Prove to me that the (for example: Navajo, Hopi, any tribe) that they were the first people on the land and they never took anyone elses land.
Firstly, not all indigenous groups were "tribes." There were several regional entities that could reasonably be called "states." Secondly, I already responded that the Navajo and Apache and their common ancestors stole land and resources from Pueblo communities. I said that if this interfered with
current private property rights of the Pueblo, they were entitled to reparation. It's simply that it's
far more clear-cut that current ownership by the U.S. government interferes with all sorts of indigenous private property rights.
Your stance is based on feelings and not reality. I owe nobody anything, except to live by the laws that govern the country I am in. This disenfrachisement stance is not logical. Sorry you don't like the way history has played out.
These are more assertions, not counterarguments to my statements. It's very easy to simply contradict me; it's more difficult to actually refute my statements.
This is the issue, one last time: Territory in the Americas, including the United States, was generally acquired through aggression involving a combination of fraud and open force. How then do the governments established through that aggression have the moral authority to declare absolute sovereignty over any of that territory?
Don't get me wrong. If it can be proven that restricting immigration has more desirable consequences for all involved than decriminalizing border crossing does, I'd be in favor of it. I just want a
paradigm shift from "this is our land, we decide who goes in and out!" (false), to "let's consider this rationally based on the consequences."
#1 what law are you pointing to that targets only Mexicans?
I mentioned no such thing. It would be impossible to target "only Mexicans" based on racial profiling, since Mexicans are a national group, not a racial group. But while we're on the topic, the Arizona law will be focused on the oldest inhabitants of the region.
Indians and Mestizos in the Americas
Trini's people have been here since before there were six flags flying over Texas. Her grandparents were Cherokee and Mexican Indians who liked to eat on the floor and asked to be buried in a mountain when they died--the Indian way.
Trini's skin is as brown and red as the earth. She looks like she's always been here. And at age 72, she can't remember a time when her relatives weren't here. Though she was born in these parts, she doesn't speak English well, and cannot read nor write.
In other words, Trini would be a prime suspect for la migra--border patrol agents who constantly search for "illegal aliens"--even hundreds of miles from any border. If Congress has its way and adopts a national ID card for everyone, it is people like Trini who will be constantly asked to produce it.
In a great irony of U.S. history, the true natives of this land have become the immigrants. People who can trace their ancestry back the farthest are stopped and questioned because "they look Hispanic"--meaning they look Indian.
Did you know that a substantial number of Indians in the U.S. Southwest have Spanish surnames and adopted Catholicism because of the Spanish colonization centuries past? I'll right hook the first idiot who asks if I'm an "illegal."
#2 Where are you getting this BS that the land was unjustly acquired?
The usual pattern was the passage of a fraudulent and quickly violated treaty signed under military duress, followed by open and brutal violence against resisters who opposed ceding their territory. Ever heard of Sand Creek, Colorado?
Sand Creek Massacre@Everything2.com
After the firing the warriors put the squaws and children together, and surrounded them to protect them. I saw five squaws under a bank for shelter. When troops came up to them they ran out and showed their persons, to let the soldiers know they were squaws and begged for mercy, but the soldiers shot them all.... There were some thirty or forty squaws collected in a hole for protection; they sent out a little girl about six years old with a white flag on a stick; she had not proceeded but a few steps when she was shot and killed. All the squaws in that hole were afterwards killed, and four or five bucks outside. The squaws offered no resistance. Every one I saw dead was scalped. I saw one squaw cut open with an unborn child, as I thought, lying by her side. Captain Soule afterwards told me that such was the fact.... I saw quite a number of infants in arms killed with their mothers.
All manner of depredations were inflicted on their persons, they were scalped, their brains knocked out; the men used their knives, ripped open women, clubbed little children, knocked them in the head with their guns, beat their brains out, mutilated their bodies in every sense of the word...worse mutilated than any I ever saw before, the women all cut to pieces.... [C]hildren two or three months old; all ages lying there, from sucking infants up to warriors.
In going over the battle-ground the next day I did not see a body of a man, woman, or child but was scalped, and in many instances their bodies were mutilated in the most horrible manner—men, women, and children's privates cut out, &c. I heard one man say he had cut out a woman's private parts and had them for exhibition on a stick; I heard another man say that he had cut the fingers off an Indian to get rings off his hand.... I also heard of numerous instances in which men had cut out the private parts of females and stretched them over the saddle-bows, and wore them over their hats while riding in the ranks.... I heard one man say he had cut a squaw's heart out, and had stuck it on a stick.
Far be it from me to condemn violent massacre and genital and other bodily mutilation as a form of unjust acquisition, of course.
In Texas you got your ass kicked out after treating your own citizens like dirt.
Why not actually read the comments that you're replying to instead of regurgitating pre-programmed responses? I haven't mentioned your laughable "reconquista" idea; I've mentioned the fact that American territory (in all American countries, not just the U.S.!), was unjustly acquired through a combination of force and fraud. Incidentally, that includes Mexico, which is the basis for the Indian insurrections in the south of that country.
The Southwest border region was bought from Mexico. so where is the injustice you are ranting about?
"Mexico"? The territory of the Southwest has never belonged to Mexico; it was unjustly acquired by the Spanish, and then "governed" by those of Spanish descent in the Mexican government after their revolution. It was not their land to sell any more than Napoleon had the right to sell the Louisiana Territory.
You mean through war? Sorry, thats life, get used to it.
Hahaha! Then stop complaining about the "illegal alien invasion." That's life; get used to it. Why should we care any more if *your* land is "stolen" when your ancestors stole it from the indigenous peoples of the Southwest?
The arrogance you are displaying is truly amazing. To pretend all illegals are Mexicans displays an incredible lack of the facts.
The majority of illegal immigrants are Indians from Mexico and Central America. But U.S. administrators do not have the ethical authority to expel them, since the U.S. and the remainder of American territory were gained through aggression against the indigenous population.
I do not believe for a second that all Hispanics agree that illegal immigration is acceptable.
Who even
mentioned "Hispanics"? As explained in the exchange that you abandoned and never returned to,
Hispanics are not a race. My focus is on
Indians.
