Standing Rock vs Dakota pipeline

[decay]

well, for my locality- EBMUD does a pretty good job of responsible infrastructure and waste management. some of our electricity is generated from the processing of food or, yanno, "organic" waste. so i haven't seen the need to.

do i think the natives at SR are justified in protecting their own drinking water, and protesting the violations of the Laramie treaty that have been happening for more than 150 years? fuck yes.

[marshallnoise]

well, for my locality- EBMUD does a pretty good job of responsible infrastructure and waste management. some of our electricity is generated from the processing of food or, yanno, "organic" waste. so i haven't seen the need to.

do i think the natives at SR are justified in protecting their own drinking water, and protesting the violations of the Laramie treaty that have been happening for more than 150 years? fuck yes.

Ahhh yes. I suppose La Raza has a case for returning California and the whole Southwest to Mexico too.

[decay]

Ahhh yes. I suppose La Raza has a case for returning California and the whole Southwest to Mexico too.

you do get that the broad strokes of the treaty were that we'd leave their land alone, right?

[marshallnoise]

you do get that the broad strokes of the treaty were that we'd leave their land alone, right?

Don't care. I already said we screwed up handling of the Native Americans.

[decay]

Don't care. I already said we screwed up handling of the Native Americans.

ok well if you don't think we should STOP doing that, we're probably not going to reach agreement here.

[marshallnoise]

ok well if you don't think we should STOP doing that, we're probably not going to reach agreement here.

I think we should revoke all the treaties we had with them and absorb them into the United States with full citizenship rights, declare their lands as part of the National Park Service and pay them a reparation of some variety so we can move on with life.

[mrsleeve]

Facepalm

[decay]

I think we should revoke all the treaties we had with them and absorb them into the United States with full citizenship rights, declare their lands as part of the National Park Service and pay them a reparation of some variety so we can move on with life.

oh yeah, let's turn them into a fucking theme-amusement park next. *that's* how we'll make it right.

[marshallnoise]

oh yeah, let's turn them into a fucking theme-amusement park next. *that's* how we'll make it right.

Are you high?

[decay]

Are you high?

no... i just understand the concept of sovereignty and think we should honor the treaty we signed.

we've treated natives like shit enough already, and your suggestion that we should just reneg on everything we have actually agreed to and kept our end on is repugnant.

[mbonder]

I think we should revoke all the treaties we had with them and absorb them into the United States with full citizenship rights, declare their lands as part of the National Park Service and pay them a reparation of some variety so we can move on with life.

What happens if they don't want to do that? Should they just be forced to join the US? This flies in the face of all civil rights and the sovereign rights of nations.

You seem to be a fairly conservative person, speaking frequently on states' rights and freedom of the individual, but this stance is in direct opposition to pretty much everything you've ever said about government overreach and violation of personal rights/property.

How do you rectify these two positions?

[marshallnoise]

Going to reply to the both of you since you basically have the same question or criticism.

The whole way the United States went about handling the "Native American problem" was flawed. The idea was to be able to allow them to be separate nations (a freaking ton of different nations because not all Native Americans share the same values, even today) while still live in another nation called the United States.

It hasn't worked. We pushed them out of their lands and then forced them to live on reservations we drew borders for and said, "there you go little indian!" It was trash and doomed from the start.

What we should have done was conquer (I am not implying genocide, just traditional territorial war disputes like the Mexican/American war) them like any other nation, one by one, and absorbed them into the United States as citizens. That way, they would have to assimilate to our way of life but they can keep their religious beliefs and have those protections of a citizen of the United States.

Reneging on our agreements that we really didn't keep very well in the first place, that created the horrendous system that they live in now, that keeps them isolated from the world around them, would hardly make much of a difference and actually give them more opportunity.

We didn't give them citizenship until 1890! They weren't allowed to vote until 1924 (in state elections it was 1962)! Their religious practices weren't legal until 1978!

So you tell me how we could do a much worse job of handling Native Americans? They would have been better off losing wars and being conquered. Half measures rarely work and this is a prime example of that.

Now decay, you are just going to reject this lock, stock and barrel. I understand that and frankly don't care.

mbonder, I think you are capable of seeing my logic here. Native American "nations" aren't sovereign nations at all. They are sovereign nations in name only. Moreover, they have no economic ability to sustain themselves because their lands are small, have few natural resources and their governments are incredibly inept. We basically forced them to operate like a western nation with absolutely ZERO chance to succeed. Kind of like what happened with Germany after WWI where there was no chance for them to become a normal nation and it created a vacuum for a man like :hitler: to show up.

That being said, we have dishonored our treaties anyway, so why not formally do it? What if they don't want to? Too fucking bad. They will be arguably more free AFTER they lose their "nationhood" than if they keep it.

[mrsleeve]

Indian nations areally not sovereign, they are little more than county gov. With a bit more ladituide and atonomy with what they are allowed to do. Crimes on Indian lands are under the jurisdiction of the US Federal govt, the reservation can't enter into negotiations with Mexico, Germany the uk, china or any other govt in binding agreements, or anything else

[mbonder]

I will agree with you in that the situation for many of the Native American nations or reservations is dire. I think that you are absolutely right that from the very start the United States set up the reservation system in a way so that the only possible result would be failure, which is what we essentially have today. They got the crappiest land, tracts that were distinctly separate from each other so that they could never band together to form a legitimate coalition of tribes, and isolation from the rest of the world.

As disastrous as the treaties between the US and the tribes have been however, they still guarantee their rights to certain freedoms of sovereignty, which would be taken away if they were forced to be absorbed into the US. Curiously, people still live on those lands and accept this status, even though all they would have to do to avoid it would be to "get off the reservation", move to other portions of the United States.

I imagine a move to many other areas of the US would allow for greater freedom to be exercised, but it would seem that many are not willing to trade the sovereignty that they have for that increased freedom, should they be forced to against their own wishes?

I actually like this discussion because you can argue from both directions here and there is a legitimate case to be made for both. I just don't think that the US should step in and essentially tell the Native tribes that the US Gov't knows exactly what's best for them, which is a more hands-off approach, libertarian if you will. Interestingly, this might be one time when marshall and I have flip-flopped stances, although it would be a much more extreme switch if, say, decay and marshall were to swap places.

[BraveUlysses]

Indian nations areally not sovereign, they are little more than county gov. With a bit more ladituide and atonomy with what they are allowed to do. Crimes on Indian lands are under the jurisdiction of the US Federal govt, the reservation can't enter into negotiations with Mexico, Germany the uk, china or any other govt in binding agreements, or anything else

depends on what kind of crime, many of them have their own criminal code, punishment code and police departments.

I think one thing to keep in mind that is that there was a long struggle for Native American tribal independence from federal government influence.