a citizen, but a subject, because the English Revolution was led by landed gentry, not by the populace.
The idea of universal rights is a fine idea; but not having been seized, they don't exist.
It pretty much is. A government does govern two things, a population and a corresponding land area. You may try to have one without the other, but that would lead to massive problems because of the way humans and their home area interact.
If you govern a population without a land, you are practically instantly at war with some other population because both populations will want their way of life as well as their property rights enforced around the place they call "home". For a current example, see the palestinian exile population, who have a government but no land of their own, thus leading to constant conflict with their host countries.
If you govern a land without a population, you are lacking any kind of compass and attachment to values. Land alone is a dead thing, and a government cannot just be recruited from land, it has to be people doing the governing. Basically, there is nothing to govern without a society.
Citizenship can have a number of definitions, but the loosest one is something like "currently inhabiting the land area of that corresponding government". You may change those definitions, introduce various classes of citizenships, modify the ways in which it can be obtained. But for the aforementioned reasons, any definition that doesn't involve something like "a citizen is strongly associated with a land area and comes from a corresponding populace (governed by a corresponding government)" is a weak and fragile definition that will not last the test of time and human interactions. Note that the government part is in parentheses, because actually governments are far more interchangeable than population and land area.
"Its two headquarters buildings in Rome enjoy extraterritoriality".
The article claims they have no territory, but what they mean is there is no territory capable of supporting a military + institution. I don't know this is a practical counterexample.
Nevertheless, it is interesting to note that clubs and private militaries, and independent autonomous intelligence agencies exist, even if they are on the extreme end of what could be considered a "government".
The catholic church in general is kind of a counterexample in certain aspects, but only because of reasons. The Maltese Order is just one aspect of the general weirdness of the church organisation overall, there are also the separate international legal entities "Holy See" and the Vatican state. Of those three, only the Vatican state actually has any sovereign land area, but of a rather symbolic size. The Vatican also has a kind of citizenship, but it is only awarded for the duration of being part of the churches government. But in all those things you only see shadows and fragments of the past that are in slow and steady dissolution. The dissolution would be far quicker if e.g. Italy were hostile to them, but the opposite is true, probably because of the popular support and gain in international influence for Italy.
How so? A government must have those it governs, those must be then members of the set of people whom it governs.
You can call it something besides "citizenship", but maybe we're talking about different terms, or you have a more technical definition implying more than simply membership under a governing party?
Either way, this is the basic definition of a citizen, so trying to divorce the two seems futile to me:
"A citizen is a member of a political community who enjoys the rights and assumes the duties of membership."
They govern over non-citizens as well, e.g. over residents and visitors to the geography where the government has/claims sovereignty, but the non-citizens tend to get fewer rights than the citizens.
I understand your distinction I think...however the parent comment (about abolishing citizenship) is still (on the face of it) advocating anarchy. Degrees of citizenship must exist always, even when the "official" line is that none do - as you state even in the case of "equal citizenship" there is still the degree of citizen, and non-citizen, so really you can never remove that (without also removing government).
Being in the position of abolishing _birthright_ citizenship is a very different stance than abolishing the practice of citizenship outright. I think you are speaking of "second class citizenship" e.g. immigrants or temporary who do in fact benefit from and are expected to follow the laws of the land, but who do not get e.g. voting rights.
I.e. perhaps the view is the equalize all practical citizens under the law (which is possible but difficult to do wrt to land ownership and community security, especially).
My interpretation of the parent comment was that citizenship should not be restricted by the circumstances of birth.
Countries would still be governed by those who live within their borders, but you wouldn't be discriminated against based on your place of birth, e.g., you could move around freely.
Or, maybe more practically, greatly ease the requirements of immigrating and becoming a citizen of countries.
Couldn't the same argument be advanced against inheritance from family, who after all differ from tribe only in selecting by narrower genetic criteria?
The native peoples of north american were not a contiguous group. Plenty of first nations were allies of the US. Of those that were variously at war with the US, conflicts resolved in treaties dictating new borders, not some form of abject right stripping subjugation or medieval rent seeking.
The idea that as victors, the treaties you entered into with the opposing side are somehow not meant to be upheld is not a righteous notion. The US' repeated violation of promises made to the various first nations is a detestable part of our nation's history. That modern jurisprudence has starting to uphold treaties our country entered into and never formally revoked is a good thing. A nation should be its word, not merely a bludgeon.
Never heard of first nations but as somebody who grew up around Indian country I think we should approach this area with a little more scholarship and learn about what actually happened instead of jumping to conclusions.
Yeah, I thought it was a Canadian thing as well. Coming from an area that was heavily populated by Indians, it was a relatively large part of the curriculum back in my younger days. And I never heard that term in relation to Native Americans.
