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

reuters.com

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

#821

Post by kelnos »

wbl wrote: post #708
kelnos wrote: post #597

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with you on the legal aspects, but the mind-bending bit is that the neighbor's actions -- at the time -- were not legal (because no, it is not legal to build structures on someone else's property without their permission), but because it was left to sit that way for some period of time, the result of those actions -- a de facto redrawing of property lines -- has become the new legal status. Which, honestly, s…

Otherwise you could wake up and discover that a structure you built 30 years ago on land you thought was yours now isn't. The adverse possession law exists to prevent surprises like that.

Reasonable, but shouldn't the real owner of the property be entitled to some sort of compensation regardless? That becomes problematic if you don't have the means to retroactively buy the land from your neighbor, but it doesn't seem fair to just acquire it, free of charge.

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

#822

Post by sequoia »

ricardo81 wrote: post #815
Klinky wrote: post #792

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"We", as in, "the country". It's part of the history and foundation of the country you agreed to become a citizen of. The nation of today is not isolated from it's past. Much benefit was gained from injustices of the past. What is the just thing to do? Sweep it under the rug and act like it didn't matter? What kind of values are those?

>sweep it under the carpet As a European (Scot) who lived in Canada with my partner (Ojibwe) it became obvious how ignorant I was of the past wrt all Native American tribes and the indoctrination they were subjected to. I'd mentioned to her that during this BLM movement that the African-American story is seemingly world-known but the Native American story less so. I believe their time will come when there is a greate…

Sometimes referred to as “transgenerational trauma.” It’s something Jews and Native Americans/First Nations people have in common, probably along with most populations who suffered genocide. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transgenerational_trauma

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

#823

Post by ponker »

landryraccoon wrote: post #727
ponker wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What Gorsuch's opinion does directly imply is that the "promise" to the Creek can be revoked by Congress at any time, i.e. it's hardly a "promise" at all.

I’m curious if you can give an example of a promise that cannot ever be revoked?

I mean, the only reason that Congress can revoke a promise to the Creek Indians is that they have a stronger military. It's not about justice, it's just about strength.

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

#824

Post by bublyboi »

“ McGirt, 71, has served more than two decades in prison after being convicted in 1997 in Wagoner County in eastern Oklahoma of rape, lewd molestation and forcible sodomy of a 4-year-old girl. McGirt, who did not contest his guilt in the case before the justices, had appealed a 2019 ruling by a state appeals court in favor of Oklahoma.”

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

#825

Post by abqio »

woah wrote: post #485
abqio wrote: post #367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No thank you. As someone who lives in one of those states this is a worrying precedent. Maybe if their laws didn't apply to me as a non citizen I would be ok with this. As it is, I can be arrested for stopping at the wrong gas station with a firearm in my car. I have no choice but to pass through reservations on a regular basis. And I have no input in the government that makes their laws. Nor any hope of ever being h…

Same thing happens if you go to Canada or Mexico. What's the big deal?

See my other comment.[0] Particularly the part about checkerboarding.

I can't end up in Canada or Mexico by accident. Nor do I have to drive through them to get from one part of my state to the other.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23788209

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

#826

Post by [deleted] »

dfee wrote: post #754
jake_morrison wrote: post #747

We have to recognize how much we screwed over the Native Americans. We took away their prime land on the East coast. We gave them some shitty land in Oklahoma that we didn't think we would ever want. We made them walk there in the "Trail of Tears", and lots of them died along the way. Then we decided to screw them out of the land in Oklahoma after all, but didn't go though the process properly because we didn't think…

> We gave them some shitty land in Oklahoma Interesting sentiment. As someone who grew up in Tulsa, Oklahoma, I think you should go there and tell the people who live there your thoughts.

[deleted]

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

#827

Post by ricardo81 »

sequoia wrote: post #822
ricardo81 wrote: post #815

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>sweep it under the carpet As a European (Scot) who lived in Canada with my partner (Ojibwe) it became obvious how ignorant I was of the past wrt all Native American tribes and the indoctrination they were subjected to. I'd mentioned to her that during this BLM movement that the African-American story is seemingly world-known but the Native American story less so. I believe their time will come when there is a greate…

Sometimes referred to as “transgenerational trauma.” It’s something Jews and Native Americans/First Nations people have in common, probably along with most populations who suffered genocide. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transgenerational_trauma

Yes. My partner worked in a women's shelter and told me about the 'learned behaviour' that was perhaps the root cause in so many situations. Her grandmother had managed to hide and avoid being taken to one of the Catholic schools when they came into their family home to take her, her grandfather didn't manage it.

Easy to see how that kind of trauma in a family could affect the next generations, particularly so if their was abuse - which apparently was rife in the schools they were sent to.

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

#828

Post by dfee »

scoopertrooper wrote: post #790
dfee wrote: post #771

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We both know the reasons as we both studied it in 9th grade Oklahoma History. Though I’m not sure that Brad Henry (D) really did much more for those people then anyone more recently (R). To be fair, I’ve not lived there for over a decade. There is quite a bit of grift in that state. It is certainly not the land they were native to, and that is the important point.

