UN official: US must return control of sacred lands to Native Americans

[Oexmelin]

You have given me no reason to do so.

Of course. 

I then proceed to wonder what could the cause of this problem be? I conclude that the [cause is a systemic one, and proceed from there.

Talk about reframing... *Everyone* agrees the cause is a systemic one (what's the alternative? coincidence?). People in this thread have disagreed as to what you have put in the system (Native culture is broken) and what you refuse to put in the solution (Native sovereignty), the first out of a highly debatable analysis, the second out of principle (other than reiterating that it is an artifact, thereby accepting status quo for European sovereigns but refusing it for Natives).

This cherry-picking of stuff to be offended at gets old fast, though. 

For it to be cherry-picking, it would have to be about the periphery of your argument, rather than its essential components. It is not so much being offended as denouncing a rhetoric which is the simple reactivation of colonialist thought. Feel free to embrace it, though.

Indeed, you have presumed to "call me out" (your words) for having the audactity to discuss these very things in a manner not to your liking!

No: BB and Jacob have called you out on the whole "broken" thing, and hinted at the flawed premises hidden in them (i.e., a sort of wholesale judgement of Native realities which can fit your narrative). PDH has basically already stated that what you propose is the equivalent in spirit to Dawes in both origin and purpose (and therefore didn't work and lead to the exact same situation you denounce). I simply aggregated the argument - you might not like the end result, and I confess I do not have such great fondness for colonialist thought, but it is not about your audacity - simply the puzzling conclusion it leads one to. 

As for "what kinds of "facts" and "logic" would you actually value?", what can I say? Produce some and find out. The onus surely is not on me to tell you what you should say.
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[Malthus]

What is your proposal then Berkut?

It seems to me though that Malthus does think that reservations need to be abolished.  Not that the communities themselves should be blown up of course, but that their special status as reservations should end.

Again, I'll refer you to my post above which is I believe the only one in which I've actually spelled out a possible "solution".

Note that it's simply a trial balloon, not some sort of detailed and thought-out plan. However, you will see its key points are:

(1) actual choice for native americans; and

(2) full compensation for any existing entitlements, should individual native americans choose to forgo them. 

I dunno why you and Minsky keep saying my "side", or me particularly, must of necessity simply want to turf native americans out. We all know that won't work, and would be inequitable even if it would work. 

For convenience, I reproduce my earlier post here:

Then how about this for a "solution".

There must be billions of dollars in unresolved land claims out there. Resolve them all. Take that money, and add to it *all* the cash that is going to be handed over in various ways to keep the reservation system going, add current land values and rights held by native self-governments, make it into a big pool of cash, and offer each and every adult native person a *choice* - you can have your "share" (whatever pro-rata figure that may be) right now - but you have to give up "status". Or, you can have your "share" administered for you on your behalf, under the current set-up - by the government, and by your band chiefs and councils, on your reservations.

Obviously some formula for changing one's mind has to be worked out. Point is, this would offer people an actual choice. Naturally under the current system few would be willing to abandon the system - how many living in poverty want to give up entitlement to welfare?

[The Brain]

I used to be an Indian but then I took a wound to the knee.

[Berkut]

So until and unless I hear native people say that reserves should be abolished, I won't support that position.

Wow, all this time you've been arguing with someone who wants to abolish reservations over the objections of Native Americans?

Who would that be? I have made no such proposal. I don't think anyone in this thread has.

What is your proposal then Berkut?

I've stated it several times. It is so far removed from what you keep repeating is my proposal even after I state that I have no such views that at this point, if you don't know it, I am sure stating it again won't help. You guys can continue to feel smug and superior arguing with your fake people, I am kind of tired of the entire thing.

You have the advantage that your proposal to do nothing because doing anything would be disrespectful to Native Americans is what will actually be done, so 30 years from now when nothing has changed, and another generation has been squandered, you will be able to smugly drink your latte and feel proud of your understanding of native cultures.

