[HN Gopher] U.S. Supreme Court deems half of Oklahoma a Native A...
___________________________________________________________________
U.S. Supreme Court deems half of Oklahoma a Native American
reservation
Author : threatofrain
Score : 890 points
Date : 2020-07-09 16:32 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.reuters.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.reuters.com)
| kaonashi wrote:
| So crimes committed by Americans on reservation land are
| basically unchargeable now?
| zetazzed wrote:
| From the actual opinion: "Oklahoma replies that its situation is
| different because the affected population here is large and many
| of its residents will be surprised to find out they have been
| living in Indian country this whole time. But we imagine some
| members of the 1832 Creek Tribe would be just as surprised to
| find them there."
|
| Damn, nice shade, Gorsuch!
|
| https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/19pdf/18-9526_9okb.pdf
| protomyth wrote:
| Gorsuch is a joy to read because he mixes in history with some
| interesting side comments.
| remarkEon wrote:
| I spend a lot of time in the summers reading SCOTUS opinions,
| and I have to flatly disagree with this. Gorsuch peppers in
| these comments and they distinctly detract from the legal
| reasoning in the Opinion. It's cute, but superfluous and
| further turns justices into "rockstars" to be cheered, which
| is bad.
| shpongled wrote:
| Gorsuch is definitely my favorite Justice. His opinions are
| always fun to read. You know when the words "Trail of Tears"
| appear in the first sentence of a decision that things aren't
| going to turn out well for the government...
| inputError wrote:
| Haha, yeah I love how he upheld that states can use lethal
| injection even if they can't get the right ingredients, what
| a baller.
| koheripbal wrote:
| The entire city of Tulsa is there - literally millions of non-
| native Americans live in this area.
|
| Congress will have no choice but to make a law breaking the
| promise and repatriating the land out of Native American hands.
| mcny wrote:
| > Congress will have no choice but to make a law breaking the
| promise and repatriating the land out of Native American
| hands.
|
| Oklahoma seems to have only five US Representatives (and two
| senators of course). It would be ridiculous if seven Congress
| members can hold a nation hostage.
|
| I don't understand the full implications of this ruling but I
| don't see how I can support breaking more promises because of
| political gamesmanship over five representatives out of four
| hundred and thirty five.
|
| From what I read in this thread, all crimes will still be
| prosecuted, but by a federal court of law. I don't see a
| problem.
| orthecreedence wrote:
| What do you mean? One senator has been holding the nation
| hostage for years. _One_.
| jakemal wrote:
| The only reason one senator can hold the nation hostage
| is because he has the support of the majority of
| senators.
| nikanj wrote:
| I'm out of the loop here, what are you referring to?
| falcrist wrote:
| I think that's the intent of the ruling, actually. Part of
| the conclusion says "If Congress wishes to withdraw its
| promises, it must say so."
| JohnL4 wrote:
| And, so, in keeping with Gorsuch's minimalism. No re-
| interpretation of existing law, which makes the right happy
| (or did, until recently, I guess).
| falcrist wrote:
| Sometimes I wish the SCOTUS would reinterpret things that
| were obviously wrong... but I'd _much_ rather have the
| SCOTUS interpret the law as it was intended, and have
| Congress fix the ___actual_ __problems with the law.
| [deleted]
| toyg wrote:
| It'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 this guy free
| (which, to be fair, at his age could be a charitable act in
| itself), or did they just think it was as good a chance as any to
| get this old treaty back on the table? There is a book and a film
| in that story.
| staplor wrote:
| You should look into Ernesto Miranda. He did horrible things
| but the Supreme Court said that he incriminated himself without
| knowing his rights. Because of this, his conviction was
| overturned and now cops have to read 'Miranda' rights to
| everyone they arrest.
| toyg wrote:
| I do know about Miranda, I was tempted to mention him but I
| didn't want to end up implying this sort of sentence is
| _always_ about bad guys - "often" was already a bit too
| strong for my taste.
| ncallaway wrote:
| > and now cops have to read 'Miranda' rights to everyone they
| arrest.
|
| This is a common misconception, but the requirement is not
| quite that broad. The police are not obligated to read you
| your miranda rights immediately upon request--it's possible
| that they might not at any point read you your miranda
| rights.
|
| What they cannot do is begin to question or interrogate you
| if they do not read you those rights. Any questions they ask
| without having read you those rights are at risk of being
| thrown out in court. Police will usually interrogate people
| after an arrest, so will often read them their miranda
| rights. (Edit: I also found out that any spontaneous
| statements you make are also fair game, if they didn't ask a
| question or prompt the statement)
|
| But, it's not an obligation for _every_ arrest. If you are
| arrested the police might not read you your miranda rights,
| and your rights probably haven 't been violated if they don't
| question you.
|
| If you are ever arrested, and interrogated, __DO NOT TALK TO
| THE POLICE BEFORE YOU CONSULT YOUR LAWYER __. Never, ever,
| talk to the police without speaking with a lawyer first. Here
| 's an excellent video that explains the reasons why better
| than I can. I highly recommend this video:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-7o9xYp7eE&t=4s
| falcrist wrote:
| I just want to note that the thing being read is a "Miranda
| warning". The rights enumerated in the warning already
| existed.
|
| I was corrected about this a long time ago by a police
| officer who knew his stuff.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miranda_warning
| nabilhat wrote:
| 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.
| djohnston wrote:
| Yep, but it also doesn't change that this particular person
| might be let free. I think it's OK to feel a little
| ambivalent about this ruling.
| tobylane wrote:
| I think it's not about his freedom, but one of the two
| courts that could charge him have the death penalty. His
| legal case is about avoiding that.
| jjeaff wrote:
| He was already convicted and sentenced to 1,000 years. So
| I don't think the death penalty was on the table.
| jldugger wrote:
| What would the tribal law sentence be for the same crime?
| yunruse wrote:
| Unlikely. I can't think of any immediate reasons that
| federal courts would consider anything different to the
| states, where something so heinous as rape of a child is
| concerned.
| toyg wrote:
| _> 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).
| spaginal wrote:
| I wish the Supreme Court had this kind of attitude towards other
| questionable decisions and actions by our Congress, namely the
| passage of the 16th amendment.
| pgcj_poster wrote:
| This is a good start. Next they should return Indiana and Hawaii.
| sakopov wrote:
| Why not just dismantle the whole country?
| blackrock wrote:
| Incredible. 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!
| rotskoff wrote:
| I follow court news pretty closely and was genuinely curious
| about this decision. Here is a brief description of what I
| understand the decision to mean (I am not an expert by any
| means). Under the federal "Major Crimes Act" (MCA) members of
| various Native American tribes are _not_ subject to state
| prosecution for crimes committed in "Indian territory". This
| case was brought by McGirt, a member of the Creek Nation, who
| challenged his conviction based on the original treaty
| establishing the Creek reservation in eastern Oklahoma. The
| headline is a bit misleading: for purposes of the MCA, eastern OK
| is now considered a part of the Creek Nation. This means McGirt
| must be convicted with the reservation's justice system or in
| federal court. It also has the consequence (discussed extensively
| in Roberts' dissent) that many existing convictions could
| potentially be vacated. It will be interesting to see how the
| Creek nation works with Oklahoma to address these changes.
| CivBase wrote:
| They guy has already served 20 years for a crime which he
| originally plead guilty for. He was convited for raping a four
| year old girl.
|
| Why he is challenging it now and by contesting the court's
| authority rather than his own guilt? Does he expect to be found
| not guilty under the Cree Nation?
| Koshkin wrote:
| As a general note,
|
| https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ef/Indian_L...
| nwsm wrote:
| The decision has no bearing on land ownership or governance, but
| will force Oklahoma to tie up its historical loose ends.
|
| EDIT: I originally incorrectly wrote "All they did was interrupt
| the trial of an accused rapist." in addition to the above
| sentence.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| He was a bit more than "accused". He was convicted.
|
| And, they didn't interrupt the trial. He's been in prison for
| more than two decades for this crime.
| dmix wrote:
| > 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.
|
| The crime part seems largely insignificant to this ruling. It
| was mostly just a proxy for a larger question at hand of who
| should have handled his case.
|
| It's unlikely this guy will suddenly go free given his
| admission of guilt.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| I didn't read this article as saying that he had admitted
| guilt. I read it as saying that _for purposes of this case_
| , he didn't contest his guilt. That is, the basis of this
| case is not a claim that he is innocent; it's a claim that
| the wrong court convicted him.
|
| If I missed something, feel free to point it out...
| dmix wrote:
| That's a good point. You're right, he just wasn't
| challenging it, not that he claimed guilt.
| ngneer wrote:
| Highly recommend "The Five Civilized Tribes" by Grant Foreman to
| better understand the period, as well as "A Traveler in Indian
| Territory" to add some color. The OHS or Oklahoma Historical
| Society has a wealth of information, too.
| giantg2 wrote:
| So when are they going to get to all the other unlawful stuff the
| government does?
| nabla9 wrote:
| > they
|
| In democracy there is no "they".
|
| "In democracy you have to be a player" - Hunter S. Thompson,
| source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NHeSC_Ws5Ic
| giantg2 wrote:
| Just so you know, we are a republic. Not quite as easy as a
| democracy, especially since we are more of an oligarchy (the
| ruling class is not subject to the complete rule of law).
| [deleted]
| nabla9 wrote:
| > Just so you know, we are a republic. Not quite as easy as
| a democracy,
|
| That's very peculiar specially American internet thing to
| say. In 1787 the terminology was still unsettled but it's
| not so today. In both political science and in the common
| use outside the United States democracy and republic are
| not excluding each other.
|
| United States is democracy (the source of power) and
| republic (the structure of the democracy as opposite of
| monarchy) and federation (structure of the government).
|
| Most modern representative democracies are republics. The
| term republic can be used to any form of government in
| which the head of state is not a hereditary monarch. For
| example many communist states are Republics.
|
| US is also first or one of the first liberal republics.
| giantg2 wrote:
| It's a democratic republic. This means that the
| individuals holding the positions of authority in the
| republic have more concentrated power than the citizens
| in the democracy. For example, SCOTUS has the power to
| turn down appeals, even when the circuit decisions are
| split. Logically, this means that they are denying the
| rights of one of those two (or more) plaintiffs.
| nabla9 wrote:
| Democracy in common language is general term. Not synonym
| for direct democracy.
| giantg2 wrote:
| I would usually agree.
|
| It may be in common language, but it does make a
| difference in this specific situation because you are
| essentially suing the people who have been placed into
| power and those people could use their power to suppress
| your objections. Sometimes the judges can be a part of
| the complaint too, and they aren't even elected but
| rather appointed.
| [deleted]
| TheCoelacanth wrote:
| When someone with standing sues.
| metalliqaz wrote:
| _and_ has extremely deep pockets
| elbigbad wrote:
| Not necessarily the case. There are lit fees of course, and
| filing fees, discovery, etc. But once you get to the SCOTUS
| stage, assuming you're not retaining Gibson Dunn or
| Covington or someone's supreme court practice, there are
| many clinics with some star power that will do the case for
| free. Many top law schools have Supreme Court clinic and we
| sought out cases that we could bring to SCOTUS. We would
| have died to help take this case to SCOTUS, for example,
| completely free.
| belltaco wrote:
| What does clinic mean in this context? Thanks
| detaro wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_clinic
|
| programs that take cases for free, typically while using
| them as training material.
| elbigbad wrote:
| This is right. Here's an example of one of the best known
| SCOTUS clinics, for more specificity:
| https://law.stanford.edu/supreme-court-litigation-clinic/
| Mangalor wrote:
| > "once you get to the SCOTUS stage"
| Rumperuu wrote:
| When cases against all the other unlawful stuff reach them,
| presumably.
| giantg2 wrote:
| Maybe, maybe not. Plenty of activist judges out there, so you
| never know how stuff will go. SCOTUS also gets to select what
| they will look at, and there are plenty of topics that they
| have left as split circuit opinions (look at all the stuff
| under gun rights).
| vkou wrote:
| When you file a lawsuit about it that makes its way up the
| courts.
| giantg2 wrote:
| Even if I had standing, it would never make it up courts
| because the oligarchy (judges) decide whether it is worthy or
| not. Just look at all the split decisions that SCOTUS leaves
| in place by declining to hear. Logically one of those two
| plaintiffs is being screwed.
| vkou wrote:
| Worthyness only matters when the matter goes up to the SC.
| There are many layers of courts below them.
|
| If the SC decides the matter is not worthy, that doesn't
| mean that no decision is reached - it just means that the
| decision of the lower court is binding.
| giantg2 wrote:
| Yes, but it may be based on a flawed precedent that only
| the supreme court can overturn. There are also many
| circuit decisions which conflict with each other that
| SCOTUS has refused to address. In these instances the
| court is allowing one of those two plaintiffs to be
| screwed.
| vkou wrote:
| > is allowing one of those two plaintiffs to be screwed.
|
| Only if the SC would have ruled differently from the
| lower court, of which there is no guarantee for any
| particular case.
| throwaway_pdp09 wrote:
| when someone - like you - starts working for it. You are going
| to start, right?
| draw_down wrote:
| No, that's why GP used the word "they"
| giantg2 wrote:
| I would if I believed in the system. The system has become an
| oligarchy where the ruling class is not subject to rule of
| law. The system ignores blatant violation of law by making
| frivolous excuses. For example, how can we allow people to
| wait years for a trial when the constitution guarantees the
| right to a speedy trial?
| tenuousemphasis wrote:
| "You're not allowed to talk about a problem unless you're
| dedicating your life to solving it"
| blondie9x wrote:
| Honestly after all the Native Americans went through, give them
| the whole state at least. People in the United States speak and
| reflect often about the atrocities of slavery. We need to equally
| reflect on and remember the atrocities against Native Americans.
| pathseeker wrote:
| What do you mean "them"? You do realize that there were many
| different tribes who had very drastically different
| interactions with the US, right?
| Angostura wrote:
| I believe the answer would be
|
| > Native Americans.
|
| Whether that encompasses multiple tribes or not, doesn't
| change that.
| gowld wrote:
| Giving the Florida Seminoles territory in Oklahoma (or
| giving land to an Oklahoma tribe and calling that a ceding
| to Seminoles?) would be weird at best.
| mixmastamyk wrote:
| And in almost every corner of the continent.
|
| http://www.emersonkent.com/map_archive/native_american_tribe.
| ..
|
| Maybe counties would be a better unit to consider.
| chrisco255 wrote:
| This is correct. People treat native Americans as some sort
| of monolithic bloc when they were anything but. The tribes
| themselves had many warring feuds going back centuries and
| developed competing alliances with imperial forces when they
| arrived, some allying with the French, others with the
| British or Spanish.
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| I am not from US, so i am not very clued in to this, but a
| State or mini-state would sound a lot better than a
| 'reservation'
| titanomachy wrote:
| In Canada we use the term "nation".
| benatkin wrote:
| In Northern Arizona, where I'm from, we often say Navajo
| Nation. I think partly that's because of the alliteration.
| Robotbeat wrote:
| "Indian Nation" is sometimes used, if I understand correctly.
| undersuit wrote:
| Which Native Americans should we give the state to, the ones
| that lived there originally or one of the tribes we force
| relocated to the area?
| tyre wrote:
| This is what Oklahoma was initially meant to be. There were
| even talks of having two Native American states in the united
| states, the other being Sequoia I think. Then the US renegged
| on those promises, land was given to railroad companies, and
| flooded colonists.
|
| In many ways we're seeing the same thing with Tibet and China.
| It's horrific.
| jcranmer wrote:
| Oklahoma was originally all Indian territory, and reserved
| for future allotment of reservations. The western half of
| Oklahoma was (mostly) never assigned, and instead opened up
| to white settlers in a variety of land rushes, relegating
| Indian territory to the land already allotted to reservations
| in the eastern half.
|
| That rump Indian territory applied to be a state as the
| Sequoyah, but it was turned down, so it was merged with
| Oklahoma territory to become the State of Oklahoma.
| starpilot wrote:
| I'd rather not. In the NorCal (Jefferson) reservations, the
| natives setup huge nets to catch fish, load them into
| refrigerated trucks, and sell the catch to San Francisco
| restaurants. It's devastating to the ecosystem. As with
| building casinos, or the Grand Canyon Skywalk, they tend to
| commercialize/exploit as much as they can when they are free
| from state laws.
| NonEUCitizen wrote:
| They are sovereign. Neither you nor the state of California
| should impose your views on them. If anything, we should ask
| permission from them to be on California land.
| [deleted]
| pcbro141 wrote:
| It's also disappointing how little has been done to close the
| racial wealth gap from the legacy of slavery and Jim Crow. It
| seems the gap hasn't changed much since the 1950s and 1960s and
| I don't see how it gets better short of a massive reparations
| package and investment in building up distressed communities.
|
| https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/todays-racial-wealth-gap...
| ip26 wrote:
| Ok, how about your state?
|
| (I'm not disagreeing, just trying to highlight one of the
| fundamental challenges here...)
| II2II wrote:
| As the article suggests, this doesn't really give the land to
| the first nation. It simply means that it falls under federal
| jurisdiction.
| tehjoker wrote:
| Seems like all they did was say the feds get to punish native
| americans rather than state officials. Where's the sovereignty?
|
| Nearly all US presidents, including George Washington, led
| genocidal campaigns that burned down entire towns or otherwise
| committed crimes against humanity in the name of expanding the
| colonial lands of settlers.
| fmajid wrote:
| Sometimes Supreme Court justices will surprise you. Justice
| Gorsuch is from the American West, and has proven to be a strong
| and consistent advocate for Native American rights in the Supreme
| Court, just as Justice Scalia was for the Fourth Amendment.
| shpongled wrote:
| This comment just demonstrates your political biases, that's
| all. I don't know why you would be surprised that Gorsuch or
| Scalia would be in favor of freedoms for the people.
| irrational wrote:
| 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?
| jcwayne wrote:
| 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.
| duxup wrote:
| I think this had more to do with the specifics of this specific
| land and how things played out legally. I'm not sure these
| circumstances apply anywhere else.
| bananabreakfast wrote:
| They're not saying the treaty must be honored. They're saying,
| unlike the many other treaties that were explicitly invalidated
| by laws passed, these ones were never really directly addressed
| so they must de facto still stand.
|
| Also, no where near 50% of the US was ever granted in treaties.
| The vast majority was simply taken militarily without
| compromise.
| guerrilla wrote:
| This doesn't answer your question directly but its fascinating
| [1]
|
| [1] https://www.whose.land/en/
| threatofrain wrote:
| > The ruling means that for the first time much of eastern
| Oklahoma is legally considered reservation land. More than 1.8
| million people live in the land at issue, including roughly
| 400,000 in Tulsa, Oklahoma's second-largest city.
|
| McGirt v Oklahoma (9 July 2020) pdf:
|
| https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/19pdf/18-9526_9okb.pdf
| koheripbal wrote:
| This seems like an invitation for Congress to pass a law taking
| the land back officially.
|
| ...though probably not until after the election.
| StavrosK wrote:
| It means "if you want to go back on your promise and steal
| their land, you'll have to do it explicitly".
| falcrist wrote:
| In the conclusion, Justice Gorsuch writes "If Congress
| wishes to withdraw its promises, it must say so."
|
| Extremely well put!
| brundolf wrote:
| Very interesting. Is this the first time a major city has
| fallen within a reservation?
| j4nt4b wrote:
| Large parts of the City of Tacoma and surrounding cities fall
| inside the Pyuallup Indian Reservation in Washington state.
| In fact, out of >40,000 people on the reservation, only 2500
| are members of the tribe.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puyallup_people
| zumu wrote:
| Parts of Tulsa already overlapped with reservations, I
| believe.
| 9wzYQbTYsAIc wrote:
| And, either way, what are the implications to non-tribe
| citizens and non-tribe governments?
| tiles wrote:
| The Atlantic wrote about this in 2018, it seems like the
| framework of inter-agency cooporation won't be much of a
| change for most non-Natives:
| behttps://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/11/murphy-
| cas...
| cm2187 wrote:
| And how do you even define a tribe citizen? Is there like
| an ID card? Is it a DNA test? Does Elizabeth Warren
| qualify?
| Wohlf wrote:
| Every tribe handles this themselves, it's based on
| ancestry. They define their own cutoff points, such as
| 1/16 etc.
| roywiggins wrote:
| Not all tribes calculate blood quantum at all.
| xeromal wrote:
| That's why he said the tribe decides.
| protomyth wrote:
| Which one doesn't and is it federally recognized? The
| feds are a bit of a pain on that issue.
| roywiggins wrote:
| The Cherokee Nation doesn't impose a blood quantum test,
| you just need to have an ancestor listed on the Dawes
| rolls.
|
| https://cherokeeregistry.com/blood-quantum/
| protomyth wrote:
| Ok, thanks. All the northern plains groups do the
| quantum. I suppose the Cherokee have a pretty scary
| history so that makes sense. The difference between the
| two tribes in their statement isn't because of blood, its
| distance to a major city.
| monocasa wrote:
| The tribes have their own mechanisms for identifying
| citizens like any other jus sanguinis nationality. The
| specifics depend on the tribe in question.
| tux1968 wrote:
| So could a tribe welcome every single person who asks to
| become a tribesman? Does the government just accept
| whatever the tribe says? Would the government then be
| required to apply all the same rules and exclusions of
| law for such new members of the tribe?
| monocasa wrote:
| Does the government just accept that Israel or Germany
| get to decide who are Israeli and German citizens?
|
| Tribes are legally foreign nations with a very, very
| close treaty relationship.
