U.S. Supreme Court deems half of Oklahoma a Native American reservation • Hacker News Board

Re: U.S. Supreme Court deems half of Oklahoma a Native American reservation

#81

Post by WillPostForFood » Thu, Jul 09, 2020, 5:16 PM UTC

treeman79 wrote: post #9

newacct583 wrote: post #4

This is a terrible article, it just cites the facts of the decision, teases the implication (OMG half of OK!) and explains nothing. Here's a review article about the same case from a while back which does a better job: https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2018/11/28/half-land-... The tl;dr is that, yes, indeed, half of Oklahoma is part of land reserved for the Creek in a 1833 treaty. And almost two centuries of sub…

No income tax? Never mind injuns coming. Where do people sign up to become one? Huge percentage of population has some Indian blood. The exact definition can be worth a lot to many people. Let the drama begin!

Native americans do pay the same federal income tax as everyone else. Tribes don't pay federal tax. If you live on a reservation, you generally don't pay state income tax. It is kinda complicated.

Re: U.S. Supreme Court deems half of Oklahoma a Native American reservation

#82

Post by charlesu » Thu, Jul 09, 2020, 5:16 PM UTC

fermienrico wrote: post #16

Can someone explain why America has reservations? From what I know, Native Indians had this land almost 2+ centuries ago. Why have a special, looks like an autonomous, region and special treatment to people that are a few generations down from when this happened? How far back into the history should we go?

The US government was making treaties with Native American tribes as recently as 1871. One hundred and fifty years ago isn’t long at all. It’s two lifetimes. It’s recent enough for someone to have known someone who was alive then.

Re: U.S. Supreme Court deems half of Oklahoma a Native American reservation

#83

Post by jcwayne » Thu, Jul 09, 2020, 5:16 PM UTC

irrational wrote: post #14

Are all the other treaties going to be reviewed? What percentage of the USA would become reservation land if all the treaties were honored? If it was >50% would we still call them reservations?

It seems that what they've ruled is not that the treaty must be honored, but that only the federal government gets to decide not to honor it. Absent a specific decision to that effect, the treaty is still in force which limits the state's authority.

Re: U.S. Supreme Court deems half of Oklahoma a Native American reservation

#84

Post by vkou » Thu, Jul 09, 2020, 5:16 PM UTC

giantg2 wrote: post #73

So when are they going to get to all the other unlawful stuff the government does?

When you file a lawsuit about it that makes its way up the courts.

Re: U.S. Supreme Court deems half of Oklahoma a Native American reservation

#85

Post by preommr » Thu, Jul 09, 2020, 5:17 PM UTC

> Conservative Justice Neil Gorsuch joined the court’s four liberals in the majority.

The US supreme court is a special kind of circus.

For the life of me, I can't remember any of the names of the justices on the Canadian supreme court. Its extremely uneventful, and even if there have been controversies, they were so minor or rare that I can't remember them.

The US on the other hand... The partisanship is so blatant and just accepted.

And not only that, the controversy.

I am still astounded that Kavanugh was approved after he started ranting openly about clinton conspiracy theories, awkwardly asking people if they like beer, and lying about common terms like "devil's triangle".

Re: U.S. Supreme Court deems half of Oklahoma a Native American reservation

#86

Post by travmatt » Thu, Jul 09, 2020, 5:17 PM UTC

abeppu wrote: post #57

> The ruling voided McGirt’s sentence of 1,000 years in prison but he could face a new trial in federal court rather than state court. Not changed by this ruling, but it strikes me as really odd that you can sentence someone to prison for that long, or that you would bother. Why not just say life in prison? If your state is 103 years old, saying anything about the next 1000 years seems ... lacking in credibility.

It factors into parole release and other calculations

Re: U.S. Supreme Court deems half of Oklahoma a Native American reservation

#87

Post by viggity » Thu, Jul 09, 2020, 5:17 PM UTC

abeppu wrote: post #57

> The ruling voided McGirt’s sentence of 1,000 years in prison but he could face a new trial in federal court rather than state court. Not changed by this ruling, but it strikes me as really odd that you can sentence someone to prison for that long, or that you would bother. Why not just say life in prison? If your state is 103 years old, saying anything about the next 1000 years seems ... lacking in credibility.

life in prison is usually reserved for capital crimes. But when someone acts so heinously, then they just tack on year after year.

However, AFAIK, rape or even murder aren't federal crimes, unless the crime crossed state/tribal boundaries.

Re: U.S. Supreme Court deems half of Oklahoma a Native American reservation

#88

Post by pantaloony » Thu, Jul 09, 2020, 5:17 PM UTC

asdf21 wrote: post #42

binarymax wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you realize the word you used is pejorative? Please be kind and show some respect. EDIT - a note about the sarcasm - it is NOT OK to use pejorative or racist terms sarcastically.

He's obviously mocking the use of the word... can people here not understand context?

From long observation: no, one thing HN is remarkably bad at, even compared to the rest of the web(!), is taking context into account. Usually that kind of thing is deliberate trolling when it happens elsewhere, but here I can never tell. It seems so sincere.

Re: U.S. Supreme Court deems half of Oklahoma a Native American reservation

#89

Post by seiferteric » Thu, Jul 09, 2020, 5:17 PM UTC

abeppu wrote: post #57

> The ruling voided McGirt’s sentence of 1,000 years in prison but he could face a new trial in federal court rather than state court. Not changed by this ruling, but it strikes me as really odd that you can sentence someone to prison for that long, or that you would bother. Why not just say life in prison? If your state is 103 years old, saying anything about the next 1000 years seems ... lacking in credibility.

Pretty sure it is just the sum of all the sentences they received.

Re: U.S. Supreme Court deems half of Oklahoma a Native American reservation

#90

Post by AnimalMuppet » Thu, Jul 09, 2020, 5:18 PM UTC

refurb wrote: post #67

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And because, after our shameful history of ignoring those treaties whenever we felt like it, it might not hurt to actually keep one for once.

Keep one? Aren't there hundreds of reservations across the US?

Fair point. But I'd say that we kept them when we thought it was convenient to do so - when the land that it gave them wasn't land that we decided we wanted. So my point was, not that we never kept them, but that we should keep this one now, even if we decided it was inconvenient.