I'd be a bit reluctant to quickly judge someone's exposure to the various terminology around this topic. CGP Grey has a good video on the terminology as used in the US [0]. From the video: "Talking to people over the last [sigh] 5 years revealed a strong correlation: the closer a person had ever been to a reservation, the more likely they would be to use the word 'indian'. The farther, the more likely they would be to use the word 'Native American'." and also "At the time of writing [this video/2019], 'Indian' is used by Indians on Indian reservations to describe themselves"
Firstly, I actually have no idea if there was a war with this particular tribe that resulted in this particular treaty. That's not always the way it went; sometimes it was just diplomacy and trade (with the odd group of assholes sprinkling violence in for fun; it was rarely 100% peaceful, even when it was mostly peaceful).
Second, what do you think winning a war means?
It's not always -- usually? almost never? -- a matter of one side eliminating or crushing the other to the point of abject subjugation. Rather, once there's a clear "winner", the losing side is usually willing to accept a unfavorable treaty that gives the victor whatever land or trade benefits they were after, and in return for the losing side not saying "fuck it" and trying to take as many people as possible with them, the winning side generally agrees to leave existing power structures largely intact and leave them some part of what's theirs.
> It's not always -- usually? almost never? -- a matter of one side eliminating or crushing the other to the point of abject subjugation.
If you decide they're going to live then yes. You need to show them that if they can't or won't unconditionally surrender and change their ways then they will in fact be abjectly subjugated and their lives will be miserable. Eventually enough of them will agree that it's not worth it. That was more or less the the USA approach with Japan in WW2. The thought being that they will fight to the death if they feel there's any sliver of hope. So nukes were dropped which showed there was not and that it wasn't worth fighting anymore.
The other option is to just slaughter them. This has been used more frequently throughout history.
While the Potsdam Declaration called upon Japan to surrender unconditionally, it did, in fact, lay out the conditions for the surrender, including that the armed forces of Japan would be permitted to disarm and return home, they would retain sovereignty of their four principal islands, and that the Japanese people would not be enslaved or destroyed as a nation.
After the atomic bombings -- and the Soviet advance -- Japan accepted these conditions, unconditionally, instead of holding out for better terms, like retaining conquered territory.
(Edit: Now, if you want unconditional surrender, the German Instrument of Surrender, now there's an unconditional surrender.)
JUSTICE GORSUCH delivered the opinion of the Court.
On the far end of the Trail of Tears was a promise. Forced to leave their ancestral lands in Georgia and Alabama, the Creek Nation received assurances that their new lands in the West would be secure forever. In exchange for ceding “all their land, East of the Mississippi river,” the U. S. government agreed by treaty that “[t]he Creek country west of the Mississippi shall be solemnly guarantied to the Creek Indians.” Treaty With the Creeks, Arts. I, XIV, Mar. 24, 1832, 7 Stat. 366, 368 (1832 Treaty). Both parties settled on boundary lines for a new and “permanent home to the whole Creek nation,” located in what is now Oklahoma. Treaty With the Creeks, preamble, Feb. 14, 1833, 7 Stat. 418 (1833 Treaty). The government further promised that “[no] State or Territory [shall] ever have a right to pass laws for the government of such Indians, but they shall be allowed to govern themselves.” 1832 Treaty, Art. XIV, 7 Stat. 368.
There's not one single way to end a war, and not all treaties are the result of war. Regardless, the US, and the colonies before the US existed, fought wars with many Indian tribes. But in most cases, either to end wars or to avoid them, treaties were made between the United States government and the various Indian tribes to define how the entities would deal with each other. Those treaties, like any international treaty, give obligations and responsibilities to both parties. If the tribe still exists, then the obligations still exist.
In the case of Canada, the ‘war’ was won/avoided by giving them concessions and treaties, that were reneged on and violated by the colonial government.
The current government tend towards ‘truth and reconciliation’ is an attempt (or at least a gesture) to investigate and rectify these wrongs and treaty violations.
I’m sure the same holds in the US in areas where there was not a wholesale genocide.
And the results in Canada offer positive and negative examples to choose from when it comes to the current governments approach to indigenous issues.
I only say that to caution advocating for other countries to adopt the approach Canada has taken. I am of the view there were a lot of classic examples of well intentioned policies with disastrous results.
At the same time, I don’t know enough about the issue to offer alternative policy without worrying about the sensitivity of the issue.
I was neither praising nor deriding Canada’s approach, I was providing context for the parent.
The logic of ‘conquest->hegemony’ does not quite work in parts of North America because the ‘conquest’ was not a traditional one, but rather because of duplicity and breaking treaties, which- in a rules based order- typically have methods of restitution.
Parts of the USA, like the Russian conquest of Eurasia, were traditional conquests where the invaders drove out the inhabitants by force, but that is not a universal narrative in the European colonization of North America.
> Sections 1 and 2 of Article X were also redacted in 1876. They covered when the first Maine legislature would meet, when initial elections would be held, how Senate and House seats would be allocated as between the counties and towns, and what the initial terms of Maine’s elected and appointed officers would be.
In reality it seems like the redaction was done to eliminate from the printed copies provisions specific to the implementation of Maine’s separation from Massachusetts.