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| Nations with no control over their mineral rights. Will
| they be able to demand a cut from the oil pumped off
| their land?
| refurb wrote:
| Depends on the treaty.
|
| Reservations vary from quite well off (I personally knew
| a guy who basically had a few hundred thousand in trust
| from his band when he turned 18 - money from resource
| extraction on tribal territory) to reservations that
| resemble shanty towns in developing countries.
|
| Can't lump them all together.
| protomyth wrote:
| Uhm, well yes they do. Check out Three Affiliated for a
| tribe whose people made quite a bit of cash from
| fracking.
| gowld wrote:
| "Falsehoods programmers believe about maps. #1 It is
| possible to create one consistent and complete world map"
|
| Law and geopolitics is not code. Treaties only have the
| meaning that signatories read into it.
|
| > Does the government just accept that Israel or Germany
| get to decide who are Israeli and German citizens?
|
| Certainly not!
|
| Israel has its uncertain relationship with the occuptied
| terrotories / Palestein.
|
| Germany had the East/West occuptation.
|
| China has its disputes regarding Taiwan and Hong Kong.
| tux1968 wrote:
| So the answer is yes? This seems like a potential
| business opportunity for any tribe that was so inclined.
| They could bestow favourable tax status on anyone who
| wanted to go down that path.
| mason55 wrote:
| There are limits. Allergan tried some shenanigans with a
| drug patent[1].
|
| Re: taxes, the US government will make you pay all your
| taxes. If you pay taxes to a foreign govt then you can
| get a waiver for what you paid but if the tribe gives you
| a good deal the US govt will still demand the rest.
|
| [1]
| https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/26/us/politics/allergan-
| eye-...
| tux1968 wrote:
| > Re: taxes, the US government will make you pay all your
| taxes. If you pay taxes to a foreign govt then you can
| get a waiver for what you paid but if the tribe gives you
| a good deal the US govt will still demand the rest.
|
| That's the rule for US citizens. You would no longer be a
| US citizen. Presumably the rules would be exactly the
| same as they are for current tribe members.
| ars wrote:
| A tribe member is still a US citizen. They just aren't
| State citizens (residents).
| mason55 wrote:
| Assuming you are planning to work in the US your income
| will still be taxed. And based on the rules from the
| Eduardo Saverin case you won't be able to escape taxes on
| what you earned before you left.
|
| So it doesn't really work.
| tux1968 wrote:
| > So it doesn't really work
|
| Yeah, you're right. In Canada, "status indians" get a tax
| exempt card to avoid sales tax at least. I didn't realize
| that in the US all American Natives are actually
| considered US citizens and are taxed federally just like
| everyone else. Only the tribe itself is tax exempt.
|
| That is according to: https://www.thebalance.com/do-
| native-americans-pay-taxes-417...
| swebs wrote:
| >You would no longer be a US citizen
|
| You would also still have US citizenship. You don't lose
| that unless you formally renounce it.
| refurb wrote:
| The Allergan example is interesting, super ballsy and got
| struck down.
|
| It had to do with patent challenges through inter partie
| reviews (IPR) Basically Allergan transferred the patents
| to the tribe and said "they are sovereign and thus can't
| be challenged through IPR".
| protomyth wrote:
| Its pretty universal, mainly because of the Federal
| requirements, that its based on blood quantum. Most
| tribes are 1/4 some are 1/8.
|
| Having Ancestry dot com or similar service tell you
| anything is not accepted by any tribe.
| YetAnotherNick wrote:
| How does this work with government? Or let's go into one
| specific question, can I start my own tribe?
| monocasa wrote:
| Just like it does for any other foreign citizenship.
|
| Getting your tribe you just started recognized without
| any of the treaties in place is about the same level of
| effort as getting your new country recognized. I don't
| see TSA accepting Sealand passports.
| ibejoeb wrote:
| No bs: I've had TSA refuse to accept my _US_ passport
| card for domestic travel. He claimed there is no such
| thing. Twenty years down the line and we need some basic
| training...
| monocasa wrote:
| Oh, I don't doubt it. I've had them refuse to take my New
| Mexico driver's licence...
| [deleted]
| judge2020 wrote:
| The Bureau of Indian Affairs has a process for being
| recognized as a tribe[0], and the criteria is at 25 CFR
| SS 83.11 [1].
|
| 0: https://www.bia.gov/as-ia/ofa
|
| 1: https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/25/83.11
| protomyth wrote:
| Look up the saga of the Little Shell Tribe for a modern
| look at recognition.
| protomyth wrote:
| For non-natives not really. For natives, it depends on the
| agreements. This isn't really a traditional reservation
| situation, since the tribes really are not going to have
| the traditional governance over the land. For example, the
| cops are not going to get replaced by BIA or Tribal police.
| koheripbal wrote:
| Why not? If they're on tribal land, what's to stop the
| tribe from governing?
| protomyth wrote:
| There are other places that are technically on tribal
| land, and that hasn't allowed the tribe to government
| them. The city and state is not going to cede governance
| on non-members to the tribe. Its going to end up being an
| agreement between the state and the tribe.
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| Don't know if you'd qualify it as a "major" city, but over
| 10% of Palm Springs CA is on an Indian reservation. For
| interesting historical reasons, though, the reservation is
| basically shaped like a checkerboard, where every other
| 640-acre square is reservation land. This obviously has huge
| implications on real estate - none of the reservation land is
| sold, just leased, and there were some recent cases where the
| tribe made the tenants leave after their (like 50 year or so)
| lease was up.
|
| Google "palm springs indian reservation map" and it will show
| you the checkerboard.
| jandrese wrote:
| That seems like an insane way to divvy up land. My first
| instinct was that it was done that way to make the land
| effectively unusable as tribal land, just because that's
| how the government tends to roll in these cases
| flomo wrote:
| Railroad land grants in the Western US were generally
| handed out in a checkerboard pattern, and that's
| apparently what happened here.
|
| https://www.pscondos.com/palm-springs-indian-lease-land/
| nwallin wrote:
| Correct. It was a policy to encourage Native Americans to
| move to the agricultural model used by European
| Americans, as well as incorporate socially. It was
| relatively easy for a white American farmer to set up a
| farm in the state administered squares, but it was
| relatively difficult for Native Americans to roam
| nomadically- it essentially reduced the density of
| available foodstuffs in the checkerboard by half. The
| presumption was that Native Americans would/should start
| farming and adopt American social and economic norms.
|
| Another somewhat common practice was splitting up
| reservations into homestead sized blocks and assigning
| each block to an individual Native American adult male in
| traditional common law property ownership ways, which
| didn't map to any Native American social/economic norm.
|
| There was a _lot_ of effort put forth by the US
| government after the Reconstruction to coerce Native
| Americans to act like white Americans. Which was bizarre
| considering citizenship wasn 't fixed until 1924. You
| would have thought they would have led with that.
| vitaflo wrote:
| Same is true of Green Bay, WI. About 15% of the city
| intersects with the Oneida Nation reservation. While also
| not a "major" city, it is over twice the size of Palm
| Springs.
| mixologic wrote:
| As an aside.. whats up with that file photo Reuters is using? Is
| that somebody naked in front of the supreme court wearing just a
| fanny pack?
| bhandziuk wrote:
| I agree it's looks like they are naked. Even if they are
| wearing clothes it is a very odd choice. There are infinite
| pictures of those steps.
| whymauri wrote:
| I zoomed in and think it's a brown top with brown shorts. You
| can see the armhole.
| chirau wrote:
| Lol. That is what I initially thought as well, but it turns out
| it's a lady wearing a nude colored dress.
| [deleted]
| foogazi wrote:
| No, just someone walking
| jolmg wrote:
| Zoom in. It's a skin-colored dress.
| subsubzero wrote:
| Interesting implication that Tulsa is now inside of a
| reservation. Growing up I thought reservations were located on
| tiny parcels of land but in some western states that is not the
| case. In Arizona about 25% of the state is tribal land, with
| neighboring state New Mexico having about 10% of its land as
| reservations.
| NonEUCitizen wrote:
| The numbers should really be 100% instead of 25% and 10%. Much
| has been stolen from them.
| abqio wrote:
| 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 heard. Yet those
| laws apply to me just the same.
| woah wrote:
| Same thing happens if you go to Canada or Mexico. What's
| the big deal?
| manuelabeledo wrote:
| > And I have no input in the government that makes their
| laws. Nor any hope of ever being heard. Yet those laws
| apply to me just the same.
|
| That is also the reality of 40 million immigrants in the
| US.
| kyleee wrote:
| Which immigrants?
| phaedryx wrote:
| Doesn't this just change things from state level to
| federal? You still are a US citizen and you still have
| input in the government. This seems like the same situation
| as when someone goes through multiple states?
| krapp wrote:
| >And I have no input in the government that makes their
| laws. Nor any hope of ever being heard. Yet those laws
| apply to me just the same.
|
| It's almost as if they stole part of your country from you,
| ignored your laws and customs and forced you to submit to
| their authority without your consent. That must just be
| _terrible._
| ekam wrote:
| Two wrongs don't make a right
| krapp wrote:
| It isn't two wrongs, it's a wrong and the recognition of
| a right.
| rukittenme wrote:
| The recognition of what right? How is it right to govern
| _without consent_? Take a moment to consider that the
| world can not go back to 1950 as some Republicans would
| like and it can not go back to 1850 as apparently some
| Democrats would like.
|
| You believe its right to subject a person who lives in
| Oklahoma, who has never lived in a country other than the
| USA, who has never stolen anyone's land, to the non-
| representative rule of a person (who's land was never
| stolen) because of their racial origin?
|
| I'm very interested in the ideology that led you to these
| beliefs.
| krapp wrote:
| >The recognition of what right?
|
| The right of sovereignty of Native peoples over
| themselves and their lands, as recognized and respected
| by treaties signed onto in (ostensible) good faith by the
| United States, and natural law itself.
|
| >You believe its right to subject a person who lives in
| Oklahoma, who has never lived in a country other than the
| USA, who has never stolen anyone's land, to the non-
| representative rule of a person (who's land was never
| stolen) because of their racial origin?
|
| Yes, because parts of Oklahoma are the sovereign
| territory of Native peoples. That's been established
| legal fact for centuries. Here's a Wikipedia article on
| Tribal sovereignty in the US for further
| clarification[0]. When you cross from one sovereign
| territory into another, you become subject to its laws.
|
| I'm sorry the situation is frustrating. Things would
| obviously be simpler if the settlers had either not
| committed to the path of Manifest Destiny and genocide,
| or else committed to it entirely. As it is, they half-
| assed it and now things are complicated.
|
| But the Natives were there first and their rights are no
| less inalienable than yours or mine.
|
| >I'm very interested in the ideology that led you to
| these beliefs.
|
| The ideology is, simply, morality and respect for the
| rule of law.
|
| [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tribal_sovereignty_in_th
| e_Unit...
| spaginal wrote:
| 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 results
| are the results all the same, and it's not theft when you
| win.
| 49531 wrote:
| This is a unique idea, that feels to be mostly semantic.
| Ok, you don't want to call it theft, but does that change
| the justice of the situation? America conquered a series of
| less developed nations of people through sometimes dubious
| means, and has spent the years after that conquering trying
| to erase or marginalize the conquered peoples. America won,
| so it's not theft, but whatever you call it it's unjust.
| S33V wrote:
| 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.
| defen wrote:
| > a mixture of deception, racism, genocide, breach of
| trust, and thievery.
|
| Were there rules against that? And if so, who would
| enforce them?
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| War is hell...
|
| and all of those things
| spaginal wrote:
| I'm amused that you possibly think war is just two sides
| in distinct colors simply lining up and shooting volleys
| at each other until one side surrenders from the field
| with a white flag in the air. That may be more civil and
| gentlemanly, but it's far from how wars are mostly
| fought.
|
| Deception, killing, accepting/breaking agreements, and
| taking things is basically war in a nutshell. It is an
| extension of diplomacy. How you execute these parts is a
| matter of your goals, and your morals and ethics.
|
| But it's not THEFT. There is no such thing as theft when
| it comes between two nation states, it's either yours or
| it's not yours, and how well you can defend it basically
| is the rule of the game.
|
| If you deceive yourself enough to assume you aren't at
| war, while the other side sends you all the signals that
| they are at war with you, whose fault is it when you
| eventually fall?
|
| You may hate it, but don't redefine something basic to
| the politics of humanity.
| mtgp1000 wrote:
| 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.
| __s wrote:
| > It's also interesting that you choose the word "theft"
| as though the natives even had a concept for land
| ownership
|
| There were many tribes living without telecommunications
| across the Americas with all their varying climates
| causing different socioeconomic structures to emerge
|
| https://mises.org/wire/did-indians-understand-concept-
| privat...
| mtgp1000 wrote:
| >all their varying climates causing different
| socioeconomic structures to emerge
|
| Which supports my point, that trying to view native
| practices through modern concepts is a bit like forcing a
| square peg through a round hole.
|
| >One of the reasons that many continue to think that
| aboriginal Americans had no concept of private property,
| however, is because many tribes did regard land as being
| communally owned. Carl Watner explores the topic in The
| Journal of Libertarian Studies
|
| The article seems to conflate "private property" with
| land ownership. Even this particular paragraph speaks of
| "communal ownership" which isn't quite the same as the
| concept of ownership in modern US law, though there are
| certainly provisions for group ownership.
|
| Point is that article only supports what I'm saying, that
| it's borderline slanderous to assign morality to the
| behavior of cultures from 300+ years ago according to
| modern laws and ideas. Regarding this discussion, "theft"
| certainly becomes a strong word when you consider how
| different (and heterogeneous) concepts and practices were
| back then.
| sophacles wrote:
| You have a distinctly queer idea of physics. Just because
| many many assholes in the past have used violence to steal
| land, does not require any of the following:
|
| * current or future people honor the validity of those
| assholes' decisions and actions * current or future people
| choosing to make right the bad things their ancestors did
| in the past, and giving back what was taken. * current or
| future people changing the structure of governance to allow
| groups to co-exist
|
| All of these things are possible actions humans can take.
| Physics does not stop it - post war "happenings" are just
| human decisions. So why does your post read like the
| current situation is immutable just because it was preceded
| by war?
| hackinthebochs wrote:
| Theft is a concept that exists within a legal or
| normative framework. There is no such thing as theft
| outside of an established framework. If you want to argue
| that America unjustly took Native American land, you
| basically have to start from first principles.
| sophacles wrote:
| This is kind of the same point I was making. I'm not
| trying to prove that anything was just or not in some
| grand scheme of things.
|
| I'm arguing that "what happens after war" is not some
| fixed law of nature, but a human decision. Human
| decisions are not laws of nature, they can be changed.
| Historical precedent can be a useful tool, but it's not
| the same as "something immutable we must adhere to".
| spaginal wrote:
| Because that is how this world works. You may be new out
| of the womb intellectually speaking, but if a child shows
| up at my doorstep one day and tells me I'm on his
| ancestors land from 300 years prior and I must vacate the
| home I bought and have legal title too, on the land my
| ancestors fought and bled over 300 years prior, even if
| they were assholes about it at the time, I have zero
| obligation to hand it over because of feelings.
|
| That is why. You may not find it fair, but there does
| come past a point where the only fair thing to the
| present society, that had no hand in the original act, is
| to "keep on trucking" as they say.
| sophacles wrote:
| This argument translated to other situations:
|
| * we can't just end slavery - this is not how this world
| works. There have been slaves forever. We can't change
| slavery because of feelings.
|
| * we can't give women the right to vote. This is not how
| this world works, women are supposed to be property of
| their men. We can't just let them do it because of
| feelings.
|
| * we can't try to have a geneva conventio. This is not
| how this world works, excessive torture and cruelty have
| always been part of war. We cant just expect or troops to
| show humanity.
|
| * we can't give land ownership rights to commoners. This
| is not how the world works, nobility has always had
| special privelege to own a thing. We cant just expect to
| let lesser humans have land because of feelings.
|
| Finally: if your argument applies equally to a pro- and
| anit-Isreal stance - it's existence both proves and
| violates your exact point at the same time, depending on
| which stance you are already more inclined to.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| Seems like all of your points conflate current/ongoing
| wrongs with past wrongs. At some point things that
| happened in the past are best left there, read about in
| history books.
| sophacles wrote:
| My examples were all historical, as a way to highlight
| that some things we now think of as obvious, basic rights
| could have (and did have) opposing arguments consisting
| of "this is the way this world works". The point being:
| when it comes to human laws, it's not actually a sound
| argument.
| vxNsr wrote:
| Lol at your last point. It works very well for the Jews.
| Not so well for those who oppose Israel. The initial way
| that Israel acquired the land was by ancestral right, but
| it's since defended it by war. Additionally, most of the
| land that is disputed never had any legal ownership as
| recognized by any ruling government.
|
| The rest of your post is utter nonsense and not worth
| addressing.
| jorblumesea wrote:
| Might makes right. Land has no true owners, only those with
| the means to defend it. Florida could be part of "greater
| Canada" if the US government was weak and the Canadian
| government felt it was worth it.
| maxmamis wrote:
| You're literally justifying genocide.
| jorblumesea wrote:
| I don't think I'm saying any of this is fine, just
| pointing out that geopolitics isn't about what's morally
| correct. Anyone can own any piece of land for just about
| any reason so long as they have the firepower to back it
| up.
| ianai wrote:
| This part of humanity's impulses has me thinking we're
| closer to the cosmic equivalent of "orcs" than to
| anything resembling a highly evolved species. Our impetus
| is to define things in terms that lead to conflict or
| must use conflict to resolve problems. We're evolved
| mammals with a distinct us/them complex. Whereas if we
| were highly evolved organisms with a more hive like
| ancestor we might not war with each other as much or
| ever. I'm thinking like fungi or something.
| maxmamis wrote:
| "Might makes right" certainly implies a moral stance.
| bufferoverflow wrote:
| Didn't they steal that land from the tribes before them?
| djrogers wrote:
| 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.
| 49531 wrote:
| 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.
| rukittenme wrote:
| > 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.
| preommr wrote:
| > 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".
| xpe wrote:
| The reality is more complicated.
|
| Supreme Court decisions may be explained by (1) partisan views;
| (2) differences in judicial philosophy; and even (3) pragmatic
| views (e.g. 'what can the country handle right now?').
|
| As to learning what specifically motivates the justices, this
| is a lengthy topic. There is a lot to chew on.
|
| Actors outside the Supreme Court regularly try to influence it
| in many ways. Some want it to be more partisan, for example.
| Some want to make the court more insulated from elections of
| the president and senators. Some want to modify the structure
| of the Court itself.
| tyre wrote:
| The United States has a different system of government from
| Canada so it's not surprising that there are differences.
|
| Given the primacy of our Constitution and the Supreme Court's
| role in interpreting whether a law is consistent with our our
| Constitution, choosing justices is a rather existential
| question.
