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

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

#401

Post by salmon30salmon »

tempestn wrote: post #349
seehafer wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Madison thought it highly unlikely that people who held immense power would not choose to use it. The Framers' model (and fear) was Rome, and much of our Constitutional design is intended to prevent an American Caesar. (One of the reasons Washington was universally revered was because he acted so contrary to what everyone thought was human nature.) "Ambition must be made to counteract ambition" he tells us in Federal…

Ironic, given that these same tendencies were very present around the fall of the Roman republic. Rome had a similar gridlock of opposing positions of power, and similarly fell into a state where little could be accomplished due to the regular undermining and vetoing. Edit: Since most replies are talking about the empire, I just want to reiterate that my comment was regarding the end of the Republic, which imo is a m…

Rome also had decades of civil war where a majority of the ruling class was either a) killed in said wars or b) killed after the wars in proscriptions by the victor. The only people left in the Senate were either weak-willed or allied to the "winner". The proscriptions by Marc Antony basically wiped out whatever resistance was left after the death of Julius Caesar. Couple this with the fact that the populace by-and-large just wanted peace, you can see why Octavian was able to rise.

In relation to the parent point, Octavian also went through great lengths to _appear_ to be acting at the will of the Senate. He was "first citizen" and all rights and protections granted to him here "granted" by the Senate. Whether this was under duress or just abdication for the sake of peace is debated.

There are some parallels between the current situation and the fall of the Republic, but there are for more differences. We are more at the Gracchi stage than the Caesar stage at this point. So there is hope!

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

#402

Post by mbreese »

dantheman wrote: post #389
busterarm wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except this is demonstrably untrue. The 115th (2017-2018)[1] Congress had both a Republican House and Senate and it got extremely little done. Our Congress is completely ineffective. [1]:Fixed.

Congress should be ineffective the problem is the scope of their activity has grown so much... The US shouldn't have a strong federal government it was supposed to be executing enumerated powers, and granted those powers through amendments. We've given up on constitutional authority a long time ago - there's a reason prohibition required an amendment and the war on drugs didn't.

Prohibition didn’t require a constitutional amendment. The proponents wanted an amendment to make it more difficult for a future congress to reverse the decision. If alcohol was prohibited through legislative action, it could have also been restored just as easily. In retrospect, this strategy turned out to be pretty effective.

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

#403

Post by mtgx »

ISL wrote: post #238
war1025 wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> because of the massive failure that congress is This is a conclusion I'm coming to more and more. It's easy to blame Presidential overreach or Supreme Court overreach, but the Congress seems to be steadily abdicating responsibility while still managing to get very little of substance accomplished. They are supposed to be the most powerful branch of government, but instead they have deadlocked themselves into useles…

While in effect it is abdicating, in reality, Congress is spinlocked by indecision. There are deep divides between the branches of the electorate that have brought the representatives to office, as the United States faces a number of divisive issues. Those divides, and a preference for combat over compromise, leave us deadlocked. The center is there for the first party that chooses to leave its entrenchement. When Co…

This is the inevitable outcome of a two-party system. A multi-party system would need to create coalitions to remain in power (and thus collaborate).

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

#404

Post by jfengel »

aeternum wrote: post #370
busterarm wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except this is demonstrably untrue. The 115th (2017-2018)[1] Congress had both a Republican House and Senate and it got extremely little done. Our Congress is completely ineffective. [1]:Fixed.

It seems like a good design to me. We don't want a congress that always votes along party lines, and if there is not a strong consensus, then keeping the status-quo is often not the worst thing. Especially since law-makers have a strong incentive to further their own careers by introducing changes. This system forces law-makers to work harder to get change passed, it often must be a change that benefits more than jus…

"Keeping the status quo" sometimes is the worst thing, because it leads to tyranny of the majority. The majority has configured the laws to its benefit, and as the margin of its majority reduces, fights harder and harder to prevent minorities from seeking justice through the legislature.

It doesn't even require a majority: we've so predisposed the system to inaction that a small number of people can block it. To pass legislation you need the consent of the House and the President and a supermajority of the Senate. Any of those can stop a law in its tracks.

It's easy to say that we should favor not changing things, and there are definitely ways that we should force people to seek consensus. But when the current setup works against you, you can suffer for decades without getting relief, and it's not a good look to just shrug our shoulders and say, "Well, it's working for me".