I didn't study 9th grade Oklahoma history, so maybe you could enlightened me. I did a bit of googling and it seems that Oklahoma wasn't suitable for large scale agriculture till the 2oth century when innovative farming techniques were developed. Is this not correct?

I’m not sure as I’m not an agricultural scientist or engineer. That’s also not a lot of what OK History was about, either. Though that would’ve been pretty interesting!

A few highlights are: the Trail of Tears and the land grants and those who rushed to claim plots of land before the land rush started (illegally marking their territory - hence Sooners, the mascot of the University of Oklahoma). This was likely for sustenance farming and ranching (iirc) and incentivizing local development. (Oklahoma State is the agricultural school, and their mascot is the Cowboys, probably related to the massive cattle flows that ranged from Fort Worth to the Kansas City railroads).

The next highlight is the dust bowl where a drought made the land largely untenable for farming. This was the setting for the play “Oklahoma!” as well as the book “The Grapes of Wrath”.

Throughout the whole history, natural resource mining (specifically gas and oil) have been the primary economic driver of the state. Unfortunately for the state, through the 80s and 90s much of that moved to Texas. And indeed, Oklahoma is the heart of fracking today. (Or at least was, but my mom who’s an environmental chemist has retired, so I no longer hear the current stories).

My oddest memories (coming of age into teenage years) was during the Brad Henry (D) days. I was probably more inclined to that party, but saw some weird shenanigans during that period too. Like the “right to work” anti-unionization situation play out as well as the introduction of the Oklahoma lottery (to support education! / actually a grift machine for general government budgeting).

Tulsa has become increasingly swamped by seedy casinos (something I knew nothing of until my late high school days when I feel like they really began to take off).

If I were there today, I’d advocate for exactly what Tulsa has done: try and stop the brain drain by putting together programs to attract talent (like $10k grants to tech folks who move there), a renewal of investment in parks, and pitches to the likes of Tesla to attract national attention for innovation. The latter two were successful programs proven our by a city I lived in (and love) after college, Austin (just 7 hours south).

Anyway, that’s my grab bag of history, without going into too many of the unique stories that make up the history of the state. I hope I got most of it right!

My thoughts on the place have softened with my time away, and while I don’t intend to move back any time soon, I recognize the struggles the people who live there face. In some respects it’s the opposite of the Bay Area (where I live now) and in other respects it’s exactly the same.

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

#829

Post by kelnos »

FactolSarin wrote: post #642
kelnos wrote: post #575

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Still, it seems weird that Congress wouldn't get a say in determining what their own bills mean when there's a dispute. That's an interesting point that has me thinking. My feeling on this is that this is actually as designed. Congress' job is to pass laws after writing them in whatever way they deem prudent. But Congress doesn't really have an interest in the enforcement of those laws, up until the point their con…

It actually depends on the judge whether the lawmaker has a say in it. Traditionally, most judges looked to the legislature for this kind of thing, but that type of judge has been in rapid decline over the last few decades. Let's take an example. Imagine a municipality wanted to pass an anti-electric scooter law. So they pass a law that bans "electric scooters, electric bicycles, and other such electric motor powered…

I think there's a difference, though. I'm fine with (and agree with) the idea of your example of looking back at the city council transcripts and finding that the intent was obvious, and going with that. But I think at least some of this thread is about the idea that the legislature could have some sort of effective litigation or consultation power at the time a law is disputed.

At that point, it might be many years since the law was passed; its original authors could be retired or even dead. In that case, I don't think it's fair to allow the (current) legislative body a seat at the table, because they don't have the context to provide input on the original meaning, and would likely ignore that anyway and try to push their personal agenda.

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

#830

Post by remarkEon »

yellowapple wrote: post #801
remarkEon wrote: post #718

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, this is nothing like commenting code. These comments are not meant for other "programmers" (i.e. Justices). They're meant for the public, which doesn't compile anything with regard to the Supreme Court.

No, they're meant for other Justices, too, as well as for judges and lawyers beyond the Supreme Court. They're annotations describing the rationale for a decision - the "why" of the verdict - in as much detail as possible, which I reckon to be invaluable to anyone else needing to go back and evaluate that decision and determine its implications.

Sorry, still disagree. Contrast an opinion from Thomas or Breyer (or even Kennedy for that matter) with this one from Gorsuch. The quips and trite verbiage are absent. And for good reason: it's not serious, and it's something people latch on to instead of the legal text of the opinion, especially today in the world of twitter and memes. People like the idea of Ginsberg as a feminist icon because of her terse dissents and demeanor but that's actually really kind of terrible. This isn't her fault - her opinions are absent of this kind of flowery language. They're to the point and well written. So I guess my point is Gorsuch is just asking for it - to be a pop culture thing. We should not want this of the High Court.

>the "why" of the verdict

SCOTUS doesn't have "verdict[s]".

I'm not a lawyer but I've read probably 200+ opinions for fun over the last decade, listened to maybe 100+ oral arguments. I really love following the Court, and I probably have an allergic reaction to these people growing beyond their britches (they are unelected, after all).

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