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| What differences? The Supreme Court of Canada is in essence
| directly appointed by the Prime Minister so is very
| vulnerable to politicization. The Supreme Court is also
| responsible for interpreting whether a law is consistent with
| our Constitution so it's just as existential.
| fatbird wrote:
| I actually agree with tyre on this. Canada has the
| Westminster system, meaning a Parliament where one or more
| parties forms a government. In Canada particularly, party
| discipline is near absolute: you vote with your party or
| your party kicks you out. This means legislation is really
| passed on a party level. A party with a majority basically
| passes the legislation it wants to, with none of the horse-
| trading and whipping and deal-making that is common in the
| U.S. A minority gov't has to make a deal with another party
| to pass legislation, but that's between two entities, not
| the tens or hundreds of congresspeople who need to be
| corralled.
|
| The result of this is basically higher quality legislation:
| no loopholes to gain this Senator's support, no watering
| down or poison pills; but also, no extremist bills with
| clauses to trade away to buy support. The gov't passes the
| legislation it wants to, in the form it wants to, for good
| or ill. As a result, I believe, matters reaching the
| Supreme Court of Canada really are more narrow legal
| issues, not another avenue of attack on legislation. There
| can be significant rulings with broad implications, but
| overall, Canada's Supreme Court isn't a battleground
| because legislation isn't a mess offering a variety of
| vectors of attack. It's more internally coherent.
| mamon wrote:
| > The Supreme Court of Canada is in essence directly
| appointed by the Prime Minister
|
| And that's the crucial difference: if a Supreme Court judge
| in Canada starts misbehaving I guess Prime Minister can
| dismiss them just as easily. In the US judges are appointed
| for life, so if the wrong person gets appointed that choice
| will haunt us for a few decades.
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| The Prime Minister cannot dismiss judges.
| fermienrico wrote:
| 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?
| vageli wrote:
| It's contracts between nations (the US federal government and
| the the tribes). Native American tribes are numerous (the
| federal government recognized 550 distinct tribes when I last
| checked) and have agreements with the government that were to
| guarantee their sovereignty.
| charlesu wrote:
| 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.
| catalogia wrote:
| > _The US government was making treaties with Native American
| tribes as recently as 1871._
|
| Even later than that I think? The government was fighting
| Geronimo in the 1880s, and my understanding is there was some
| intermittent fighting as late as the 1920s. I'm not sure
| about treaties specifically though.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| > Can someone explain why America has reservations?
|
| Because we signed treaties with the tribes, which are now semi-
| sovereign entities as a result.
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| That's not 'why', that's 'how'.
|
| I'm not American, so don't know the topic in details. I have
| found this online:
|
| " _The main goals of Indian reservations were to bring Native
| Americans under U.S. government control, minimize conflict
| between Indians and settlers and encourage Native Americans
| to take on the ways of the white man._ " [1]
|
| [1] https://www.history.com/topics/native-american-
| history/india...
| ceejayoz wrote:
| It's both.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Dancing_Rabbit_Cree
| k
|
| > Lands (in what is now Oklahoma) west of the Mississippi
| River to be conveyed to the Choctaw Nation. Lands east of
| the Mississippi River to be ceded and removal to begin in
| 1831 and end in 1833.
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| A treaty is a tool, it's 'how' to achieve something, not
| 'why' achieve something.
|
| The reasons are as per my previous comments, and also as
| a tool to displace native population (in effect ethnic
| cleansing) and to grab land, as is for example the case
| of the treaty you mention.
| rolha-capoeira wrote:
| Arguably, the treaties are not only "how" but also "why" us
| modern Americans, detached from the times in which those
| reservations were established, should uphold them, as they
| are lawful.
|
| We could certainly look at why the treaties were signed,
| but the original comment basically asked why we, modernly,
| should care.
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| The treaties, as legal instruments, partly explain why
| reservations still exist, yes, but a treaty only survives
| if it isn't an impediment. I think it's key to understand
| why they were created in the first place because that
| also explains why they still exist: IMHO they still serve
| their purpose.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| 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.
| refurb wrote:
| Keep one? Aren't there hundreds of reservations across the
| US?
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Keep a _treaty_. We 've a long history of breaking them
| when we feel like it.
| refurb wrote:
| Likewise, there are hundreds of treaties still in
| existence.
| kube-system wrote:
| I think "keep one for once" was intended to be idiomatic
| and not literally mean "one", but "on this occasion"
|
| https://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/for+once
| refurb wrote:
| Alright I'll stop being so pedantic.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| 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.
| duxup wrote:
| I think like most things, reservations weren't a solution to
| all things all native peoples for all time. It was more of a
| point in time act for specific reasons.
|
| In this case the US was engaged in very specific legal deals
| with these groups. Reservations grew out of that process.
| [deleted]
| gerbal wrote:
| These rights existing because the US government signed treaties
| with independent foreign nations. Those treaties are valid law
| until the Congress withdraws from them.
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| Did the US government ever acknowledge them as independent
| foreign nations? The War of Independence was partly fought to
| get away from the British proclamation of 1763 that said you
| couldn't settle west of the Appalachians without a treaty.
|
| Oklahoma was part of the Louisiana purchase, the US
| considered it their land for that reason.
|
| The US signed treaties with the indigeneous population in an
| attempt to secure peace, not out of any sort of
| acknowledgement that they had to.
| gerbal wrote:
| The US signed a formal treaty, which remains law.
| notatoad wrote:
| >The US signed treaties with the indigeneous population
|
| and by doing so, acknowledged that those indigenous
| populations were soveriegn nations. It doesn't matter _why_
| they signed those treaties, the only thing that matters is
| that they did.
|
| You don't get to cancel a treaty just because the other
| party used to have leverage over you and doesn't anymore.
| jcranmer wrote:
| > Did the US government ever acknowledge them as
| independent foreign nations?
|
| Yes. That's why we had to write treaties with them, to gain
| proper title to the land. Even if we treated those who
| signed the treaties as having more authority than they
| actually did, and if we treated the treaties as mere scraps
| of paper, those treaties were still seen as treaties with
| legitimate sovereign nations.
| soared wrote:
| Because we systematically killed the majority of their race,
| culture, land, and way of life. So we've given them 1% of that
| back as penance.
|
| You can go as far back as you want and it's still native
| Americans / native North Americans.
| WillPostForFood wrote:
| >Because we systematically killed the majority of their race
|
| Vast majority of Native Americans, and estimated 90% died to
| disease. It was no more systemic killing than the plague in
| Europe, or coronavirus today.
|
| >You can go as far back as you want and it's still native
| Americans / native North Americans.
|
| Go far enough back and you have empty land and Asian
| settlers.
| chundicus wrote:
| Because in many cases we signed legally binding treaties with
| what were sovereign people at the time (and ostensibly are
| today but in practice not actually). We have either used
| loopholes or outright reneged on the treaties to further take
| their land away. I don't know if the time passed is relevant,
| when we pass treaties and sign agreements in general they have
| to mean something if we intend to be a nation of laws.
| nemothekid wrote:
| _Can someone explain why America has reservations?_
|
| As I understand it, it's not "special" status and more a result
| of the laws that were put into place when the land was
| "obtained" from Native Americans. Renegading on those treaties
| would be no different than the government repossessing your
| generations-owned land because "you shouldn't get special
| treatment because your great grandfather bought this land for
| $3".
| LeifCarrotson wrote:
| The government does 'reposess' the land to some extent
| through property taxes.
|
| Also, the verb you wanted is "reneging" from "renege" - to go
| back on a promise, as in when playing cards to go back on a
| promise to follow suit.
| IncRnd wrote:
| A reservation is not just land. A reservation is Tribal Land
| of a sovereign nation. This is touched upon in the article.
| dodobirdlord wrote:
| It's complicated. Tribes, much like (capital S) States, are
| semi-sovereign, sovereign in some things but not in others.
| Much like States, reservations are still part of the United
| States.
| alextheparrot wrote:
| 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.
| cma wrote:
| 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.
| alextheparrot wrote:
| This is an interesting and important fact I wasn't aware
| of, thanks!
| toiletfuneral wrote:
| well stuff like the Royal Family of England and the entire
| system of capitalism sure seem to think wealth transfer should
| be maintained over numerous generations.
|
| Why does this instance bother you so much? (I think I know why)
| ConcernedCoder wrote:
| Think of it like this:
|
| You own quite a bit of fenced-land and have built some
| dwellings on it, a main home, a couple outbuildings, a barn,
| etc... you and your family farm it, raise livestock, hunt,
| fish, etc... and live quite well off the land without ever
| needing to leave or venture beyond the fence.
|
| One day you see some strangers outside your fence, looking
| quite haggard, and ill setting up a camp using nothing but the
| meager supplies left in their vehicles, and what looks to be
| parts of the vehicles themselves...
|
| Feeling compassion you attempt to help them, you open your gate
| and land to them, your home even, providing food, additional
| shelter, and even teaching them some basic things about your
| land and how to harvest, hunt, fish and generally live off
| it...
|
| Fast forward a couple centuries, and now your "guests" have
| double-crossed you... taken all your land by force, persecuted
| your family while committing countless crimes including rapes,
| murders, and basically genocide on a continental scale.
|
| In an act of "graciousness" during one of countless "treaties"
| you've been forced into accepting under duress - so that your
| entire family wasn't completely wiped from the face of the
| earth... you were "allowed" some small areas of undesireable
| land by your new masters where you be confined and kept out of
| the way without constantly needing to be harrased and
| supervised into submission... that was until those same people
| found out there was oil and other commodities buried underneath
| your newly constucted hovels... at which point they just pushed
| you into smaller and smaller areas, and took what they wanted
| from you and yours at-will anyway... I mean who could you
| complain to? their bought-and-paid for system of goverment and
| courts? the same that were used to persecute your family and
| steal your lands and heritage?
|
| Now apparently some judges have decided to interpret the law as
| written, instead of posing for pictures in black gowns with
| pretty little wooden hammers...
| justaman wrote:
| Most reservations are not great places to live. A google search
| shows there's lots of crime, depression, and poverty. I think
| these people should realize its difficult to live in relative
| isolation these days and move forward. Let them keep this land
| but don't attempt autonomous independence. Pick your source. An
| oversimplification: white-guilt. You're being downvoted because
| people assume this comment is racist when I think you're just
| asking for information.
| jmull wrote:
| I don't know about the downvotes, but the previous poster
| seems to be asking rhetorically to make an argument, not
| request information.
| greiskul wrote:
| You can literally say the same thing about say, Alabama. It's
| full of crime, depression and poverty. How about we let them
| keep their land, but remove their statehood?
| seemslegit wrote:
| Uh, surely it doesn't mean the the people residing in the area in
| question can go on committing what would be a crime under
| Oklahoma law... right ?
| sophacles wrote:
| I think it means that the borders of Oklahoma get more complex
| when you consider the treaties that the US has entered into.
|
| It's worth noting that according to the constitution, treaties
| have equal weight to the constitution. Therefore this ruling
| seems to me a way of saying "hey, maybe we should draw the maps
| according to the highest law in the land".
|
| It has a bonus effect of signalling that the native people are
| actually people for both punishment AND benefit. Traditionally
| the US is bad at acknowledging the benefit side for folks with
| pigment (and doubling down on the punishment side, but that's a
| different discussion).
| seemslegit wrote:
| That's all nice and well, but what does it mean for the 1.8
| million non-native-american people in that area, can one of
| them now rob another and not be guilty of a crime ? Or does
| it mean every robbery/arson/murder there can only be
| investigated by the FBI and charged in a federal court ?
| sophacles wrote:
| Well, fortunately from what I gather, this only applies to
| tribal members on reservation land. So some of those 1.8
| million will have it apply, and the rest wont. I mean it's
| right there in the article and the ruling... but you know,
| racist FUD is a better source I guess.
| seemslegit wrote:
| What racist FUD ? If the jurisdiction is territorial then
| how would state LEOs be able to enforce state laws even
| against non-tribe members on that territory, and if its
| limited to offences committed by tribe members there are
| potential victims both native and non-native Americans
| that are being harmed here - those who thought of
| themselves and their properties as being under protection
| of Oklahama state law (and paid taxes for it) and
| suddenly find it voided in some or all circumstances.
| hirundo wrote:
| Does anyone know the status of private land, not belonging to
| tribe members, now considered within the reservation? Can it be
| confiscated by the tribe?
| ectocardia wrote:
| [Not US lawyer, but] an option open to some common law courts
| is leaving the legal owner in place while declaring that the
| thing owned is for the benefit of someone else (i.e. a
| beneficial owner).
| eschulz wrote:
| Land that is privately owned will not be affected. The tribes
| often manage large amounts of reservation land in trusts, but
| fee simple/patent land (land privately owned outright) is
| protected by the constitutions of the states and federal
| government. Reservations are managed by the federal government
| via the Bureau of Indian Affairs. However, the tribes can
| establish many zoning rules, but they can be successfully
| challenged by private owners.
|
| Here is a recent significant case about this matter where the
| courts sided with the non-Indian private land owner regarding a
| permit he received from the county even though he refused to
| also go through the Reservation's own permit process:
| https://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-9th-circuit/1651530.html
| ozten wrote:
| Here is Washington state, sometimes tribal land is leased to
| non-natives for 99 years. Will definitely be interesting to see
| what happens, but it is quite possible that "property tax"
| could be moved over into a land leasing fee.
| toast0 wrote:
| I don't have background other than reading the background
| included in the decision, but it seems that in late 1800s/early
| 1900s, the land was allotted into parcels with individual
| ownership by members of the Creek Nation, and after a time that
| ownership became freely conveyable to any person.
|
| Conveying property to a non-member does not remove land from a
| reservation, and this ruling does not void any conveyances.
| Whoever owns the land, owns the land. This ruling just makes it
| clear that all of the land within the treaty boundaries is
| still a reservation. I don't know all of the implications this
| will have, but I imagine a lot of things done by the state of
| Oklahoma assuming they were operating within the state of
| Oklahoma may need to be reviewed, given that they were
| operating within the Creek Nation.
|
| For example, can the state allow formation of counties and
| cities within the Creek Nation? What about if said counties and
| cities were formed inclusive of only land owned by non-members
| of the Creek Nation?
|
| Of course, the court mentioned that Congress is free to stop
| honoring the treaty, the only requirement is that it must do it
| explicitly.
| Tiktaalik wrote:
| I have no idea, but a policy what would make sense to me would
| be to respect existing private property, though layer a "right
| of first refusal" for the indigenous nation to buy it back if
| it comes up for sale.
| MengerSponge wrote:
| Why should the rights of stolen property be respected?
|
| If I buy a TV that "fell off the truck", I wouldn't expect
| the manufacturer to buy it back from me. I wouldn't expect
| the manufacturer to buy it back from my grandkids either.
| crispyporkbites wrote:
| All land is stolen property, there are very few direct
| inheritance lines going back for more than a few hundred
| years. There are none that go back thousands.
| RyJones wrote:
| Around Lewiston, Idaho, the Nez Perce tribe has been buying up
| land as it comes onto the market. They're also doing land swaps
| with non-tribal land owners for other reasons - better wildlife
| acreage for better farming acreage, for instance.
| akerro wrote:
| European here: what does it mean economically, geographically and
| for the local ecosystem?
| travmatt wrote:
| It means Congress is shortly going to renege on yet another
| treaty they made with a Native American tribe.
| adventured wrote:
| Nothing drastic. The real consequence is going to be to the
| state criminal justice system, where and who it applies to.
| Federal laws will still apply.
|
| Here's most of it:
|
| "Tribe members who live within the boundaries are now set to
| become exempt from certain state obligations such as paying
| state taxes, while certain Native Americans found guilty in
| state courts may be able to challenge their convictions on
| jurisdictional grounds. The tribe also may obtain more power to
| regulate alcohol sales and expand casino gambling. "
| kube-system wrote:
| Likely very little. There's about 20,000 people who report
| Native American as their ethnicity in Tulsa, and likely the
| number of tribal members is lower.
| 8bitsrule wrote:
| Many reservations were affected by the allotment of 'excess
| land', and by tribal members selling their allotments (by wile or
| by intimidation), which led to the 'checkerboarding' of
| ownership. In recent decades, multiple tribes have had programs
| to recover their lands by purchase.
|
| "The Dawes Act of 1887 created the most Native American
| checkerboarding. The act was intended to bolster self-sufficiency
| and _systematically fracture native cultures_ , giving each
| individual between 40 acres (16 ha) and 160 acres (65 ha)." [0]
| [emphasis mine]
|
| [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Checkerboarding_(land)
| [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dawes_Act
| bmurray7jhu wrote:
| I suspect that Congress will consider repealing the Major Crimes
| Act with respect portions of Oklahoma. Congress has already done
| so for other reservations in several states. See 18 U.S.C. SS
| 1162.
| mjjjokes wrote:
| Is everyone purposely overlooking the fact that a rape conviction
| got overturned? That's not good news
| grej wrote:
| If you believe the means weren't good, and that ends shouldn't
| justify means, then you accept it as part of functioning due
| process, similar to Miranda rights.
| dqpb wrote:
| > _Tribe members who live within the boundaries are now set to
| become exempt from certain state obligations such as paying state
| taxes_
|
| What about everyone else? Shouldn't they pay taxes to the tribe?
| robertlagrant wrote:
| For what services?
| 3001 wrote:
| Stealing their land?
| thekingofh wrote:
| I had the pleasure of driving through and visiting Oklahoma a
| decade or so ago. Some people don't like the rural states, but it
| felt so serene out there. We stopped at a shaved ice place off of
| some random exit and just sat there on the hood staring out at
| the plains. There's not much out there but it felt so peaceful.
| It felt like home.
| munificent wrote:
| Rural areas are almost uniformly beautiful and serene. It's the
| beliefs of the people in them that can be hostile.
| lghh wrote:
| Ah yes, unlike cities which house only the most pure of
| thought.
| munificent wrote:
| This is an "affirming the consequent" logical fallacy. My
| sentence says nothing about the virtue or vice of cities.
|
| I'm responding to "Some people don't like the rural
| states". Almost no one dislikes rural states for their
| natural beauty. They dislike them for the people.
|
| Whether that dislike is morally wrong, or whether they
| should also dislike urban areas is irrelevant to my claim.
| All I was observing is that the people _are_ why some other
| people don 't like rural areas.
| asdff wrote:
| I had a different feeling. It wasn't empty in the sense that
| the desert is, which is very pleasant and beautiful, but
| scarred with industrialized agriculture, and silos stretching
| out into the infinite surrounding. The fact that there was
| absolutely nothing at all as far as the eye can see, no
| mountain or woods, just field upon industrial field with no
| farm house or town in sight, felt extremely isolating and
| uncomfortable. A feeling of having no bearings, no difference
| in any direction; no idea where to run.
|
| The small towns felt disturbing. Tulsa felt disturbing. The
| lack of minorities out in public was painfully glaring. It was
| all so very patriotic and dystopian. The unsettling overbearing
| flatness on the featureless terrain dominated my perspective of
| the area. Not for me, and I couldn't leave soon enough.
| phaedrus wrote:
| There's a big difference between Eastern Oklahoma and Western
| Oklahoma.
|
| GP's description sounds like Eastern Oklahoma which is more
| similar in landscape and vegetation to places in Arkansas and
| Missouri like the Ozarks.
|
| Your description sounds like Western Oklahoma. I lived there
| from age 12 to 20 and yes it's exactly as you describe,
| getting worse the farther West you go in the state. Dystopian
| agriculture.
|
| Although Tulsa is east of OKC, I would put the dividing line
| between the East/West change in landscape around the Tulsa
| area.
| crispyporkbites wrote:
| > The lack of minorities out in public was painfully glaring.
|
| What does this mean?
| justnotworthit wrote:
| Poster was amazed and disturbed by everyone being white.
| tropdrop wrote:
| My own experience: having had a good portion of my
| childhood (after immigration) in a Rocky Mountain West
| state, I moved to Chicago for school. The first time I came
| back to visit for Christmas, I was _blown away_ by how
| white the area was, and that I had never noticed before!
| Suddenly all of the childhood struggles I had with people
| quietly judging me fell into place (little things: assuming
| promiscuity, passing me over for a leadership position for
| someone less qualified, etc). That Christmas, the only
| person of color I saw was the guy behind the grocery 's
| store's sushi counter, who was - wait for it, Japanese. It
| left me deeply disturbed, excited to come back to Chicago
| and excited to leave that state permanently.
