Ok City is just down the road from Tulsa. Guess this means Liz Warren was born on a Native American reservation.
U.S. Supreme Court deems half of Oklahoma a Native American reservation
531–540 of 1001 posts
Re: U.S. Supreme Court deems half of Oklahoma a Native American reservation
#532It's so weird how sentences so significant are often "protecting" the rights of terrible, terrible people: > McGirt, 71, has served more than two decades in prison after being convicted [...] of rape, lewd molestation and forcible sodomy of a 4-year-old girl. McGirt [...] did not contest his guilt in the case I'd be interested in learning who was involved in McGirt's proceedings and why. Did they mean to actually get…
Everyone deserves a vigorous legal defense, even the most reprehensible. If the accused or convicted are exempt from the rule of law, so are those who are accused or convicted by mistake, corruption, or abuse of power. Competent and committed legal defense for everyone defends the rule of law as it's applied to all of us.
> Competent and committed legal defense for everyone defends the rule of law
I agree wholeheartedly, but in practice this often doesn't happen, for a multitude of reasons. Legal representation costs money in most countries, and most lawyers don't particularly enjoy defending guilty people (obviously they do it anyway, but it's a bit like having to fix a '90s PHP website when your passion is Python 3...). Hence my curiosity about the backstory of this particular situation going on for so long (20 years and all the way to SCOTUS is a lot of work).
Re: U.S. Supreme Court deems half of Oklahoma a Native American reservation
#533Earlier quoted context omitted.
Every country in the world that exists today is occupied by a people who can be traced back to a conquering nation. If you think through the implications of your statement, you'd see you're talking about wiping out 10,000 years of history and forcibly moving 7 billion people somewhere else.
Proximity in time and space add important context to the issue. There are still many places in the world where injustices are happening due to this kind of problem, saying that it has always been this way doesn't add anything to the conversation.
> Proximity in time and space add important context to the issue.
It really doesn't and saying otherwise doesn't add anything to the conversation (see what I did there).
Do you really believe the Russian and German empires should reclaim their "rightful" territories in Europe? Do you believe Europe should reassert its domination over Africa because it had strong political control over it in recent history? What about the British Raj? What about Hong Kong?
"Time and space" is a bullshit argument and you don't believe it yourself. How could you? "So and so" holding "such and such" lands at "this and that" time is the basis of 99% of wars throughout history.
Its a stupid way to think. Its a stupid way to govern.
Re: U.S. Supreme Court deems half of Oklahoma a Native American reservation
#534Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah, I agree. That could definitely get into some really sticky territory. I guess the other side is that a malevolent court could contrive those interpretations, and Congress would be only be able rectify the situation going forward. I don't know what the best solution is, but I guess I trust the Supreme Court more than I trust Congress. Still, it seems weird that Congress wouldn't get a say in determining what the…
Congress isn't the same Congress that passed the bills.
That's a good point. I don't really have a sense for whether the legal system makes any differentiation between different sessions of Congress, or whether it's just viewed as one continuously-operating entity. Like would Congress be able to retroactively-clarify their intent if the law was very recent and the same Congress was still in session?
Re: U.S. Supreme Court deems half of Oklahoma a Native American reservation
#535So crimes committed by Americans on reservation land are basically unchargeable now?
Re: U.S. Supreme Court deems half of Oklahoma a Native American reservation
#536Incredible. Do the right thing America!
Let the Native Americans go. Let them be free. Give them back their lands.
You have enslaved them for far too long. You genocided them. Killed their culture. Killed their language. Raped their women. Killed their men. Killed their children. And now, the Covid virus is about to kill off the remaining Navajo Tribe.
You must be a heartless monster, if you don’t feel any sense of sorrow, for what is about to happen to the Navajos. They’re all about to die from the virus. Their culture is about to disappear from this earth.
For all the hot air talk about foreign nations and their supposed cultural genocide, well, you have one right here in your own backyard. And you have the historical baggage that goes with it.
It’s time to let them finally be free. They have suffered long enough, for the sake of America’s Manifest Destiny project!
Americans need to depopulate the Oklahoma territories, and return that land back to the Native Americans. As wells as the Dakotas, and return that back to the Sioux Tribes.
Americans already took all the good lands on the east and west coasts, by the waters, and left the sh*t lands to the Native Americans. Do the right thing. Prove it!
Re: U.S. Supreme Court deems half of Oklahoma a Native American reservation
#537Earlier quoted context omitted.
The US government signed treaties (Legal documents) with Native American tribes. This decision rests on the fact those are, indeed, binding documents. Congress can explicitly modify these treaties, but that is an explicit legislative duty. It really isn't that hard of a question to answer. If I legally own land, how far back in history should it go? Well, probably as far back as the entity that enforces legality says…
The court has never ruled the president can't unilaterally tear up treaties too though, so it may not require Congress. When Bush unilaterally ended the ballistic missile treaty the court refused to hear the case.
This is an interesting and important fact I wasn't aware of, thanks!
Re: U.S. Supreme Court deems half of Oklahoma a Native American reservation
#538> 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. LOOOOOOOOOOL Man avoids millenium long rape conviction using obscure treaty.
He'll just be re-tried in the correct jurisdiction. I doubt there will be much avoidance.
Right but feds wont seek a sentence till the year 3000
and who knows what the tribal courts do or what those particular nations have procedures for
and he’s already served 23 years of the sentence
its an absolute win, for him
Re: U.S. Supreme Court deems half of Oklahoma a Native American reservation
#539Why not everyone assimilate? It is no longer "United States" when we split states off for special treatment for minorities. These minorities will further regress and never get out of the poor living conditions. Reservations are one of the most impoverished regions in the US. We should then probably go back to Genghis Khan times and challenge the whole Eurasia, Persian inlands and a bunch of other areas around the wor…
We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23782205.
Re: U.S. Supreme Court deems half of Oklahoma a Native American reservation
#540Earlier quoted context omitted.
Native Americans had wars and conquered each other for millennia before white man came. It wasn't some unified utopia in the Americas like Pocahontas leads you to believe. It was a huge cycle of tribalism, conquering each other, and bloodshed. So... because they were conquering each other first, a technologically superior entity isn't allowed to conquer them?
Wow, this response is projecting a whole lot onto my comment. My only reply in turn is, no, I don’t believe an entity should be “allowed” (by whom?) to conquer a nation in violation with their agreement just because they happen to have different technological capabilities
Your comment upthread was unsubstantive flamebait to begin with, so it's not surprising it got a flamewar response. Please don't do this on HN.