[Malthus]

Talk about reframing... *Everyone* agrees the cause is a systemic one (what's the alternative? coincidence?). People in this thread have disagreed as to what you have put in the system (Native culture is broken) and what you refuse to put in the solution (Native sovereignty), the first out of a highly debatable analysis, the second out of principle (other than reiterating that it is an artifact, thereby accepting status quo for European sovereigns but refusing it for Natives).

Your position makes nop sense at all. Of *course* culture is going to be "part of the system" in a systemic problem dealing with people! Are you of the opinion that culture exists serenely outside of people's lives, in some sort of Platonic place?

Culture, the system of legislation, the government, sovereignty - these are *all* aspects of the problem.

You have it 100% wrong if you think my position is that natives are somehow responsible for their own misery beacuse their culture is somehow not as good as European culture. *Any* culture that existed as this one does in a system of perverse incentives would create the same problems. The basic problem, as I identified in my first posts, is that living an existence in the middle of nowhere with nothing to do cannot be made "meaningful", no matter what you do and no matter what culture you have. So natives suffer (as anyone would, native or non-native alike) from the very typical symptoms of that - suicide, hopelessness, turning to drugs, booze and violence. 

You are looking at this through the wrong end of the microscope. 

For it to be cherry-picking, it would have to be about the periphery of your argument, rather than its essential components. It is not so much being offended as denouncing a rhetoric which is the simple reactivation of colonialist thought. Feel free to embrace it, though.

Thank you for putting me neatly into a label. That'll learn me! 

No: BB and Jacob have called you out on the whole "broken" thing, and hinted at the flawed premises hidden in them (i.e., a sort of wholesale judgement of Native realities which can fit your narrative). PDH has basically already stated that what you propose is the equivalent in spirit to Dawes in both origin and purpose (and therefore didn't work and lead to the exact same situation you denounce). I simply aggregated the argument - you might not like the end result, and I confess I do not have such great fondness for colonialist thought, but it is not about your audacity - simply the puzzling conclusion it leads one to. 

Again with the label. How neatly a label stifles thought. 

I take it that my challenge to produce facts and arguments has produced the result I expected - nothing.

[Malthus]

I've stated it several times. It is so far removed from what you keep repeating is my proposal even after I state that I have no such views that at this point, if you don't know it, I am sure stating it again won't help. You guys can continue to feel smug and superior arguing with your fake people, I am kind of tired of the entire thing.

You have the advantage that your proposal to do nothing because doing anything would be disrespectful to Native Americans is what will actually be done, so 30 years from now when nothing has changed, and another generation has been squandered, you will be able to smugly drink your latte and feel proud of your understanding of native cultures.

I gotta agree, I'm getting kind of tired of this.

I had no idea people still called each other  carriers of"colonialist thought" with a straight face. Seems very mid-80s to me.

[mongers]

So somehow you get from my very first post that I think this particular ethnic group has gotten a shitty deal and needs to not have such a shitty deal that somehow I think they should...continue to have a shitty deal?

That is some impressive doublespeak right there mongers.

What is funny about your condescending little remarks is that you, of course, provide no actual solution yourself, or even any kind of theoretical solution.

My basic position that you so smugly denigrate is that yes, being "clean living middle class people like the rest of us" is in fact not such a terrible thing, especially compared to the alternative of being depressed, uneducated, and mired in poverty.

Yeah, I know, that is just so not cool to think that being a middle class people like the rest of us really isn't such a terrible fate.

I'll ignore your too common ad hominem and bluster and refer you to the very post of mine you've quote and ignored, here it is again:

I'm going to go out on a limb here and suggest, probably the only working answers to some of the very real problems they face, are going to have to come from within the nations themselves; any 'ultimate solution' imposed on them from the outside is unlikely to succeed.

[The Brain]

I kind of doubt that Malth's and Berk's Strategic Hamlet Program would work.

[Malthus]

I'm going to go out on a limb here and suggest, probably the only working answers to some of the very real problems they face, are going to have to come from within the nations themselves; any 'ultimate solution' imposed on them from the outside is unlikely to succeed.

I take it your solution is to - wait for them to come up with their own solution?

It has the virtue of not requiring the rest of us to do anything. But what if they don't come up with anything, and conditions continue to deteriorate? 