| throwawaysea wrote:
| This has been my experience as well. I live in a city now, but
| I love the times I have spent traveling through or to rural
| areas. They have a bad reputation that is based on false
| notions of urban superiority and stereotypes that feel as
| baseless and unhinged as claims of other types of superiority
| (e.g. racial).
|
| The reality is when you visit these rural places, talk to the
| people there, take part in their culture, take in the
| land...there is a lot these areas and those lifestyles have to
| offer. I was also surprised to find the people so charming,
| warm, and welcoming - and it dispelled my fears of expecting
| discrimination, which in retrospect I've only experienced in
| bigger American cities. It does feel comforting, raw, grounded,
| and yes like home.
| kendallpark wrote:
| > I come from Minneapolis, and before that I lived in Seattle
| and Boston -- three of the bluest, most left-leaning cities
| in the United States. I was an urban woman and couldn't
| imagine living anywhere other than a city. My husband
| concurred. Then our 28-year-old son died in late 2016.
|
| > Suddenly the traffic and noise and confusion became too
| much. John and I took off on a year's driving tour of gentler
| parts -- both of us working from the road, a computer
| security consultant and a writer. We grew nearly silent in
| grief.
|
| > We considered Asheville, N.C., and Santa Fe, N.M. But on a
| chilly, silver January day, we drove into the Ozarks of
| Northwest Arkansas. Though neither of us could put our finger
| on exactly why, this felt like our place. People back home
| were flummoxed: I heard them say a lot about white, rural
| Christians who reject outsiders and "cling to their guns."
|
| > But what city folk don't know is how beautiful it is here,
| and by that I mean way more than you imagine. We're
| surrounded by low mountains, bony shale bluffs, forest,
| shining lakes and mysterious twisting roads. The wide-open
| sky brings every bird formation and low-hanging planet into
| relief.
|
| https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2018/09/14/i-was-
| yan...
| x87678r wrote:
| Damn I never wanted to go to Arkansas before, now I do!
| tathougies wrote:
| We need to end the reservation system. No good will come of this
| system in the long term. We can end it either by making the
| reservations explicitly new nations (either fully independent or
| with protectorate status, like Micronesia or Palau), or they need
| to be integrated fully into the United States.
|
| In the long run, separate countries in one system does not really
| work (and yes, the states and feds are overlapping
| jurisdictions), but Indians have a much more special status under
| the law. Race based preferences never end well, even if they seem
| nice to begin with.
|
| Why? Because it is scary that you can actually have governments
| make laws that Americans may become subject to when those
| governments have very few duties under American law to respect
| American rights. Of course, we do not expect other countries to
| follow American law, but reservations are not set up as other
| countries. Moreover, the law is strange in that a tribal member
| in a part of Oklahoma is now due special criminal treatment due
| to their ancestry, rather than be subject to the laws of
| Oklahoma.
|
| That is not okay. Either a border needs to be set up, or the
| tribal governments need to be cast aside or at least become
| subject to the same kinds of restrictions the states are. Yes,
| this will require a constitutional amendment, but frankly,
| special treatment of Native Americans is a relic of a bygone era,
| much like slavery.
| taken_username wrote:
| Who should decide to have a border or the other option that you
| are proposing? I guess if you want to be fair, you need to let
| the Native American nations to decide, and what if they decide
| to create multiple nations in the middle of the not-any-more-
| united States?
| onetimemanytime wrote:
| I understand the to the winner go the spoils...lose a war,
| regardless of who declared or started it and there goes your
| land. Human history...but I also think that treaties made at the
| time should be honored. Apparently Congress can unilaterally
| change the treaties, as per another SCOTUS decision in
| https://www.oyez.org/cases/1900-1940/187us553
|
| _In a unanimous decision, the Court affirmed the Court of
| Appeals and upheld the Congressional action. The Court rejected
| the Indians ' argument that Congress' action was a taking under
| the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment. Justice Edward D.
| White reasoned that matters involving Indian lands were the sole
| jurisdiction of Congress. Congress therefore had the power to
| "abrogate the provisions of an Indian treaty," including the two-
| million acre change. Justice John M. Harlan concurred in the
| judgment._
| room500 wrote:
| If Congress cannot, who can?
|
| I think treaties _must_ be able to be reneged. And since
| Congress is signing the treaties, they should also have the
| power to renege.
|
| Now there might be consequences for those actions (the
| counterparty might attack you, your allies may no longer trust
| you, etc) and those consequences are what keeps treaties
| stable.
|
| The issue here is that the other party (Native Americans) has
| no power to enforce the treaty... But IMO, that is a public
| outrage issue and not a Constitutional issue.
| cgb223 wrote:
| > The ruling means that for the first time much of eastern
| Oklahoma is legally considered reservation land. More than 1.8
| million people live in the land at issue, including roughly
| 400,000 in Tulsa, Oklahoma's second-largest city.
|
| So does this effectively create two different rules of law over
| the same land...?
|
| Like how does this work?
| mrkurt wrote:
| It's been that way, this isn't much of a change for the tribes.
| Effectively, the tribes have a different system of governance
| that falls under federal jurisdiction. They're "outside" the
| state government. It's a hot mess, but I don't think forcing
| sovereign nations to conform the the occupational nation is a
| good idea.
| timsally wrote:
| Currently the federal government has a wide range of powers
| over reservation land such as the ability to prosecute crime.
| For better or for worse, Congress can expand these powers at
| any time to include dissolving the reservation. The law in all
| these aforementioned areas is well settled.
|
| The issue in this case was with a _state_ government,
| specifically Oklahoma. This ruling will limit Oklahoma 's
| ability to prosecute crime when (1) it occurs on the
| reservation and (2) involves members of the tribe. Congress
| would have to act to change this, or some agreement could be
| reached with the tribe.
| ggggtez wrote:
| It probably will come down to further court cases, but likely,
| yeah half of Oklahoma will be subject to Oklahoma state law,
| and half will be subject to tribal law. That's no different
| than a state being neighbor to a different state with
| looser/different laws.
|
| Probably they'll work out a compromise like: tribal government
| pays Oklahoma fees to have them run infrastructure as they have
| been, and the State forwards tax money to the tribal
| governments. That seems like the most logical short term
| solution, essentially status quo.
|
| But the main change will be that tribal lands may now have more
| power to change local laws (such as ignoring laws against
| selling alcohol on sundays, etc).
| botwriter wrote:
| Now the guys a fucking monster, raping a 4 yearold he should have
| been hanged decades ago!
|
| But there is something to be said about if the authorities lock
| you up and you can cause them as much problems as possible.
| Getting the supreme court to rule that half of a states land
| belongs to someone else is one of the biggest middle fingers
| possible!
| sakopov wrote:
| Here's a fun map to look at. [1] So, where do we draw the line?
|
| [1]:
| https://www.bia.gov/sites/bia_prod.opengov.ibmcloud.com/file...
| crb002 wrote:
| I see this boosting U.S. Treasury demand. The decision affirms
| that the U.S. keeps it's word.
| supernova87a wrote:
| By the way, has anyone else noticed that Gorsuch takes a much
| more conversational writing tone in his opinions? He uses
| contractions like "can't", "doesn't", "it's", etc.
|
| I'm am not sure yet whether I like it or will get used to it. But
| it is noticeably more informal than the other justices.
| partingshots wrote:
| Do Native Americans not pay any tax at all? Or are they still
| obligated to pay federal taxes.
| rome_again wrote:
| This country is dead, killed by progressive forces and political
| correctness.
|
| It was good till it lasted but now we have to pay the price of
| our weakness.
|
| Let be sure the next empire will have learned the lesson of what
| it costs to have a conscience, and won't repeat the same mistake.
| kebman wrote:
| Being part Sami I think it's fascinating to read about the system
| of reservations in the USA. I'm not sure about minority rule, but
| I'm clearly in favour of saving the unique cultures and
| ethnicities from dying out.
|
| After many years of persecution in Northeren Europe--including
| forced assimilation often called "Norwegianization" or
| "Swedification," and near extinction in Russia--we've finally
| gotten some recognition as a nation of our own, at least in the
| Nordics. We have our own parliament (Samediggi) and flag, for
| instance, and enjoy semi-autonomous leadership in "our"
| historical regions (called Sapmi) in close cooperation with the
| governments of Finland, Norway and Sweden. As such it acts more
| like a subset of the respective governments of the Nordics.
|
| Now, both the finnic and germanic populations are also indigenous
| to the Nordics together with the finno-ugric Samis, so in that
| sense it's a bit different from the native population of the USA,
| where the other nations are almost all of immigrant descent. On
| the other hand, just like the Native Americans, Samis are in the
| clear minority in Northeren Europe, with only about 100.000
| members, some of whom can't even speak their own language due to
| the assimilation policies (like me, although I do know a few
| words). Thus our culture and unique way of life is indeed in
| danger of extinction. For that reason alone I think it's
| important to at least recognize the ethnicity, and perhaps save
| it from the "tooth of time" as it were. Perhaps especially since
| most Samis today enjoy a modern lifestyle, and only very few live
| the traditional nomadic lifestyle of reindeer herding. If I'm not
| mistaken, the same is true for the Native Americans. In any case
| I'm happy we can finally enjoy peace and democracy with one
| another.
|
| All the best, from Norway! <3
| bluGill wrote:
| Note that most of these tribes were moved form somewhere out
| east in the 1800s (or north, tribes came from all over there
| was not a common culture) . Most of their culture could not be
| kept because the climate is different (desert, or just enough
| rain to technically not be desert). Much of old the way of life
| is not possible. Nobody alive lived in their in their own home
| to remember it. They are making the best they can.
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| Reservations were not created out of generosity, quite the
| opposite.
| kebman wrote:
| I'm sorry if it seemed like I made that assumption. I
| certainly didn't mean to. There were attempts at similar
| things in the Nordics, and certainly Russia displaced many
| local tribes in its hunt to stamp out any ethnical uniqueness
| through-out Russia, under Communism, for the gain of
| assimilation. We see similar tendencies today in China,
| although there seems to be a sort of uneasy acceptance of the
| minorities there. Well, if you disregard the not-so secret
| re-education camps... Anyway, a great movie about the
| difficult adaptation to Scandinavian modernity among Samis,
| and the prejudice towards them, is the Swedish movie _Sami
| Blood._ Highly recommended!
| 0x8BADF00D wrote:
| This is a really strange ruling. It also means that all prior
| convictions must be overturned, as they happened on a reservation
| instead of the state of Oklahoma.
| x87678r wrote:
| I thought the US bought OK as part of the Louisiana purchase.
| Does this mean France has to refund the price?
| TulliusCicero wrote:
| AFAICT, the ruling is based on the US' own agreement made after
| that purchase.
| systemvoltage wrote:
| Why 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 world. To me, it seems like looking back and
| expecting special treatment many centuries ago is a minority
| trump card and instead we should be focusing on giving better
| opportunities, improving communities and looking _forward_.
| pessimizer wrote:
| > It is no longer "United States"
|
| Yes, the first nations are not the United States.
| AlotOfReading wrote:
| We tried the "assimilation" thing for awhile. It ended up as a
| system of child abuse, kidnapping, forced sterilizations, and
| theft. There's a pretty decent case to be made for it also
| having been cultural genocide.
|
| I'd personally prefer that we not go back to that.
| thex10 wrote:
| > Why not everyone assimilate?
|
| Yes, exactly, why not the USians assimilate into the many
| Native nations they occupy? They've had literal centuries...
| umvi wrote:
| 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?
| [deleted]
| minerjoe wrote:
| Eh, better learn you some history, and not just the
| "history" written by the conquerors.
|
| Your argument is the standard, and ignorant, response.
| "They were violent TOO!".
|
| The nature of Native American "War" was generally of a
| completely different nature than the white man take.
| Mangalor wrote:
| I mean if we're getting into it, "white man" basically
| genocided their whole population with disease. The Native
| Americans never did anything nearly so heinous.
| dudul wrote:
| I'm not sure I understand your comment. If the genocide
| happened due to diseases imported from the Old World, how
| is it "heinous"? It happened at a time where people had
| no clue what diseases and immune systems were.
| sulam wrote:
| I dispute your characterization that people had no clue.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Fort_Pitt#Biologic
| al_...
| dudul wrote:
| But that happened in the 18th century though, by then of
| course, empirical observation had played its role and a
| few people tried to weaponize it. I'm pretty sure
| accidental contamination during the 2 preceding centuries
| had already caused a massive decline in population.
| Mangalor wrote:
| Whether or not they knew they were transporting disease
| at the time really doesn't excuse the end result: mass
| genocide. And of course this doesn't authorize taking
| land.
| umvi wrote:
| Well, then China is responsible for mass genocide due to
| Covid-19 then. After all, whether or not they knew they
| were transporting disease to other countries 6 months
| back really doesn't excuse the end result.
| dudul wrote:
| It totally excuses it. Intent is key. If you have no clue
| what a disease, a virus, an immune system are I don't see
| how you can be called "heinous" for unknowingly and
| unwillingly spread diseases.
|
| As for lands, I don't know, lands all over the world have
| been changing hands since human beings learnt how to
| walk, most of the time after violence/war. It happened in
| 1500 when the concept of "nation" didn't even exist and
| the only way to say that a land was yours was to be able
| to keep it.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| The genocide of Native Americans extends far beyond the
| introduction of diseases like smallpox, in much more
| intentional ways.
| dudul wrote:
| Oh I agree. I was originally puzzled by the mention of
| "death by disease" as a "heinous" thing. I didn't dispute
| that heinous things were done.
| robertlagrant wrote:
| I don't think accidental genocide is a thing.
| JoeAltmaier wrote:
| There was some parity in their conflicts, they had relative
| stability for thousands of years. The coming of Europeans
| was definitely a major disruption, to the amount of maybe
| 100M dead in a few years.
|
| Of course back then Might made Right. Aren't we able to see
| a little further than that any more?
| gowld wrote:
| Might makes Right gave way to White makes Right.
| thex10 wrote:
| 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
| dang wrote:
| 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.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| roywiggins wrote:
| Forced assimilation is cultural genocide. The US tried it.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Indian_boarding_sch...
| knolax wrote:
| > Genghis Khan
|
| Funny you mention that because the majority of ethnic Mongols
| live in the jurisdictional equivalent of a reservation.
| kube-system wrote:
| > Why not everyone assimilate? It is no longer "United States"
| when we split states off for special treatment for minorities.
|
| Reservations are not states that are "split off" from the US.
| They are independent nations which were mostly annexed by the
| US.
| dang wrote:
| We detached this subthread from
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23782205.
| charlesu wrote:
| Who should do the assimilating? Why?
| vkou wrote:
| > Why not everyone assimilate?
|
| You raise a great question - why don't mostly-European settlers
| assimilate into American culture?
| ISL wrote:
| In this case, the United States made a promise, to which two
| parties agreed.
|
| At issue in this case is whether or not the United States are
| still bound by this promise. The majority's conclusion is that
| they are.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| > Why not everyone assimilate?
|
| Recognized Native American tribes are _sovereign nations_.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tribal_sovereignty_in_the_Unit...
|
| You might as well ask why European settlers aren't forced to
| assimilate into them.
| Robotbeat wrote:
| I wonder about that. Right now, the fact that the Nations
| don't have direct representation in Congress (yes, I
| understand citizens can vote in the state the reservation
| resides in) makes them appear more like subjects of an Empire
| than as coequals in a Republic. I think a lot about how to
| improve this. I think a lot about how to truly reckon with
| genocide and yet coexist. If anyone has resources about how
| to improve this, let me know!
| mrkurt wrote:
| > more like subjects of an Empire than as coequals in a
| Republic
|
| This is a great way to frame it.
| jcranmer wrote:
| One solution I thought of in an alternative history
| universe where the US doesn't genocide Native Americans is
| a tricameral legislature, where the third house is
| effectively ethnically-based instead of geographically
| based.
|
| Although given the actual histories of countries that do
| have strict ethnic quotas for allotting political power, I
| doubt it would work quite so well in practice.
| Robotbeat wrote:
| Yeah... I think explicit ethnic quotas can be really
| problematic. but ethnic quotas would've been better than
| how things worked out (i.e. genocide), though.
|
| (I should point out that tribal membership is more
| complicated than just genetic background, and that it
| varies from tribe to tribe. Continuity from the existing
| tribal governments at the time until today need not have
| been explicitly ethnic.)
| inetknght wrote:
| > _the fact that the Nations don't have direct
| representation in Congress_
|
| The EU doesn't have representation in Congress either
| Robotbeat wrote:
| The EU is not under US Federal jurisdiction, as
| apparently Indian Nations are.
| rurp wrote:
| They aren't _really_ sovereign nations though, right? Like if
| a tribe decided to build a giant meth industrial complex or a
| nuclear weapon facility on their land, the US federal govt is
| going to shut that down ASAP.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| It's a bit messy. The US defines them as "domestic
| dependent nations". You're correct that they couldn't do
| those things - Federal law has been deemed to apply to
| Native Americans in most scenarios, and treaties (often
| broken/disregarded) give and take certain rights.
|
| In any event, a tribe trying to build a nuke would likely
| be in the same scenario Iraq and Iran find themselves in,
| regardless of law or treaty.
| asdf21 wrote:
| Dumb question... but can I still move to Tulsa?
| ryaan_anthony wrote:
| you're right, that is a dumb question
| TallGuyShort wrote:
| I don't think it's a dumb question at all. A quick perusal of
| Wikipedia seems to imply it's a complex issue:
|
| "In addition, because of past land allotments, leading to
| some sales to non-Native Americans, some reservations are
| severely fragmented, with each piece of tribal, individual,
| and privately held land being a separate enclave. This jumble
| of private and public real estate creates significant
| administrative, political, and legal difficulties." [1]
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_reservation
| asdf21 wrote:
| Well, sorry, I don't know anything about native American
| reservations... but I assume people just can't move into them
| willy nilly.
| newacct583 wrote:
| 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 subsequent jurisprudence and state development has
| (unsurprisingly) completely ignored that with effectively no
| legal basis. Neither Congress nor the state of Oklahoma has ever
| lifted a finger to try to make this right.
|
| Basically, this is the Supreme Court saying that enough is
| enough, this can't go on, and telling the relevant governments to
| get their shit together and figure this out.
|
| No, Injuns aren't coming for Tulsa.
| count wrote:
| So if it's not part of OK, how does that impact OK from a
| representation in Congress, electoral college, e-Rate/federal
| funding perspective. All of those people are no longer part of
| the state?
| newacct583 wrote:
| States and reservations are orthogonal concepts. This has
| nothing to do with "taking land away from" a state, it's
| about which legal authority has jurisdiction within the
| borders. People on reservations still vote in their relevant
| state elections.
| bitminer wrote:
| Am I correct in thinking that this is about authority, not
| (land) title over half of Oklahoma?
| newacct583 wrote:
| Yes. The specific case was about a murder conviction
| overturned because the Oklahoma county court didn't have
| jurisdiction over tribal land.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| > didn't have jurisdiction over tribal land
|
| Over native americans on tribal land. The state still has
| authority over everyone else. And the tribal police don't
| have authority over them. It's convoluted.
| wwright wrote:
| 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?
| newacct583 wrote:
| > If we are going to truly treat this 1833 treaty as legally
| valid
|
| If? SCOTUS literally just said it's valid. Today.
|
| As far as what's going to happen, presumably the state
| legislature, congress, and the Tribal government(s) are going
| to come to some kind of deal. I'm no expert. I'm just
| reacting to the vaguely racist paranoia in the headline that
| has people freaking out that they'll suddenly be Ruled by
| Indians.
| wwright wrote:
| I said _treat_ it as valid. There are many valid laws we
| don't treat as valid (such as international ones).
|
| It was a genuine question though; I was wondering if
| someone more knowledgeable than I knew how it would be
| handled :)
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| >There are many valid laws we don't treat as valid
|
| Including several on the bill of rights.
| IncRnd wrote:
| I agree 100% with your point but would just make one
| change to the wording. The Bill of Rights isn't made up
| of laws.
| JoeAltmaier wrote:
| Well, they have binding legal force. They are Law. So, a
| kind of Super Law.
| IncRnd wrote:
| They are Amendments that enshrine rights and limit the
| Federal Government. Amendments take more than a simple
| majority to pass, which is all a law takes.
| IncRnd wrote:
| International Laws should not be expected to have
| juirisdiction inside of the United States.
| wwright wrote:
| That is certainly the opinion of the United States ;)
| (I'm referring to the laws being ignored by the US
| government itself, to be clear)
| burmer wrote:
| I was thinking the same thing, if what the court was saying
| was that the land has __always __been a reservation, then,
| uh, get ready for the mother of all tax refunds.
| vkou wrote:
| 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.
| bluGill wrote:
| Trying would be dangerous, a lot of people go from who
| cares about them to why are you taking my money for them.
| treeman79 wrote:
| 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!