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

#405

Post by rayiner »

jordanpg wrote: post #241
rndmize wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm tempted to say that the uselessness of Congress is in indication of something else - we've pushed too much to the federal level. The decades-long tooth-and-nail fighting over healthcare makes me think that an effective system just can't be done federally; there's too much disagreement between states. Why not scrap most of the social programs, cut federal taxes, and let states implement their own?

Or alternatively, that the federal government, as it currently operates, is simply no longer up to the task of modern governance. Too slow, too reliant on voluntary compliance, and most importantly, too difficult to make decisions with long term time horizons.

Somehow other countries with federal systems manage to implement “modern governance.”

This chart shows government spending by various levels of government: https://images.app.goo.gl/iVpyyr2Ftzo6m7PB6

In the US, about half of all spending happens at the federal level. Germany, which also has a federal system as a matter of its constitution, also has the central government spending about half of all government dollars. Canada is even more federalist. The vast majority, about 3/4 of 4/5 of government spending happens at the provincial level. Denmark also has the majority of spending at the local level. Belgium, Spain, Sweden, Chile, and Mexico are about the same as the US in pushing about half of all spending down to the local governments.

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

#406

Post by lostapathy »

brandmeyer wrote: post #384
ISL wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While in effect it is abdicating, in reality, Congress is spinlocked by indecision. There are deep divides between the branches of the electorate that have brought the representatives to office, as the United States faces a number of divisive issues. Those divides, and a preference for combat over compromise, leave us deadlocked. The center is there for the first party that chooses to leave its entrenchement. When Co…

> The center is there for the first party that chooses to leave its entrenchment. Unfortunately, that just isn't so. The evidence of the last three decades has been that every time the Democrats compromised a little, the Republicans just moved further to the right and re-entrenched themselves.

Don't fool yourself - both sides think the other is guilty of this.

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

#407

Post by mensetmanusman »

S33V wrote: post #378
spaginal wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have a distinctly queer idea of what happens after a war. This isn't an American idea to take land after conquest, it's how it's always worked throughout human history, even with the Indians that warred amongst themselves prior to the American government becoming the ultimate victor against them. You may disagree with the foundations of the conflict, and you can argue on those merits if you choose, but the result…

I find it amusing that you hold a blanket thought that the theft of Native American land was the result of war games and not a mixture of deception, racism, genocide, breach of trust, and thievery.

War is hell...

and all of those things

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

#408

Post by bluGill »

vkou wrote: post #119
wwright wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we are going to truly treat this 1833 treaty as legally valid, does that mean that one party is entitled to compensation for 187 years of damages? Or is it more likely that we will somehow hand-wave it away and just find a way to retroactively undo the treaty?

Court decisions in the US (As in any other country in the world) are made in the context of the current social climate. The current American social climate is not ready, willing, or interested in meaningful reparations. I doubt the tribe will be successful in suing for any damages.

Trying would be dangerous, a lot of people go from who cares about them to why are you taking my money for them.

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

#409

Post by [deleted] »

antics wrote: post #130

Just a couple notes here from a person of tribal descent (I am Wasq'u, a tribe in the PNW), for those trying to make sense of it. This ruling, as I understand it, resolves a narrow technicality—but that technicality has potentially enormous implications. The Court has only decided that the federal [EDIT: state! sorry!] government has no prosecutorial jurisdiction against citizens of the so-called "Five Civilized Trib…

[deleted]

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

#410

Post by mtgp1000 »

S33V wrote: post #378
spaginal wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have a distinctly queer idea of what happens after a war. This isn't an American idea to take land after conquest, it's how it's always worked throughout human history, even with the Indians that warred amongst themselves prior to the American government becoming the ultimate victor against them. You may disagree with the foundations of the conflict, and you can argue on those merits if you choose, but the result…

I find it amusing that you hold a blanket thought that the theft of Native American land was the result of war games and not a mixture of deception, racism, genocide, breach of trust, and thievery.

How do you think warring tribes treated each other? You are aware that some proportion of native tribes kept both native and black (and probably white to a lesser extent) slaves, right?

It's also interesting that you choose the word "theft" as though the natives even had a concept for land ownership. Seems people are too eager to view history through a modern moral lense these days.

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