[Berkut]

I like the idea that if just left alone, Native Americans can figure out how to squeeze blood out of rocks.

The more I think about it, the more amazed I am at this level of ridiculous idiocy.

What mongers is basically saying is that we came in, stole all their land, shoved them onto shitty reservations where they have no ability to sustain themselves without turning into welfare recipients, then once the situation had become so bad that suicide is the leading cause of death among young adults, we should..."leave it to them to come up with a solution...".

The hubris is just...amazing.

[Barrister]

I'm going to go out on a limb here and suggest, probably the only working answers to some of the very real problems they face, are going to have to come from within the nations themselves; any 'ultimate solution' imposed on them from the outside is unlikely to succeed.

I take it your solution is to - wait for them to come up with their own solution?

It has the virtue of not requiring the rest of us to do anything. But what if they don't come up with anything, and conditions continue to deteriorate?

Yes, that's pretty much all we can do then.  The "answer" has to come from native communities themselves.  Attempting to impose anything from the outside has a very long history of failure.

If conditions continue to deteriorate individuals will continue to leave those communities in ever increasing numbers (they're already doing so at a pretty good clip anyways).

It's obviously not a quick fix.  But I don't think there is a quick fix to be found.

[mongers]

I'm going to go out on a limb here and suggest, probably the only working answers to some of the very real problems they face, are going to have to come from within the nations themselves; any 'ultimate solution' imposed on them from the outside is unlikely to succeed.

I take it your solution is to - wait for them to come up with their own solution?

It has the virtue of not requiring the rest of us to do anything. But what if they don't come up with anything, and conditions continue to deteriorate?

No, maybe they could do with some outside help, perhaps you should sign up to one of the first nation forums and posit this question there ? 

Perhaps you could bring some practical law-speaking skills to the table, I think it's worth a go on your part.

[Malthus]

I'm going to go out on a limb here and suggest, probably the only working answers to some of the very real problems they face, are going to have to come from within the nations themselves; any 'ultimate solution' imposed on them from the outside is unlikely to succeed.

I take it your solution is to - wait for them to come up with their own solution?

It has the virtue of not requiring the rest of us to do anything. But what if they don't come up with anything, and conditions continue to deteriorate?

Yes, that's pretty much all we can do then.  The "answer" has to come from native communities themselves.  Attempting to impose anything from the outside has a very long history of failure.

If conditions continue to deteriorate individuals will continue to leave those communities in ever increasing numbers (they're already doing so at a pretty good clip anyways).

It's obviously not a quick fix.  But I don't think there is a quick fix to be found.

Gah, that's a pretty ruthless form of assimilation.

Why is this better than the solution I proposed above (and which no-one commented on)?

[mongers]

I like the idea that if just left alone, Native Americans can figure out how to squeeze blood out of rocks.

The more I think about it, the more amazed I am at this level of ridiculous idiocy.

What mongers is basically saying is that we came in, stole all their land, shoved them onto shitty reservations where they have no ability to sustain themselves without turning into welfare recipients, then once the situation had become so bad that suicide is the leading cause of death among young adults, we should..."leave it to them to come up with a solution...".

The hubris is just...amazing.

Oh look more ad hominem, bluster and mischaracterisation from Berkut, colour me surprised. 

If you feel so passionate about solving this thing for them, maybe you should do some outreach within their communities ? 

[Malthus]

I'm going to go out on a limb here and suggest, probably the only working answers to some of the very real problems they face, are going to have to come from within the nations themselves; any 'ultimate solution' imposed on them from the outside is unlikely to succeed.

I take it your solution is to - wait for them to come up with their own solution?

It has the virtue of not requiring the rest of us to do anything. But what if they don't come up with anything, and conditions continue to deteriorate?

No, maybe they could do with some outside help, perhaps you should sign up to one of the first nation forums and posit this question there ? 

Perhaps you could bring some practical law-speaking skills to the table, I think it's worth a go on your part.

I might give it a shot. If you've read the thread you will know I already have some involvement.

But I doubt my pro bono skills, no doubt awesome as they are, will amount to a full solution.