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| WillPostForFood wrote:
| 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.
| vlowther wrote:
| Yeah, it doesn't work that way, and no, most US citizens
| don't have any appreciable native ancestry, no matter what
| family mythology says.
| burkaman wrote:
| You "sign up" with the sovereign tribal governments, just
| like any other nation. EU citizenship is worth a lot to many
| people, but they've still managed to find a system that
| doesn't include anyone with "some European blood".
|
| Every tribe can determine their own criteria, and while some
| do consider how much "Indian blood" you have, that seems to
| be mostly because the US government heavily promoted the idea
| 100 years ago:
| https://chicago.suntimes.com/2018/10/20/18426433/warren-
| ance...
| chc wrote:
| "Indians" in the sense you're using are not an actual thing.
| To my understanding, if you want to be a member of the
| Muscogee Nation, then you need to show legal proof of a
| bloodline going back to at least one specific person on the
| Dawes Roll's list of Creek members.
| dang wrote:
| Please don't post flamebait to HN.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| ceejayoz wrote:
| There was already an incentive - tribes running casinos had
| folks try to force their way in to get a cut. It didn't work;
| tribes get to manage their membership, and have historically
| been quite picky about how they do it.
|
| https://www.voanews.com/usa/native-american-tribal-
| disenroll...
| aYsY4dDQ2NrcNzA wrote:
| I believe that you must have an ancestor whose name appears
| in the Dawes Rolls.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dawes_Rolls
| bluGill wrote:
| You can't sign up. I know someone who is part (unknown tribe)
| , but her grandpa didn't Regiser with the tribe and she can't
| so she is fully American to the law. Some distant cousins of
| hers with less generic heritage are members of the tribe.
| There are advantages to being part of a tribe, but many have
| decided they are Americans and not bothered joining for
| reasons of their own.
| IncRnd wrote:
| If you believe you are a member of a tribe, contact them.
| Each tribe has procedures for determining membership as well
| as the rules, such as distance, in order to obtain benefit.
|
| None of that is new.
| cowpig wrote:
| Upvoted for sharing that article.
|
| However, I think your comment would have been more impactful if
| you coolly made your point and linked to the WaPo article for
| further reading instead of using that inflammatory tone and
| language.
| binarymax wrote:
| 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.
| [deleted]
| cumcastsucks wrote:
| soy boy spotted
| asdf21 wrote:
| He's obviously mocking the use of the word... can people here
| not understand context?
| pantaloony wrote:
| 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.
| jfengel wrote:
| It's pretty clear to me that it was sarcastic, but
| sarcasm reads really badly on the Internet. In open
| forums, it's best avoided -- there are just too many ways
| for it to go wrong. (Especially when not everybody is a
| native speaker, which makes sarcasm even harder to
| recognize.)
| jjaaammmmy wrote:
| so would it be ok to mockingly use the n word in the same
| way?
| DoofusOfDeath wrote:
| I don't think there's a consensus on that. Regarding
| words that some persons find deeply offensive:
|
| - Some readers feel that using such words should be
| avoided simply because it's emotionally hurtful to
| certain individuals. Or because it reinforces beliefs
| they find abhorrent. Or for the pragmatic reason that it
| tends to end constructive discussion.
|
| - Other readers feel that having policies _against_ using
| such words does more harm than good, and stifles free and
| honest discussion. And coddles individuals who are too
| easily offended, when they should in fact use it as an
| opportunity to mature.
|
| I think HN's audience skews more towards that first
| group. I'm sure other forums exist that skew the other
| way.
| newacct583 wrote:
| It was sarcasm. I'm calling out the racism implicit in the
| headline. I apologize if that wasn't clear.
| luigibosco wrote:
| If you put the word in quotes, it is clearer that it
| doesn't belong to you..
| paiute wrote:
| Side note - as a part 'native' I wish that term you used would
| come back. Indian is now ambiguous and First Nations and Native
| American sound so stupid.
| ISL wrote:
| I found the conclusion compelling. I haven't yet had enough time
| this morning to read the dissent thoughtfully.
|
| https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/19pdf/18-9526_9okb.pdf
|
| "The federal government promised the Creek a reservation in
| perpetuity. Over time, Congress has diminished that reservation.
| It has sometimes restricted and other times expanded the Tribe's
| authority. But Congress has never withdrawn the promised
| reservation. As a result, many of the arguments before us today
| follow a sadly familiar pattern. Yes, promises were made, but the
| price of keeping them has become too great, so now we should just
| cast a blind eye. We reject that thinking. If Congress wishes to
| withdraw its promises, it must say so. Unlawful acts, performed
| long enough and with sufficient vigor, are never enough to amend
| the law. To hold otherwise would be to elevate the most brazen
| and longstanding injustices over the law, both rewarding wrong
| and failing those in the right.
|
| The judgment of the Court of Criminal Appeals of Oklahoma is
| _Reversed_. "
| btilly wrote:
| _Unlawful acts, performed long enough and with sufficient
| vigor, are never enough to amend the law. To hold otherwise
| would be to elevate the most brazen and longstanding injustices
| over the law, both rewarding wrong and failing those in the
| right._
|
| I disagree with this reasoning.
|
| As a counterexample I point you to squatters rights. If I live
| on your land long and openly enough, my unlawful act will
| confer ownership of the land to me. This principle is not only
| recognized in our courts, but the clarity that it provides
| around ownership is a major foundation of our economic system.
| The reason is that before ownership was clarified with this
| principle, our land was covered by a mess of overlapping and
| contradictory claims to ownership of the land. But with a clear
| owner, however established, that owner can now use their
| ownership as collateral.
|
| For a book-length treatment of that thesis I point you at
| https://www.amazon.com/Mystery-Capital-Capitalism-
| Triumphs-E....
|
| But this decision opens up the legal status of half of Oklahoma
| for debate, while other tribes around the nation are going to
| be thinking about which further claims they can now press.
|
| If we continue to open up the course of reversing long-done
| ills, will we start to ask whether West Virginia should not
| exist not as an interesting academic question, but as a current
| legal one? See
| https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/conlaw/2011/01/west-virgin...
| for background on that.
| guerrilla wrote:
| Squatters rights only apply to abandoned property though.
| This land wasn't abandoned at any time. People were forced
| out and it was occupied.
| missedthecue wrote:
| I don't think he was saying this is an example of squatters
| rights. He is saying that squatters rights is an example of
| a principle where an unlawful act done long enough becomes
| a lawful act.
| btilly wrote:
| Almost. Not becomes, _can_ become.
| sib wrote:
| But "squatters rights" are in fact the law... So a party
| "squatting" and thereby becoming the new owner is not a
| counterexample to the statement that "Unlawful acts,
| performed long enough and with sufficient vigor, are
| never enough to amend the law." The squatters are not
| amending the law, they are acting in accordance with it.
| pnw_hazor wrote:
| You cannot adversely possess a US government's land. Tribes
| have similar sovereign rights.
| toss1 wrote:
| Seems that you are trying to bootstrap off of Adverse
| Possession, where Alan uses Bob's land for a certain period
| (often 20 years) and ends up owning it.
|
| But it does not work that way
|
| Adverse Possession requires that the use be "open and
| notorious" and uncontested. [1]
|
| The potential possessor must be using it in a way that is
| obvious (i.e., not sneaky), and not objected to by the owner.
|
| Sure, the uses of the native lands have been open and
| notorious, but they have been continuously and vigorously
| contested.
|
| This time, the owners finally won their contesting of the use
| of their land.
|
| [1] https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/what-open-
| notorious-...
| [deleted]
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| squatters rights don't amend the law, they amend ownership.
|
| Squatters rights are explicitly codified in the low
| gowld wrote:
| Adverse possession is different. That only applies if the
| rightful owner gives de facto consent by ignoring the
| injustice and making 0 express or implied to claim in the
| property. Petitioning for redress cancels the adverse
| possession claim (obviously), or else you get legal title to
| any property simply by taking the property by force.
| lucasgonze wrote:
| You're thinking of laches:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laches_(equity)
|
| "Laches refers to a lack of diligence and activity in making
| a legal claim, or moving forward with legal enforcement of a
| right, particularly in regard to equity"
|
| It doesn't apply because nobody is claiming tribal groups
| failed to protect their interests. They haven't just been
| blowing off and watching TV all this time.
| btilly wrote:
| I am not saying that this is a legal argument for how this
| case should have been resolved.
|
| I'm saying that this is a legal argument against the
| specific reasoning within the decision. That reasoning
| being, _Unlawful acts, performed long enough and with
| sufficient vigor, are never enough to amend the law._ And
| yet here is a well-established example where an unlawful
| act, performed long enough and with sufficient vigor, does
| become enough to amend the law.
|
| I picked you to respond to because of the several people
| pointing out in one way or another that squatters rights
| (which, incidentally, has its own doctrines separate from
| latches) does not actually apply as a way to resolve this
| case.
| jjeaff wrote:
| When you take over land by squatting, you aren't
| "amending the law". You are amending land records using
| the judicial system. So I don't think the comparison
| holds up.
|
| And considering that these Indian tribes have been
| fighting for their land since the beginning, it also
| doesn't really meet the criteria of someone squatting
| unnoticed on some land.
|
| If someone just started building on your land right now,
| and you filed a complaint and called the police and no
| one would come to help you remove them legally for a
| decade, they aren't going to eventually just get title to
| your land. Filing complaints and calling the police has
| disputed their claim.
| ddingus wrote:
| Good. The natives deserve a fair shake and the land is roomy
| enough for people to get along and work together.
|
| Forcing that is a damn good thing.
|
| The USA has a lot to account for, and it is very sick.
|
| Rough roads ahead. Maybe they lead to better places.
|
| I do not feel good about the last 4 or so decades of travel.
|
| As a people, maybe world, we may well be better for going
| down this road.
| btilly wrote:
| For the record I have a brother living on a native
| reservation. I am well aware of exactly how horrible our
| past and continuing treatment of the natives have been. And
| strongly support fixing our ongoing treatment of them.
|
| However I also strongly believe that our future prosperity
| is based more on current actions than past circumstances.
| And therefore believe that attempts to redress long past
| ills are actively harmful to us as a society. And
| furthermore believe that a focus on long past harms on the
| part of groups who were victimized is actively harmful to
| the people who are focused on the past.
|
| And therefore I believe that there should be some sort of
| statute of limitations on which past harms we are willing
| to try to redress. I don't support trying to redress ills
| from over a century ago whether we are talking about
| restoring native reservations, or paying reparations for
| slavery. If you go back far enough, we all were done wrong
| to by someone else. And usually you don't have to go back
| too far to find it.
|
| For example it was less than 100 years ago that my Irish
| grandparents were targeted by the KKK in a part of Oregon
| where my cousins still live. I know because my now deceased
| aunt and uncles told me about it. Many descendants of the
| KKK members still live in the same place.
|
| On a side note, it is a little shocking to me that so many
| support a decision in favor of a man who was convicted of
| sodomizing a 4 year old child.
| pdonis wrote:
| _> I don 't support trying to redress ills from over a
| century ago_
|
| That isn't what this decision is doing. This decision is
| pointing out that the _current state of the law_ is not
| what the State of Oklahoma claims to think it was. (But
| even that claim is dubious since, as the Court 's opinion
| notes, Oklahoma admitted more than 30 years ago that it
| was improperly taking jurisdiction over cases that should
| have been tried in Federal courts.) It's not saying "we
| should give eastern Oklahoma back to the Creeks". It's
| saying "eastern Oklahoma, according to current law, _is_
| a Creek reservation ". And it gives plenty of examples of
| how this fact has been implicitly recognized for quite a
| while.
|
| The decision also does not affect anything involving non-
| Indians on the land in question. The city of Tulsa
| doesn't have to move. Nobody has to leave their homes. No
| business arrangements have to change. All it does is
| explicitly recognize that a certain class of criminal
| cases need to be tried in Federal courts instead of
| Oklahoma state courts.
| [deleted]
| ojilles wrote:
| > I don't support trying to redress ills from over a
| century ago whether we are talking about restoring native
| reservations, or paying reparations for slavery.
|
| This position assumes the ills from over a century ago
| have been fully resolved _right now_. Watching the news,
| that does not seem to be case.
|
| (I try not to put these words in your mouth, you're
| stating "And strongly support fixing our ongoing
| treatment of them."!)
| NearAP wrote:
| ...On a side note, it is a little shocking to me that so
| many support a decision in favor of a man who was
| convicted of sodomizing a 4 year old child.....
|
| I do not believe people are supporting the 'individual'
| in question but are focusing on the principle that was
| argued. In addition, this person can be retried in
| Federal courts
| kbenson wrote:
| > I don't support trying to redress ills from over a
| century ago whether we are talking about restoring native
| reservations, or paying reparations for slavery.
|
| I can understand this, and I think a lot of people are
| open to argumentation on this. Where it seems to get
| complex is when those past harms seem to have had a chain
| reaction that lingers and causes problems for people
| today.
|
| Do I support recompense for someone just because their
| great grandparent was a slave? No. Do I support
| recompense because someone lives in a slum and has had
| poor choices in life available to them because of
| structural problems resulting in their parent and
| grandparents situations because of the situation of that
| great grandparent? Maybe? Yes? I think it's a harder and
| more complex question with a lot more to consider when
| laid out in that manner, so I don't have a simple answer.
| jjeaff wrote:
| Like many supreme court decisions, the individual case at
| hand is not really the point. It sets a precedent for
| other law. This specific offender has spent decades in
| prison already and can now be tried in federal court if
| need be.
|
| I'm sure no one here is supporting this offender, but
| whether someone is guilty or not, they are entitled to a
| just trial that properly follows the legal system. The
| supreme court has ruled that he was not afforded that.
| ddingus wrote:
| Let's just say we disagree.
| pdonis wrote:
| _> a decision in favor of a man who was convicted of
| sodomizing a 4 year old child_
|
| The decision doesn't mean he goes free. It means he gets
| a new trial in a Federal court. I expect the new trial
| will convict him and he'll just be serving more time in a
| Federal prison instead of the state prison where he has
| been for the past 20 years.
| minerjoe wrote:
| As you say, "ongoing treatment". The past is still
| present.
|
| Just because our (US) myopic society places plaques on
| any building over 100 years old and calls it "historic"
| does not mean that we get the right to say that something
| is "too old" to be rememberd and corrected.
|
| Native American's had histories going back, in many
| cases, thousands of years and for them much of the
| destruction was relatively recent and they have not
| forgiven or forgotten.
|
| Heal the past, prepare for the future.
| markstos wrote:
| Squatter's rights seems related, but different.
|
| With squatters rights, there is a law that says if they squat
| long enough, they can gain legal rights to the property.
| Squatters are amending the law through action, the law that
| gives them eventual rights is already there.
|
| There is no law that says if the federal government fails to
| live up to their promise long enough, it's no longer a
| legally binding promise.
|
| The Court is saying that if Congress really wants to break
| the promise, Congress needs to express that with updated
| legislation.
| alasdair_ wrote:
| >"Unlawful acts, performed long enough and with sufficient
| vigor, are never enough to amend the law."
|
| Based on this logic, I'm sure that the USA will be paying for
| all that tea they dumped in the harbor any day now...
| dTal wrote:
| "Benjamin Franklin stated that the destroyed tea must be paid
| for, all ninety thousand pounds[citation needed] (which, at
| two shillings per pound, came to PS9,000, or PS1.15 million
| [2014, approx. $1.7 million US]).[76] Robert Murray, a New
| York merchant, went to Lord North with three other merchants
| and offered to pay for the losses, but the offer was turned
| down.[77]"
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_Tea_Party#Reaction
| Nasrudith wrote:
| They are safe on a technicality there as they never try to
| claim continuity with old laws and new laws. Even if dumping
| the shipments of foreign merchants is illegal under both sets
| of laws or indeed copied verbatim it is breaking of the old
| set of law and not the new law as it wasn't "born" yet.
| brobdingnagians wrote:
| I do applaud that thinking; I hope it sets a precedent that can
| be used more widely. I hope they apply it more widely to things
| they don't necessarily ideologically agree with. Civil society
| needs more honesty and dedication to keeping your word, even
| when that is painful. That might lead to people thinking more
| carefully about where they stand and what they say as well.
| dr_dshiv wrote:
| Amen. This isn't a nonsequitor, I swear: why can't freedom of
| religion be used to legalize drugs? And, why can't Indian
| reservations, especially, sell what they please?
| bigtones wrote:
| Indian Reservations still have to abide by Federal Law
| (which the ruling today affirmed) and selling of 'drugs' is
| illegal at the Federal level. They can use them in a
| religious service, but they can't sell them.
| virgil_disgr4ce wrote:
| > why can't freedom of religion be used to legalize drugs
|
| This is exactly the sort of thing that the Satanic Temple
| (not to be confused with the Church of Satan, etc.)
| investigates and does activism about. Well worth donating
| to IMO!
| rudolph9 wrote:
| I think use of regulated drugs is legal during a religious
| service https://www.pewforum.org/2006/02/21/supreme-court-
| rules-that...
|
| And, again I think, reservations are exempt from state
| laws/taxes and to certain extent able to make/enforce their
| own laws/taxes but they still need to follow federal laws.
| beenBoutIT wrote:
| The only way to stop our neverending war on drugs is a
| Constitutional amendment that guarantees every American
| the right to consume anything they want for any reason.
| In the next several decades there will be un
| unprecedented number of elderly Americans living below
| the poverty line with no pension and medical issues they
| can't afford to fix - euthanasia will become something of
| a nuclear option that they'll want available as a last
| resort. An amendment that guarantees the right to consume
| any plant/drug/chemical/etc. will have a chance if it's
| bundled with a 'right to die with dignity', allowing
| elderly individuals a euthanasia option.
| Imnimo wrote:
| One thing I'm unclear about is this: "If Congress wishes to
| withdraw its promises, it must say so." The question in the
| case, as I understand it, was whether previous acts of Congress
| had in fact dissolved the reservation. Could Congress, if they
| wanted to, pass a resolution saying, "Actually, such-and-such
| bill from 100-some years ago dissolved the reservation." Or can
| they only say, "Starting today, the reservation is dissolved."
|
| Is Congress empowered to clarify the meaning of its own past
| statements? Or once the text leaves Congress, only the courts
| can say what that text means, and if the courts disagree with
| Congress, then Congress can only remedy that going forward?
| lostcolony wrote:
| I'm not sure it matters. Whether Congress creates a new law
| overwriting the old, or passes one that tries to explain the
| old differently than it was executed on, if anyone doesn't
| object it's moot, and if anyone does, it will end up in the
| courts.
|
| Particular to this case, Congress could do either, and either
| way the courts will have to decide whether it's fair to do.
| But, also particular to this case, Congress has done neither,
| so the courts were left with interpreting what Congress last
| decided.
| pdonis wrote:
| _> Is Congress empowered to clarify the meaning of its own
| past statements?_
|
| I don't think so. The statute is the actual text that is
| passed by both houses of Congress and signed by the
| President. Congress does not have the power to "interpret".
| It only has the power to pass a new statute, which can only
| be in effect as of the date of its passage (when the
| President signs it). Anything Congress says or does that does
| not follow the process given in the Constitution for passing
| a law is not a law and does not have the force of law.
| R0b0t1 wrote:
| But what if the court were being intentionally obtuse and
| kept interpreting laws in face of the facts and the intent
| of congress? You need to consider this as something less
| brazen could be used to undermine congress' authority.
|
| The judicial branch de facto has the most power of any
| branch in the US. The positions are not elected.
| jacobwilliamroy wrote:
| Congress controls the reservation system. It's not real
| sovereignty. That's one of many reasons why there is such
| large debate over accepting federal recognition among Kanaka
| specifically. At that point the federal government controls
| the land, distributes it, decides who is and is not eligible
| to use the land. The government literally stole my friend's
| house just by revising the definition of "hawaiian" and
| telling her she was not eligible.
| charwalker wrote:
| I think they could, but even if it matched the SCoutUS
| decision it could only apply going forward or it would be
| unconstitutional via Section 9.3 on barring ex post facto
| laws. Now if Congress were to pass a law saying not that
| something 100 years ago meant XYZ but that as of the sign
| date the reservation no longer exists, that might pass 9.3
| but if that bill hits the courts, lower courts would need to
| reference this case and probably conclude that it isn't a
| correct application and ax it.
| thefounder wrote:
| I believe the Congress can simply enact a new law and say
| there is no such thing as a reservation and the law would he
| constitutional. That being said it would be similar with
| China's latest laws on HK if not worse.
| veridies wrote:
| That's a good question. I'm not a lawyer, but I think it
| would be problematic if Congress could make those decisions.
| That would allow them to de facto create ex post facto laws
| by contriving "interpretations" of past laws. It might
| incentivize intentionally ambiguous laws that allow them
| flexibility in the future. At that point, the Supreme Court
| would be in the very odd position of deciding whether
| something is a _plausible_ interpretation of a previous law.
| Imnimo wrote:
| 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 their own bills mean when there's a
| dispute.
| alasdair_ wrote:
| >I guess I trust the Supreme Court more than I trust
| Congress
|
| It's quite a damning indictment of US-style democracy
| that people trust a small cabal of unelected lifetime
| appointees without any meaningful oversight, over a
| larger pool of democratically elected officials.
| kelnos wrote:
| The root of the problem (and this isn't unique to US-
| style democracy) is that any body that has to deal with
| re-election every few years is going to focus more on
| things that get them re-elected, not necessarily things
| that are good or sustainable for the state as a whole.
| That's just human nature, and I don't think there's a way
| to fix that problem without fundamentally changing how
| with think of elections and terms in office, and I'm not
| sure what that would look like.
|
| One thing that makes SCOTUS interesting is that they have
| no enforcement mechanism. It's mainly only tradition and
| respect for the institution that causes people to follow
| Supreme Court rulings. If the executive branch suddenly
| decided to do whatever it wanted, as long as they had
| support within their own ranks, including the military,
| there'd be no one to stop them.
|
| On the flip side, this means that SCOTUS has a huge
| incentive to do their best to figure out what the actual
| right thing is, and rule that way. Because if too many
| people think SCOTUS is a shady group of individuals whose
| rulings are arbitrary and don't deserve respect, that's
| it for their power. And that's why even when I believe
| one of their rulings to be counter to my values, I can
| usually understand why they came to the decision they
| made, and at least respect the process.
| dannypgh wrote:
| > One thing that makes SCOTUS interesting is that they
| have no enforcement mechanism. It's mainly only tradition
| and respect for the institution that causes people to
| follow Supreme Court rulings
|
| You're underselling this, I think.
|
| It is "respect for the institution" why the military
| accepts the civilian authority of the POTUS as commander
| in chief. If we are only considering the ability to use
| violence to enforce one's position as legitimate, it's
| the military and police forces who rule. Once you factor
| in laws, the SCOTUS is authoritative as to how the laws
| can be legally interpreted.
| rgbrgb wrote:
| Very interesting points regarding enforcement mechanism.
|
| > I'm not sure what that would look like.
|
| Just iterating a few possibilities:
|
| 1) Lifetime terms (like Roman senate or SCOTUS)
|
| 2) Term limits (like US Pres)
|
| Honestly really naive about political theory and I wonder
| what the case is for each and what the process for
| changing would look like (guessing it is something
| congress would have to do, so hard to do).
| exclusiv wrote:
| From my perspective, I would simply restate it as such:
|
| "It's quite a damning indictment of US-style democracy
| that people distrust a larger pool of democratically
| elected officials over a small cabal of unelected
| lifetime appointees without any meaningful oversight"
|
| You're framing it like Congress is elected by the people
| and are thus more worthy of their trust and the fact that
| doesn't happen is the damning part. But that's one-sided.
|
| In reality there's a TON of special interests driving who
| gets in front of the population to even be elected to
| Congress and then what the agenda is for them after being
| elected. That erodes the public's trust, not to mention
| all the Congressional scandals over the years and the
| cutthroat tactics politicians will do to simply get re-
| elected.
|
| So I see the same conclusion as you but in reverse.
| dTal wrote:
| Not just US-style. The House of Lords in the UK, a cabal
| of unelected lifetime appointees without any meaningful
| oversight, is consistently saner than its elected
| counterpart. Political parties, and being constantly
| afraid for one's job, seemingly have quite the
| detrimental effect.
| mcv wrote:
| The House of Lords sane? I admit I don't really follow it
| in any detail, but my impression from various reports was
| that it was a mess of scandals and corruption. Though I
| admit that being saner than the House of Commons sounds
| like a fairly low bar.
| michaelt wrote:
| _> Still, it seems weird that Congress wouldn 't get a
| say in determining what their own bills mean when there's
| a dispute._
|
| Ah yes, rule by Humpty Dumpty, where you don't know what
| the words they used mean until they tell you, and words
| mean what they choose them to mean, neither more nor
| less.
|
| If it were a law passed by the current congress, then
| maybe they would have some insight into their own
| intentions. But I don't see that the congress of 2020 is
| any better informed about what the congress of 1909
| intended than you or I.
|
| And even under the same congress the idea a law could
| have a secret meaning, passed by congress but defined
| only in their minds and unknowable to those under their
| rule, seems completely contrary to the idea of the rule
| of law.
| SamReidHughes wrote:
| Congress isn't the same Congress that passed the bills.
| Imnimo wrote:
| 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?
| pdonis wrote:
| _> 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._
|
| Congress as an institution is one continuously operating
| entity. But the important question legally is not what
| Congress is, but what the actual text of the statute
| passed by Congress and signed by the President is. That
| is the law. In other words, the Constitution does not say
| "whatever Congress says is the law". It lays out a
| specific process by which laws get passed, and says what
| the limitations of that process are (no ex post facto
| laws, which means Congress can't pass a law that says
| some previous law meant something different, and have
| that retroactively apply).
|
| _> would Congress be able to retroactively-clarify their
| intent if the law was very recent and the same Congress
| was still in session?_
|
| No, but they could pass a new statute repealing the old
| one, or replacing it with new language, which would limit
| the time the old statute was in effect.
| kelnos wrote:
| Congress has no ability to do this, period. If they screw
| up and pass something ambiguous that gets interpreted
| contrary to their desires, their only remedy is to pass a
| new law to fix the problems. That will only -- by design
| -- cover new cases, as they are constitutionally barred
| from passing legislation that takes retroactive effect.
| veridies wrote:
| > 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 true, although you might argue that Congress
| should be clearer when they write their laws to begin
| with.
| smegger001 wrote:
| Require simple easily parsable English and as little
| ambiguity as possible. and then well define every term
| and phrase. include commenting much like code in the law
| it self. Along with a version history and changelog for
| with reasons given for each change.
|
| But we live a the world of common law tradition in the
| US. and law unfortunately or not does not behave like
| code.
| lilott8 wrote:
| To ruminate about this a bit, let's assume our Congress
| critters never change. So Congress passes law "X" during
| Congress "Y". It is now 50 years in the future. Who do we
| ask about the intent of the law? Do we ask the
| initiators, cosigners, committee, do we take a survey of
| the entire congress? I'm not trying to prove any point --
| I'm genuinely interested in understanding how this could
| play out!
| kelnos wrote:
| > _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 constituents come to them and
| say "hey, this law y'all passed, it isn't really working
| out... do something to make it better". And if there's a
| dispute as to the enforcement of those laws, an
| independent third party (the judiciary) mediates and
| decides, as seems appropriate. But, again, Congress
| doesn't get involved there, because it's the executive's
| job to actually apply the law.
|
| If Congress does get a say in interpretation, that means
| they could change their minds on existing law as
| political winds change, without going through the proper
| process of passing new legislation. They shouldn't get to
| do that, especially not for laws that are already on the
| books. That would amount to the power to write ex post
| facto laws, which are considered such a bad idea that
| they're expressly forbidden by the US Constitution. I
| think the risk of passing a law that gets interpreted in
| a wildly different way than Congress' intent isn't that
| high, and in cases where it does happen, it's usually
| because culture has fundamentally changed over time.
| Congress' remedy of passing a new law, but one that will
| only cover future cases, is a fair trade off, I think.
| And in cases where there's a big screw-up, I'd expect it
| would get noticed fairly quickly once cases start hitting
| the courts, so Congress would have the opportunity to fix
| things, but only have a short window of time where
| unintended consequences happen.
| Gene_Parmesan wrote:
| Congress writes the laws. Courts interpret them. Congress
| can't simply say "oh actually back then we meant this other
| thing," as that would be completely nullifying the power of
| the Courts. Yes, they can make an amendment that
| changes/clarifies the meaning of an existing law, and that
| might sound like the same thing, but doing that requires the
| formality of the process -- in particular, bringing it to a
| vote.
| anthonygd wrote:
| No. Congress writes laws but they're supposed to be careful
| because the Supreme Court interprets.
|
| They'll essentially have to create a new bill (or tack this
| on to something else going through) and go through the full
| process, i.e. get senate approval and the presidential
| signature.
| ponker wrote:
| 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.
| notyourwork wrote:
| The court is highlighting that congress needs to be
| consistent. Make a willing refusal to original promise,
| otherwise keep said promise. The courts job is not to decide
| on the promise but to identify the congress as responsible
| for consistency with promises made.
| rkuykendall-com wrote:
| Literally nothing in the legal system is permanent for
| perpetuity. Even the constitution can be amended in any way.
| All laws, treaties, etc. can be undone with enough effort.
| [deleted]
| joecool1029 wrote:
| > "Unlawful acts, performed long enough and with sufficient
| vigor, are never enough to amend the law."
|
| Yeah, ok then. I guess that means we can start dunking Karens
| in rivers again:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desuetude#United_States_law
| acdha wrote:
| We never stopped the general concept of contracts being
| enforced -- this is just a case of a majority in power
| choosing not to enforce them in one specific case.
| knodi123 wrote:
| > Unlawful acts, performed long enough and with sufficient
| vigor, are never enough to amend the law
|
| And yet "adverse possession" allows my neighbor to keep a slice
| of my yard, because he build the fence shortly before I bought
| the house (while it was unoccupied!) and I assumed it was
| proper after I moved in, and now that I've had a survey done
| and realized his fence is 5' off target, it's too late because
| he officially owns it!
|
| I understand the difference, but I feel like it would be more
| proper to say "Unlawful acts performed long ago, are hardly
| ever enough to amend the law."
| schmichael wrote:
| What you're referencing is probably a "prescriptive easement"
| and is legal (depending on your jurisdiction).
|
| If your jurisdiction does not have "adverse possession" or
| "prescriptive easement" laws, you can probably tear that
| fence down or do whatever else you want with it. (IANAL and
| please just talk to your neighbors first!)
|
| None of this is related, either legally or in spirit, with
| the sentence you cited. The cited statement refers to an
| unlawful act, over time, attempting to override the law. In
| most (all in the US?) jurisdictions a law regarding
| prescriptive easements or adverse possession probably makes
| your neighbor's actions legal. The entire point of this
| ruling is that congress never passed a similar law to make
| this sort of action legal.
| bitbckt wrote:
| IANAL, and other disclaimers.
|
| Prescriptive easement is not intended to apply to physical
| encroachment. It's intended to apply to right of way and
| ingress/egress issues. Otherwise, it would be an end-run
| around having to pay for the property.
|
| I don't think that principle would apply in GP's case.
|
| Adverse possession, however, may apply.
| knodi123 wrote:
| > If your jurisdiction does not have "adverse possession"
| or "prescriptive easement" laws, you can probably tear that
| fence down or do whatever else you want with it.
|
| My jurisdiction does, of course, which is why I mentioned
| it.
|
| > None of this has anything, either legally or in spirit,
| with the sentence you cited
|
| I disagree, strongly.
|
| I acknowledge that the fence line is now legal, _in the
| colloquial sense meaning "in compliance with the law"_.
|
| Everyone acknowledges that the fence line was once illegal,
| in the same colloquial sense.
|
| Yeah, you're right, the ruling in the linked article is
| different, and governs the creation or removal of actual
| laws. _However_ , it's similar in spirit in that something
| that was _forbidden_ , if done for long enough, _becomes
| permitted_. If you can 't see the analogy, I recommend you
| just shrug and move on.
| shkkmo wrote:
| > In most (all in the US?) jurisdictions a law regarding
| prescriptive easements or adverse possession probably makes
| your neighbor's actions legal.
|
| After enough time, the neighbor acquired the title to the
| land through adverse possession and the fence became legal.
| Before that, the fence was illegal as it was built on
| property that the neighbor did not own.
| kelnos wrote:
| 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, sounds completely bonkers to
| me.
| supernova87a wrote:
| That one is a puzzler, and I encountered it with a
| neighborhood issue recently. Why are there some rights that
| are required to be periodically exercised in order not to be
| withdrawn? Didn't make sense to me.
| kelnos wrote:
| Perhaps because they're not "rights"; they're legally-
| granted privileges.
|
| I agree that this sort of law is bonkers, but understand
| that no one has a "right" to own land[0]. That's a
| privilege conferred by legal frameworks, and only works
| because we all more or less agree to abide by them and live
| in civil society.
|
| [0] The US Constitution does not grant this right, and in
| fact the Framers were well aware of the divide between
| those who did and did not own land at the time, and
| considered landowners to be more deserving of participation
| in government.
| sethammons wrote:
| That's odd. My neighbor built his house on the side of his
| property and inadvertently built it 5 feet over onto the
| neighbor's property. The way they worked it out was that my
| neighbor had to buy that portion of his neighbor's property.
| The alternative was to move (ie, destroy) the building.
| knodi123 wrote:
| this particular law varies wildly by jurisdiction
| pdonis wrote:
| _> it 's too late because he officially owns it!_
|
| On what basis does he "officially own" it? Presumably there
| is a plat on file with your deed of title to your house and
| its lot that gives the boundaries of your lot, and another
| plat on file with your neighbor's deed of title to his house
| and its lot that shows the boundaries of his lot. Presumably
| both of those plats say the fence is on your property.
| CDRdude wrote:
| Adverse possession is a specific thing in some
| jurisdictions where if you visibly and openly occupy a
| piece of land for long enough without a challenge from the
| original owner, it becomes your property and the original
| owner loses it.
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adverse_possession
| calvinmorrison wrote:
| "We reject that thinking. If Congress wishes to withdraw its
| promises, it must say so."
|
| As with so many controversial court rulings like the ACA
| mandate case, our courts keep getting put into the decision
| because of the massive failure that congress is. Congress
| should either fulfill the promise or not, or whatever. instead
| the judicial bodies end up making legal judgements with big
| ramifcations that largely should be left to the legislative
| body.
| llamataboot wrote:
| But isn't this literally Justice throwing the ball back to
| Legislature? "We understand why you may want this to be true,
| but if that's the case, you need to do it specifically"
| nostromo wrote:
| If congress doesn't change something, then that means they
| have determined no change is necessary.
|
| That isn't an invitation for the executive branch (or
| judiciary) to overreach.
|
| In theory congress could go years without passing a single
| law, and that would be fine. It would signal that the current
| laws are sufficient.
|
| (As an aside, congress has ceded much of it's lawmaking
| authority to federal agencies anyway -- so even if they
| didn't pass any new laws, the legal code will still change
| every year.)
| rtkwe wrote:
| > (As an aside, congress has ceded much of it's lawmaking
| authority to federal agencies anyway -- so even if they
| didn't pass any new laws, the legal code will still change
| every year.)
|
| Normally this wouldn't be so bad, Congress is bad at making
| small evidence based changes on a reasonable timeline so
| instead they setup the rules for making the rules and the
| goals and instantiate or grant that authority to a division
| of the executive. Unfortunately it seems the courts have
| become very enthralled to varying degrees to the unitary
| executive theory which makes corralling that power more
| difficult.
| intopieces wrote:
| > If congress doesn't change something, then that means
| they have determined no change is necessary.
|
| This not accurate. Congress failing to act due to deadlock
| does not indicate that either party agrees that no change
| ought to be made, only that congress couldn't come to an
| agreement about how it should be made.
|
| To say otherwise is akin to saying that, because you and
| your husband can't agree on where to eat for dinner, you
| must not be hungry.
|
| Both parties might believe that a law needs to be changed,
| but changed in opposite directions: one might want it
| repealed, the other strengthened.
| bhupy wrote:
| > This not accurate. Congress failing to act due to
| deadlock does not indicate that either party agrees that
| no change ought to be made, only that congress couldn't
| come to an agreement about how it should be made.
|
| That is actually literally what it means. The way the
| Union is set up, there is a certain amount of consensus
| necessary to pass legislation over 50 States across 300+
| million people.
|
| If there is a deadlock, then it's the system telling you
| that the consensus isn't met. In a Federal system, this
| means that the next best place to (try to) pass the law
| is at the State level, where you may have less of a
| deadlock.
| A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote:
| This is by far one of the pieces a lot of people seem to
| miss. The system was set up for gridlock in hopes that it
| will temper some of the more dangerous tendencies of
| powerful and ambitious men.
| fzzzy wrote:
| Thanks for this bit of insight. It really explains a lot,
| and it actually makes sense to me now.
| refurb wrote:
| Yup. In tech terms, deadlock is an intentional feature,
| not a big.
| intopieces wrote:
| It does indicate a consensus is not met, and merely that;
| the GP claimed the this lack of specific consensus on
| action is actually a form of broad consensus on inaction,
| a leap in logic that is unfounded because it ignores the
| political game theory that is employed in obstructionism.
|
| It also ignores the fundamental brokenness of the system
| through a sort of circular logic: things didn't change
| since they didn't need to be changed.
| nostromo wrote:
| You're putting words in my mouth.
| intopieces wrote:
| That was not my intention. Could you clarify how your
| statement:
|
| > If congress doesn't change something, then that means
| they have determined no change is necessary.
|
| Is not accurately reworded as:
|
| >this lack of specific consensus on action is actually a
| form of broad consensus on inaction
| hinkley wrote:
| The judicial branch can decide that a law is not
| constitutional. It's then Congress' job to find the
| political will to make the law constitutional. Either by
| altering it, or amending the constitution. It's a governor
| on the system. Only the important stuff is supposed to make
| it past all three branches unscathed.
|
| It either has to be something populist - everyone wants it
| so I won't get voted out of office - or it needs to be
| worth spending a ton of political power. When Congress is
| overwhelmingly in favor of a law, they can prevent a
| presidential veto. But that degree of unanimity is rarely
| free. It cost people something else, so it better be worth
| the opportunity cost.
| Angostura wrote:
| > If congress doesn't change something, then that means
| they have determined no change is necessary.
|
| ... and therefore the promise is still in force and should
| be upheld.
| bilbo0s wrote:
| True. In this case, either way, half of Oklahoma belongs
| to the tribe. Congress has not taken it away in the
| legally prescribed manner, therefore SCOTUS has no choice
| but to say that until congress does, the promise has to
| be upheld.
|
| Congress has to do its job. Or not. Whichever it chooses.
| But it can't rely on the courts to do its job. The courts
| are right to let everything sit exactly where it is, and
| drop the entire matter back in the lap of congress.
| kube-system wrote:
| > In this case, either way, half of Oklahoma belongs to
| the tribe.
|
| If I am not mistaken, this ruling only pertains to the
| Major Crimes Act[0]. It doesn't mean half of Oklahoma
| "belongs to the tribe", it just means half of Oklahoma
| doesn't have criminal jurisdiction for a short list of
| crimes when they are committed by tribal citizens.
|
| 0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Major_Crimes_Act
| elliekelly wrote:
| And this is exactly what the court ruled - if Congress
| intended to withdraw from or change the agreement they're
| well aware of how to make that happen. And they didn't make
| it happen so they must not have intended to change
| anything.
|
| I would assume (haven't read the whole opinion yet) that
| nothing about this ruling now _prohibits_ Congress from
| exercising their authority to take any further action.
| calvinmorrison wrote:
| A recent dissent by Justice Thomas is elucidating.
|
| "Today's decision must be recognized for what it is: an
| effort to avoid a politically controversial but legally
| correct decision. The Court could have made clear that the
| solution respondents seek must come from the Legislative
| Branch. Instead, the majority has decided to prolong [the
| Department of Homeland Security's (DHS)] initial overreach
| by providing a stopgap measure of its own. In doing so, it
| has given the green light for future political battles to
| be fought in this Court rather than where they rightfully
| belong--the political branches. Such timidity forsakes the
| Court's duty to apply the law according to neutral
| principles, and the ripple effects of the majority's error
| will be felt throughout our system of self-government."
|
| .
|
| This was his dissent on DACA. Agree or disagree with the
| program that allows undocumented immigrants to stay and go
| to school, I don't care. It's not legislative, it's not
| judicial, it was a program by DHS setup under the last
| administration. Now the court rules the current
| administration can't undo the program? It's bizzare.
|
| Things like DACA _need_ to be written in stone to avoid
| forcing the supreme court to become the effective
| legislator instead of having congress pass a law that
| enacts it as an actual program.
| jcranmer wrote:
| > Now the court rules the current administration can't
| undo the program?
|
| The court rules that the current administration can't
| undo it simply by waking up one morning and say "I wish
| that it be done;" it actually has to go through a process
| to explain why it is taking the decision it is, which is
| the same process it had to do to enact the program in the
| first place.
| amznthrwaway wrote:
| > This was his dissent on DACA. Agree or disagree with
| the program that allows undocumented immigrants to stay
| and go to school, I don't care. It's not legislative,
| it's not judicial, it was a program by DHS setup under
| the last administration. Now the court rules the current
| administration can't undo the program? It's bizzare.
|
| This is an inaccurate summary of the decision. The fact
| that you gave it, after giving an accurate summary of the
| dissent is very telling. It indicates that only a fool
| would trust you on political matters as you are a willful
| liar who does not respect your audience.
|
| I eagerly await your correction and apology. Just
| kidding, I am fully aware that you have no respect for
| truth, and that you have no central morality.
| belltaco wrote:
| What?
|
| https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/506018-trump-
| exp...
|
| It's bizarre to have someone quote a judge's dissenting
| opinion but not read the main gist of the actual verdict.
| war1025 wrote:
| The more I learn about Justice Thomas, the more I like
| him.
| robertlagrant wrote:
| He walks a difficult path well.
| [deleted]
| bilbo0s wrote:
| "The Court could have made clear that the solution
| respondents seek must come from the Legislative Branch."
|
| In this case, that's exactly what the majority concluded.
| In layman's terms, this is a decision that says, "We
| aren't doing a thing. Congress made a promise. If you
| want to rescind it, go talk to congress, not us."
| leereeves wrote:
| Congress didn't make DACA. Obama ordered it by executive
| memorandum, after a similar Congressional bill, the DREAM
| Act, failed in Congress.
| bhupy wrote:
| > Congress made a promise
|
| When exactly did that happen?
| bilbo0s wrote:
| Congress created the reservation situation in Oklahoma
| many, many, many years ago. Not the Supreme Court.
|
| If respondents want to undo that promise, they need to
| take the matter up with congress. That's what the court
| is saying. You can't short circuit the constitutional
| order. The court is right to drop this right back in the
| lap of congress.
| bhupy wrote:
| GP wasn't talking about the Oklahoma decision, they were
| talking about DACA.
| masklinn wrote:
| No. GP was giving an opinion about DACA in the context of
| the discussion of the article, and the person you
| responded to commented within that frame.
| masklinn wrote:
| > This was his dissent on DACA. Agree or disagree with
| the program that allows undocumented immigrants to stay
| and go to school, I don't care. It's not legislative,
| it's not judicial, it was a program by DHS setup under
| the last administration. Now the court rules the current
| administration can't undo the program? It's bizzare.
|
| It didn't rule that the current administration can't undo
| the program, it ruled that the administration has to
| properly justify that decision, and not doing so is
| unlawful.
|
| At no point did it rule on DACA itself, or prevent the
| administration from providing actual, motivated and legal
| reasoning for rescinding the program.
|
| Also
|
| > This was his dissent on DACA.
|
| Which corresponds to the majority ruling on _this_ case,
| yet I can 't help but notice _Gorsuch_ joined the liberal
| justices in the majority, not Thomas.
| twsttest wrote:
| However DACA itself is unlawful in that it is an
| Executive Order undermining Federal immigration law, so
| the administration's rescinding it on the basis of its
| unlawfulness should be sufficient enough justification.
| The problem is that the Court's ruling indicates that an
| EO which subverts existing law cannot be overturned by
| subsequent administrations simply on the basis of its
| illegality. Justice Thomas' dissent says exactly this.
|
| That's incredibly problematic. According to the recent
| ruling therefore, a President has the power to issue and
| EO which prevents the enforcement of certain laws.
| brandmeyer wrote:
| I urge you to read the SCOTUS opinion itself, and not
| just the rhetoric you may have heard in the media about
| the opinion. Because this:
|
| > According to the recent ruling therefore, a President
| has the power to issue and EO which prevents the
| enforcement of certain laws
|
| is flatly untrue.
| landryraccoon wrote:
| > no change is necessary.
|
| This could mean a lot of things. Do you mean no change to
| the law is necessary? SCOTUS is upholding that principle.
| It is saying that the law as written stands.
|
| The Judiciary is not overreaching here. They are doing
| exactly what their job says - they're interpreting existing
| laws, not writing new laws.
| tony_cannistra wrote:
| I understand your point, but I fear you may misunderstand,
| because I believe the Decision is in line with your views.
|
| The justices' point is that congress, in its inaction, has
| _not_ enabled the reduction in Creek reservations that has
| been perpetrated through large-scale disenfranchisement all
| all levels of governance, actions which are in direct
| conflict with the reservation treaty signed in perpetuity.
|
| For these actions to be legal, Congress must have
| authorized them. This has not happened and therefore, as
| the justices rule, these actions are unconstitutional.
| nostromo wrote:
| No, I understand, and agree with the decision.
|
| My disagreement is with people who excuse executive
| overreach by saying, "congress refused to act." Put
| another way, they're saying, "I had to work around the
| law to get what I wanted."
| war1025 wrote:
| > 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
| uselessness. In some ways we're probably fortunate that the
| other two branches have picked up the slack, as much as we
| (myself included) like to complain about it.
| Vysero wrote:
| It's a feature not a bug. The entire system was designed
| s/t it is incredibly hard for anyone in Washington to do
| anything. There are good reasons for that.
| hinkley wrote:
| Abdicating some responsibilities and becoming positively
| petty on the ones they've decided to focus on.
|
| It's like the old joke about Academia: the political
| infighting is so intense because the stakes are so low.
| airstrike wrote:
| Or as Mark Manson put it, people give so many fucks about
| petty things because they have nothing more important to
| give a fuck about.
|
| https://www.amazon.com/Subtle-Art-Not-Giving-
| Counterintuitiv...
| ColanR wrote:
| > They are supposed to be the most powerful branch of
| government, but instead they have deadlocked themselves
| into uselessness.
|
| They were always intended to be both. Since there had to be
| such a powerful entity within the government (the power
| exists, so it has to be put somewhere), the best course of
| action to prevent any whim of politics doing irreparable
| damage is to pit congress against itself so that any
| actions it takes are generally too slow for transient whims
| to affect it.
|
| Better that the powerful are inefficient.
| hvs wrote:
| Unfortunately, that precisely the opinion that the Romans
| came to as well.
| pbhjpbhj wrote:
| Why is Rome important here? I can see the symmetry
| between Rome and what USA currently has - different rich
| powerful groups arguing and ignoring half the people, for
| example; rife corruption and nepotism - but how is Rome a
| model for a democracy, and one that seeks (in theory) not
| to divide the people into ruling and subservient classes
| at that?
| hvs wrote:
| Because the U.S. isn't a democracy it's one that was
| explicitly founded on the model of the Roman Republic,
| albeit one with a written constitution.
| Nasrudith wrote:
| I think part of the point is that aspects beyond
| democracy are taken for granted. The US citizenship and
| model of "being Roman" is pretty imperial in many ways.
| It has undersung virtues of tolerance. It doesn't matter
| if you were Greek, Gaul, Barbarian, or even Carthigian -
| once a citizen you are fundamentally Roman. Viewing
| nationality as not an immutable accident of birth is
| pretty damn "Roman". Many "modern" issues like Political
| Correctness and Multiculturalism are millenia old and can
| really be better described as "Imperial" Issues. They are
| encountered due to past and present expansionism and and
| broad interactions. Despite the negative connotations not
| everything classified as Imperialism is bad - just as it
| is a mistake to ignore the travesties of empires so is it
| a mistake to ignore its virtues.
|
| Rome had many periods and the dynamics have played out
| before and provided disturbingly apt precedents even with
| the alien trappings and values.
| iheartblocks wrote:
| Can you expand on this?
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| I believe the claim is that the Roman emperors came about
| because the Roman senate became so mired in infighting
| that it was incapable of governing. I'm not a historian,
| but from what I understand, there is at least an element
| of truth in the claim.
| microtherion wrote:
| For a detailed version of this argument, I recommend
| Edward J. Watts' _Mortal Republic_ :
| https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/39088591-mortal-
| republic
| eropple wrote:
| There is a school of thought (with some validity, though
| I think it lacks nuance) that points out that the early
| Roman Empire, the Principate of Augustus until the
| Dominate of Diocletian, _tried_ to empower the Senate.
| The Senate had its set of provinces, the emperor his. The
| _cursus honorum_ was still used to track and groom
| administrators and leaders and the senate 's support
| (balanced against the army and the people of the city of
| Rome generally) still legitimized the emperor. But over
| time, goes this line of thinking, senatorial attention
| and interest fell away somewhat from administrative and
| managerial responsibilities and turned more into a
| social/politicking club, and the emperor "naturally"
| picked up the slack.
|
| There is an element of bias to this, and it often reveals
| a political preference of the author, but it's not
| without _some_ merit.
| hvs wrote:
| I was being a bit glib, and others have expanded better
| than I can on the theory (plus Roman politics is
| complicated) but here's an example of the theory:
| https://www.history.com/news/rome-republic-augustus-
| dictator
| huffmsa wrote:
| That's exactly the problem. Congress is supposed to do the
| majority of the work.
|
| Not the executive, and not he judicial (it's not even well
| defined in the Constitution).
|
| The elected body of representatives is supposed to be where
| the action is.
|
| They've gradually been failing more and more
| rndmize wrote:
| 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?
| calvinmorrison wrote:
| Balkanization is the fastest way to find out what works
| and doesn't and allow for local control and decision
| making, it also makes nice for frequent wars and nutty
| leaders.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| But if Arizona implements a different healthcare system
| than New York, even if each hates the other system, they
| don't get to have a war, because neither of them has a
| military. (OK, they each have their own National Guard
| elements...)
| rndmize wrote:
| Nuttier leaders than what we currently have, you mean? As
| far as I can tell, the US did pretty well with less
| federal power for several hundred years; I don't really
| see how rolling back 50 years of federal policy would
| lead to balkanization.
| wnoise wrote:
| Several hundred?
|
| Two or even three is not usually not considered to be
| several.
| eropple wrote:
| _> Why not scrap most of the social programs, cut federal
| taxes, and let states implement their own?_
|
| Because I'm not really interested in abandoning my fellow
| citizens who lack the means or the support structures to
| leave where they currently are to the tender mercies of
| people who plainly don't give a damn about them.
|
| Even every "red state" has plenty of people in need who
| can't afford to go elsewhere and shouldn't be asked to
| abandon their families and their lives to just not die.
|
| (EDIT: I normally don't respond to killed comments,
| because feeding the trolls sucks, but: I live in
| Massachusetts, dude. I'm _used_ to a state that actually
| works. I wish you all had them too.)
| AnHonestComment wrote:
| This is verging on an ad hominem attack: we need more
| federal powers because _those people_ are awful baby
| killers!
|
| The reality is everyone cares, they just disagree sharply
| on how to solve issues or which issues are priorities --
| to which the solution of several independent approaches
| seems reasonable.
|
| When people in state A see that state B is doing much
| better because of policy X, they can choose to enact
| similar. I'm not sure I understand why they need to be
| compelled to adopt your preferred policies.
|
| It's interesting that you discuss "red states" being in
| need -- but ignore the prolific violence in "blue cities"
| and poor trapped there.
|
| As they say: Cure yourself, doctor.
| ryandrake wrote:
| This is not specific to one party. There is someone out
| there, opposite to you, who says the same thing but
| replace red state with blue state.
|
| The root problem here is the people who insist that their
| political beliefs should be implemented _for everyone in
| the country_ , not just for the people around them who
| agree with those beliefs. This idea that "we can't leave
| anything up to local government because there might be
| some local government out there who disagrees with me" is
| why we have so much federal gridlock.
| eropple wrote:
| Of course there is "another side". They're wrong, but
| they understand it's a fight, and my side still doesn't,
| so kudos to them at least for that.
|
| I don't particularly care about self-inflicted wounds,
| but the splash damage upon the people whose lives they
| make worse in the offing is a damning indictment of this
| conception of federalism.
|
| Shit's broken, and it's broken for the weakest among us,
| and it's only getting worse with the "drown it in a
| bathtub" corps stomping through the White House.
| User23 wrote:
| Is this the same "drown it in a bathtub" corps that
| signed a trillion dollar emergency social welfare
| spending bill a few months ago?
|
| I respectfully submit that you might want to reconsider
| your priors and update them if you want to accurately
| reason about the present state of the USA Republic.
|
| The Trump administration has observably almost fully
| embraced an MMT style social welfare program. The
| sovereign currency denominated deficits don't matter
| position has won. The only thing that's missing is the
| employment backstop, but the $600 a week federal
| unemployment bonus arguably achieves the same fiscal
| effects as paying for busywork.
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| >Because I'm not really interested in abandoning my
| fellow citizens who lack the means or the support
| structures to leave where they currently are to the
| tender mercies of people who plainly don't give a damn
| about them.
|
| >Even every "red state" has plenty of people in need who
| can't afford to go elsewhere and shouldn't be asked to
| abandon their families and their lives to just not die.
|
| >(EDIT: I normally don't respond to killed comments,
| because feeding the trolls sucks, but: I live in
| Massachusetts, dude. I'm used to a state that actually
| works. I wish you all had them too.)
|
| You could write an analogous comment from a perspective
| of "people in the blue states need saving too".
|
| Are you going to be singing that same pro-federal tune if
| issues don't go your way at the federal level?
|
| I live in Massachusetts too. While the burning dollars of
| taxpayers does keep us warm there is no shortage of
| states in the nation that would revolt if it had
| government that "works" the way our government "works".
| People in other states are not so willfully subservient
| to government in the name of the common good as we are.
| We step in line for things that would provoke revolt in
| states with stronger traditions of individualism and
| distrust for government.
|
| We have a limited federal government for a reason.
| Massholes like us have no business telling people
| thousands of miles away with different cultural values
| and different economic circumstances how to live their
| lives. The hell do you or I know about what's best
| Wyoming? Exactly.
| rndmize wrote:
| > Because I'm not really interested in abandoning my
| fellow citizens who lack the means or the support
| structures to leave where they currently are to the
| tender mercies of people who plainly don't give a damn
| about them.
|
| I'd be inclined to agree with you, expect I feel this is
| what got us Obamacare instead of a better system - and
| _even then_, there was a multitude of red states that
| refused to accept the Medicaid expansion, to the harm of
| precisely the people you speak of. Pushing societal
| improvements on states that don't want them feels like
| buying a sandwich for a homeless person and having them
| throw it on the ground, and I no longer feel its worth
| the effort.
| eropple wrote:
| It is tempting to agree with you, but a lot of Americans
| live there that don't deserve to be kicked in the teeth
| by the FYGM parade.
| Paperweight wrote:
| Rural counties are conservative, urban counties are
| liberal, and never the twain shall meet.
|
| I posit that there will always be this conflict until
| cities have a blue federation superimposed on a red
| countryside. But the constitution isn't set up that way.
| Maybe next time.
| rayiner wrote:
| The political disagreements within states are a lot less
| intense than the political disagreements between states.
| Maryland is a solidly blue state at the federal level.
| But we have a Republican governor with a 78% approval
| rating who won a third of Black voters against a Black
| candidate in 2018.
| eropple wrote:
| This can also be reformulated as "rural counties are
| _empty_ " and point to a lot of the agita around much of
| the current political climate, 'cause land having as much
| of a vote as it does is pretty odd.
| zeveb wrote:
| I think we need to reverse the unconstitutional Reynolds
| v. Sims decision which forbids the states from being set
| up like the federal government, with one house elected in
| proportion to population and one house elected
| geographically. The decision itself was rooted in little
| more than pipe dreams and moonshine, and the results are,
| I think, responsible for more than a little of our
| current dysfunction (another huge problem is the
| weakening of the parties themselves -- they used to serve
| as a moderating layer, but no longer do).
| jordanpg wrote:
| 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.
| ColanR wrote:
| > Too slow, too reliant on voluntary compliance, and most
| importantly, too difficult to make decisions with long
| term time horizons.
|
| Not sure you want an efficient, consolidated government
| if the wrong party is leading it.
| WillPostForFood wrote:
| Too large
| rayiner wrote:
| 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.
| paulmd wrote:
| there's nothing wrong with a _federal_ system, the
| problem is specifically with the US 's system and how
| there are too many "veto points". Checks and balances and
| getting policy accomplished are essentially opposing
| goals. If you allow tons of "veto points" where having
| literally any control of any branch of government allows
| you to grind policy to a halt, then getting anything done
| relies hugely on gentlemanly good-faith.
|
| In a two-party system that gentlemanly good faith
| eventually breaks down and you end up with our current
| problem, where you need supermajority control of all
| branches of government to actually do anything, because
| if you lack even one single point of control then party-
| line behavior will allow everything to be ground to a
| halt.
|
| Parliamentary systems are better, there is just one house
| in most cases, and the executive is of the same party as
| the legislature, so when a government forms it has
| consensus and can execute policy. Yes, this is less
| checked-and-balanced, and that's a good thing, because
| accomplishing policy and checks and balances are opposing
| goals. Too much checks and balance and nothing gets done.
| If everything is fine that's great, but our system has
| been deadlocked for 20 years now, things are not great,
| and nothing can be done about it.
|
| And there are still an executive and judicial branches in
| a parliamentary system, it is still a federal system,
| just not the _American_ federal system.
|
| The real "checks and balances" is ultimately voting.
| Having snap elections allows that check to be manifested
| much more readily when the government begins to go off
| the rails of public opinion.
|
| (the queen is actually a very interesting apparatus in
| the british government... apart from having some kind of
| maximum duration between elections, you are dependent on
| someone to decide when to call a snap election. Obviously
| you can't really rely on a government that is completely
| off the rails to call an election on itself, and party
| line voting poses obvious problems. So how do you deal
| with it? An oracle machine (in the crypto sense) that
| exists outside the system and can operate independently
| to decide when to call an election. Which is what the
| queen does, she can dissolve parliament and call an
| election.)
| dredmorbius wrote:
| A conclusion I'm leaning toward is that any sufficiently
| large and complex political system evolves to a focus on
| veto as the principle means of power. The etymology,
| direct from Latin, for "I forbid", is insightful.
|
| https://www.etymonline.com/word/veto
|
| This even appears in technical projects, e.g., Linus
| Torvalds, who's for years been the Linux kernal's "no"
| man:
|
| _[I]n the end, my job is to say no. Somebody has to be
| able to say no to people._
|
| https://linux.slashdot.org/story/20/07/03/2133201/linus-
| torv...
|
| Smaller, simpler systems, with greater levels of trust,
| or greater inequalities of power, seem to avoid this.
| Large ones, not.
|
| I'm sure there's some discussion of this in political
| theory, though I'm unaware of it. Listing out a typology
| of other loci of power would also be interesting.
| krapp wrote:
| >They are supposed to be the most powerful branch of
| government, but instead they have deadlocked themselves
| into uselessness.
|
| That's what many Americans wanted, and voted for. A
| government that governs least governs best, after all.
| Sharlin wrote:
| I... find it rather difficult to believe that a
| sufficient number of Americans coordinated and voted
| strategically over decades in order to intentionally
| bring to existence the current two-party deadlock
| situation.
| nemothekid wrote:
| It's working as designed. The same system that prevents
| Congress from properly voting on PPP Loans is the same
| system that prevents Trump from banning all muslims from
| the country overnight.
|
| I'm not smart enough to know if there is a better
| solution for America.
| lukifer wrote:
| Robin Hanson argues [0] that most of politics is not
| about outcomes; it's about in-group signaling.
|
| [0] http://elephantinthebrain.com/
| krapp wrote:
| What is a political party if not a means of mass
| coordination and strategic voting?
|
| American politics has become less about policy and more
| about ideology and party loyalty over time, and that
| ideology has become more entrenched and unwilling to
| compromise with opponents.
| cgriswald wrote:
| Usually those of us who have voted for less government
| have voted for candidates that haven't even gotten
| elected. People instead are voting for-or-against
| abortion, for-or-against gun control, or whatever other
| never-been-solved issues and then letting their voted-for
| representatives run rampant on nearly every other issue.
| (Never mind the role of the two party system, the anti
| democratic shenanigans in those parties, and the only
| real choice being the lesser of two evils.) Those
| politicians have given us more and more government in the
| form of regulatory bodies, enforcement bodies under the
| umbrella of the executive, and bureaucracy. You may or
| may not like those things but to lay them at the feet of
| people who want less government is absurd.
| Ma8ee wrote:
| A government that doesn't govern leave a power vacuum
| that will be filled. In best case by more local
| governments, but more likely by corporations or mafia
| style organisations.
| unclebucknasty wrote:
| It's a myth that a significant number of people want less
| government. What they really want is a government that
| does their bidding.
| Nasrudith wrote:
| While congress is idle and obstructionist in a way of
| refusing to allow votes as opposed to "most bills get a
| failing vote even after ammendments" I wonder how much of
| the dysfunction is a matter of failing to scale governance.
| tiles wrote:
| Weirdly, Mazars actually shrinks what I believed was the
| scope of Congressional power, where in the one instance the
| House actually attempted to exert equal balance, there now
| exists a four-part test for validity of presidential
| subpeonas. Congressional power is squeezed from all sides
| whenever exerted.
| tmountain wrote:
| The filibuster doesn't help the situation and seems like a
| mechanism designed to encourage obstruction. Until we do
| away with it, I fear we'll be stuck with the status quo.
| jki275 wrote:
| The filibuster forces consensus. It's hard to get a ten
| vote majority if you're arguing strictly along party
| lines.
| mcv wrote:
| The real problem is that there are just two parties that
| hate each other to the core. In a multi-party system,
| parties would be forced to compromise and find agreement
| with other parties, and this would become normal.
|
| So get rid of congressional districts and instead fill
| the House according to proportional representation.
| jorblumesea wrote:
| Congress merely reflects the candidates that we elect and
| the underlying political sentiments of their constituents.
| Since they serve shorter terms than judges and are more
| localized than the President, it's hardly surprising that
| they are more impacted by the political divide.
|
| If Americans cannot agree on anything, therefore, congress
| cannot either. People blame congress, but it's the American
| people who are ultimately responsible.
| ISL wrote:
| 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 Congress reaches approximate agreement on an issue,
| particularly an emerging one, it can move _fast_. See the
| passage of the PATRIOT Act or the recent move to spend more
| than $1,000,000,000,000 on COVID-19 economic relief.
| mtgx wrote:
| 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).
| x0x0 wrote:
| It's not an artifact of division necessarily -- it's that
| the US government, structurally, has an extraordinarily
| high number of veto points.
|
| eg in federal legislation: the House (majority); the
| Senate, representing increasingly tiny numbers of
| Americans (supermajority, often: cloture); the president,
| and the supreme court.
|
| Ezra Klein wrote a book about it.
| https://simonandschusterpublishing.com/why-were-
| polarized/
| conception wrote:
| I think there are perceived deep divides but those are
| mostly fictional. e.g. a number of conservatives like the
| ACA but hate Obamamcare. Propaganda is doing its job of
| keeping the electorate divided, even if a large number of
| our aims are actually aligned.
| busterarm wrote:
| 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.
| mikepurvis wrote:
| Tim Alberta's excellent book "American Carnage" covers
| this period in detail-- the closest thing to a short
| answer on it is that the Freedom Caucus is essentially a
| second party inside the Republican party, and are
| hardwired into a scorched earth mode where they vote no
| to anything that has even a whiff of compromise to it.
|
| This time was an extraordinary humiliation for Paul Ryan
| in particular because it should have been an opportunity
| to get lots of ideologically-motivated things done really
| quickly, and yet they failed to achieve even incremental
| progress on Trump's top legislative priorities, like
| repealing the ACA and securing funding for the wall.
| simonh wrote:
| The problem there was although they were stated to be
| priorities, neither Trump nor the Republican caucuses in
| Congress or the Senate actually thought either things
| were a good idea. Those weren't ideologically motivated
| objectives, they were publicity motivated positions.
| mikepurvis wrote:
| Okay, fair, but the end result is still a two year tenure
| starting in 2016 where the whole federal government was
| until Republican control, and almost no progress was made
| on anything. The big achievement was passing a set of
| unfunded tax cuts-- it's got to be pretty devastating for
| that to be the high point of a career (Ryan's) built on
| being a deficit hawk.
| aeternum wrote:
| 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
| just a simple majority.
| jfengel wrote:
| "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".
| Supermancho wrote:
| > it leads to tyranny of the majority
|
| This is the overall design.
| jfengel wrote:
| The design incorporates the idea that we're going to
| behave with some sense of compassion and justice. There
| are, famously, four boxes of liberty[1], and if the
| majority uses the first three to the detriment of the
| minority, we'll find ourselves the target of the fourth.
|
| So out of simple self interest it behooves us not to just
| say "the status quo should be hard to change". When we
| see an injustice, we should fight to change it, even when
| it's not to our own immediate advantage.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_boxes_of_liberty
| brobdingnagians wrote:
| The Federalist Papers #10 [1] deals with this. The
| original design was made very different and was intended
| to blunt the force of tyranny by majority by splitting
| power centers. One major issue is that over the
| centuries, the system was changed to be like what Fed #10
| warned about.
|
| It is an amazing read, but the things that stand out to
| me are these.
|
| 1. Have diffuse/decentralized power centers to make it
| harder for special interest groups to gain power and
| control things. The last two centuries have had a
| tendency to move power from states to federal government;
| and from Congress to the President. So the balance of
| power has centralized.
|
| 2. Avoid a direct democracy because they tend to get
| subjected to demagogues. The direct election of senators
| was a major turning point in helping centralize power;
| since states became more and more irrelevant.
|
| I am always impressed by how much Madison understood the
| nuances of political power and tyranny.
|
| [1] https://billofrightsinstitute.org/founding-
| documents/primary...
| joquarky wrote:
| Wouldn't that just be direct democracy with extra steps?
| aeternum wrote:
| The only thing worse than the tyranny of the majority is
| the tyranny of a minority (oligarchy).
|
| Generally though, I agree with you that we should all
| strive to vote for the greater good. We should fight
| against injustices even if they do not directly affect
| us.
|
| I think that many of the issues come down to differing
| views of what more just: IE employment opportunities for
| a citizen vs. an immigrant, rights of a criminal vs. a
| victim, autonomy over one's body vs. a potential life.
| Those don't have easy answers.
| rhizome wrote:
| How much activity do you expect from a party whose
| organizing principle is to shrink government small enough
| to be drowned in a bathtub?
| bluGill wrote:
| Maybe shrink government?
|
| You might not agree with the principle, but given they
| haven't done much shrinking you cannot call it their
| principle.
| krapp wrote:
| It is their principle, they just prefer to shrink the
| parts of government they disagree with ideologically.
| Which is why we have the biggest, most powerful and most
| expensive military in human history but our healthcare
| and education systems are a joke.
| evan_ wrote:
| Jokes are supposed to be funny, our health care and
| education are tragedies
| rbanffy wrote:
| Interestingly, shrinking the government doesn't seem to
| affect the military...
| rayiner wrote:
| First, it has: https://foreignpolicy.com/wp-
| content/uploads/2019/01/dod_cha.... As a fraction of the
| economy, military spending is a little over one-third of
| what it was the year I was born. It's actually pretty
| much the only part of government that _has_ shrunk.
|
| Second, the military is one of the few aspects of
| government that's clearly supposed to be done at a
| federal level. Why do you think there is anything
| inconsistent about conservatives not cutting back
| government uniformly?
| Supermancho wrote:
| > Why do you think there is anything inconsistent about
| conservatives not cutting back government uniformly?
|
| There are 2 things that are not being taken into account.
|
| First, historic trends are not reversed by relatively
| recent changes in allocation to the US military.
|
| Second relatively recent changes in military utility of
| manpower vs aircraft vs cruise missile has made certain
| kinds of spending obsolete. A modern, effective military
| does not require the same logistics anymore, so of course
| spending has gone down.
|
| There is nothing inconsistent about conservatives
| (Republicans) expanding military spending, as they always
| have and will continue to do so within the bounds of
| recommendations from the industrial military complex.
| sangnoir wrote:
| Without knowing your age - I'm guessing you were born
| during the cold war/before the fall of the Berlin Wall
| (or at some point in the immediate aftermath). That event
| alone (and not some small government principle) was
| responsible for less military money allocated to
| counteracting the specter of a Soviet world order
| Mediterraneo10 wrote:
| > Second, the military is one of the few aspects of
| government that's clearly supposed to be done at a
| federal level.
|
| According to the 18th-century conception, the army indeed
| becomes a federal concern in wartime, but on an everyday
| peacetime basis, the training of soldiers was supposed to
| be done within militias regulated by the states.
| rayiner wrote:
| On education, we spend among the most per student in
| absolute terms on K-12 and right at the OECD average as a
| fraction of the economy:
| https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/figures/images/figure-
| cmd-3...
|
| As a portion of the economy, just our public spending on
| healthcare is higher than the OECD average public
| spending: https://www.oecd.org/media/oecdorg/satellitesit
| es/newsroom/4...
| rhizome wrote:
| Now weight those rankings with each country's military
| spending.
| rayiner wrote:
| Why? Because we spend somewhat more on the military as a
| percentage of GDP, we should spend more on everything
| else too?
| brandmeyer wrote:
| This is a great example of the flaw of using averages in
| an unbalanced society. Some wealthy districts spend far
| above the OECD average, while many poor districts are
| grossly under-funded (and under-achieving).
| timgilbert wrote:
| > Instead, it is evidence that there is bipartisan
| support for educational spending, but with uneven
| beneficiaries.
|
| I'd see it rather as evidence that most educational
| spending happens at the state and local level, not the
| federal level.
|
| https://www.usgovernmentspending.com/education_spending
| rayiner wrote:
| On a state-by-state level, rich districts do not spend
| more than poor districts:
| https://apps.urban.org/features/school-funding-do-poor-
| kids-...
|
| Obviously high-cost states spend more than low-cost
| states. But their education spending is consistent with
| the size of their economies. Mississippi has a GSP per
| capita of $35,000 and spends $8,700 per student. Italy,
| Spain, and New Zealand have similar GDP per capita and
| also spend a similar amount per student.
| wutbrodo wrote:
| Thank you, the claim that our educational outcomes are
| poor due to underfunding is a huge pet peeve of mine.
|
| Its really terrifying to see people confidently and
| passionately argue about politics while pulling their
| "facts" from an alternate universe.
| Nasrudith wrote:
| I would say that the discourse is insufficently precise
| in accounting for variables as well. One complication
| found is also that the better off need less funding in
| the first place. Which makes some sense upon reflection -
| parents who are illiterate in the local language for
| whatever reason would be incapable of providing
| "baseline" assistance in knowledge transmission. Asking
| for 100% equal outcomes would clearly result in a
| procrustean bed but counterintuitively equal opportunity
| does not require equal input costs as convenient as it
| would be.
|
| This awkwardly also highlights ignored externalities and
| implied awkward questions in ways essentially nobody is
| comfortable is with the implications of especially
| regarding free choice and perverse incentives where the
| "best" option still has messed up implications.
| pen2l wrote:
| Strictly speaking what you're saying is true, but it
| ignores other realities of the association of wealth and
| education outcomes which are implied when folks are
| talking about these subjects.
|
| One of the best places in America to get education
| happens to be free: the public school system of Lexington
| [1]. But you'd be hard-pressed to get a house there for
| less than a million. Secondly, every other student in
| Lexington happens to have private instructors on the
| side. It's funny, if you randomly walk into a Starbucks
| in Lexington, chances are very highly you'll see an elder
| person with a young person training for standardized
| exams.
|
| [1]: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/04/29/upsho
| t/money-...
| wutbrodo wrote:
| The thread is about government (specifically, the
| congressional gop) underfunding education spending. The
| effects of parental wealth on educational outcomes is a
| complete non sequitur.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| Sure, but that is not evidence that republicans have
| shrunk educational spending.
|
| Instead, it is evidence that there is bipartisan support
| for educational spending, but with uneven beneficiaries.
|
| This is a different issue and the solutions to the first
| problem are not the solutions to the second.
|
| Last, this isn't really a partisan federal issue. Most
| school spending is determined the state or local level
| and the same inequality is present in predominantly red
| and blue states.
| brandmeyer wrote:
| > it is evidence that there is bipartisan support for
| educational spending,
|
| That does not correspond with the rhetoric that I've
| seen. Republicans are adamantly opposed to increasing
| spending for public education, and have systematically
| cut support for higher education spending in state
| budgets. Instead, I regularly see the meme that there's
| tons of fat in the education system; that we spend just
| as much as everyone else, but have worse outcomes. The
| fault is in the schools for not spending what they have
| wisely enough.
|
| And I think that the funding story is flatly untrue.
| Because the dominant source of public education funding
| is from local taxes, there are vast differences in the
| per-student level of funding across the country.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| >Because the dominant source of public education funding
| is from local taxes, there are vast differences in the
| per-student level of funding across the country.
|
| This is what I said as well. There is also vast
| difference in per-student spending within blue states and
| blue counties. This is evidence that the problem crosses
| party lines.
| rayiner wrote:
| > And I think that the funding story is flatly untrue.
| Because the dominant source of public education funding
| is from local taxes, there are vast differences in the
| per-student level of funding across the country.
|
| This is patently false. Local governments provide 45% of
| K-12 educational spending. State governments spend 47%
| and the federal government spends 8%: https://www.urban.o
| rg/sites/default/files/styles/optimized_d.... State and
| federal funding go overwhelmingly to erasing the
| disparities in local funding.
|
| Look at the funding numbers in your own state. Here is
| mine: https://i2.wp.com/conduitstreet.mdcounties.org/wp-
| content/up.... The funding differences are based on cost
| of living, not local income. My solidly middle/upper
| middle class county has spending near the bottom because
| it's pretty rural. Baltimore which is very poor has among
| the highest. Montgomery and Prince George's, which are
| opposite sides of the income spectrum, get almost the
| same amount of funding. You can also see in that chart
| how differences in local funding are more than
| compensated for by differences in state funding.
| brandmeyer wrote:
| > State and federal funding go overwhelmingly to erasing
| the disparities in local funding.
|
| And it isn't enough. Not even close.
|
| Boulder Valley: 13.8k/student. Pueblo: 10.5k/ea. Fort
| Morgan: 9.5k/student. Those are sufficiently widely
| varying that looking at "average spending" paints an
| inaccurate picture.
|
| Durham public schools: 10.5k/ea. Chapel-Hill/Carrboro:
| 15k/ea.
|
| https://ballotpedia.org/Analysis_of_spending_in_America%2
| 7s_...
|
| Range of total spending per student spreads by over a
| factor of 4x.
| rayiner wrote:
| First, you look at the whole country, there is in fact
| not a difference in most states:
| https://apps.urban.org/features/school-funding-do-poor-
| kids-...
|
| Second, I'm not sure what your Colorado example is
| supposed to prove. Boulder is a much more expensive city
| than Pueblo. Land for schools is cheaper, salaries are
| lower, etc. Those costs seem roughly comparable
| accounting for local costs.
|
| Third, comparing spending across states is deeply
| misleading. The cost of schooling in Idaho (which makes
| up several of the lowest spending school districts in
| your link) bears little relation to the cost of schooling
| in New York (which makes up several of the highest
| spending school districts in your link). The irony of
| your example is that Idaho spends about 1/3 of what New
| York spends per student, and Idaho students outperform
| New York students: https://www.sde.idaho.gov/assessment/n
| aep/files/general/naep...
|
| Fourth, even the low spending school districts in your
| examples spend more than European countries:
| https://www.statista.com/statistics/381745/education-
| expendi.... School spending in London is about $7,402 per
| student. That's substantially less than Pueblo or Durham,
| and only a bit more than the state average for Idaho
| ($7,100). I guarantee you that money goes a hell of a lot
| further in Durham or Boise than London!
| brandmeyer wrote:
| And yet, we still can't afford 5 full days per week of
| school. 60% of all districts in our state only have
| funding for 4 days per week. Many of the remainder are on
| 4.5 days/week.
|
| > Third, comparing spending across states is deeply
| misleading.
|
| This is why you cannot use averages to talk about school
| funding relative to the rest of the OECD. That's my
| point. You asked for statistics in my state. I gave them,
| in my most recent two states of residence.
| rhizome wrote:
| I don't know how you're reading all of that into my
| comment, but my point is that the members of a political
| party dedicated to shrinking government to nothing isn't
| going to do much work. _That 's the shrinking._
| jki275 wrote:
| Republicans don't want to shrink the government any more
| than Democrats do.
|
| They just want to spend the money that doesn't exist on
| different things.
| rudolph9 wrote:
| I wish people could take a step back from the "shrink
| government" debate and focus on making laws more
| effective and efficient.
|
| I could write a piece of code that adds two numbers but
| takes two days and all available memory to compute the
| result.
|
| A lot of laws are on all levels of government from both
| sides of the isle are well intentioned but the costs
| surrounding the laws are prohibitive.
|
| That doesn't imply we need less laws, that doesn't imply
| we don't have enough laws, it means we need to take a
| hard look at where the bottlenecks are and streamline the
| process and to achieve the desired result.
| nostromo wrote:
| Because they knew most things they wanted to do would be
| vetoed. As such, the bills that went forward had Obama's
| support from the get go.
|
| This is separation of powers at work and is a good thing.
|
| Edit: the comment above was edited to change the congress
| and dates in question
| SubiculumCode wrote:
| If you look at the our American history, you will find
| that changes in party power happen much more frequently
| than it had in the first two centuries of the U.S. For
| many epochs of a decade or more, one party tended to hold
| sway in both houses of congress and the presidency,
| allowing much to get accomplished. Switches in party
| control of government usually followed rises in
| corruption/ineffectiveness that can happen to those who
| remain in power too long. In the last several decades,
| party control switches back and forth rapidly.
| busterarm wrote:
| In 2017, Trump was President...They didn't get voted out
| in the House until 2018.
| nostromo wrote:
| The 114th congress served entirely under Obama. Please
| read the comment I responded to.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/114th_United_States_Congres
| s
| busterarm wrote:
| Typo. 115th. Still Republican/Republican. I gather you
| know this but are splitting hairs.
| nostromo wrote:
| Unfortunately I haven't developed the ability to read
| minds just yet.
| [deleted]
| jki275 wrote:
| Calling it a Republican House and Senate doesn't really
| do justice to the entire argument.
|
| Yes, Congress is ineffective -- I think that's almost
| become an axiom at this point.
|
| But it is often ineffective because of the rules it has
| adopted itself. The filibuster was removed for federal
| justices, and guess what? I think it's nearly 200
| justices confirmed in the last three years, and while I
| don't remember the exact number during previous
| congresses I believe it's significantly higher.
|
| As already noted, the filibuster is the root of a lot of
| this, but should the filibuster go away? McConnell
| famously told Reid he was going to pay for removing it,
| and he's made good on that promise, essentially
| transforming the entire federal judiciary with the power
| he was given. I view the filibuster as a check on the
| power of a tiny fractional majority -- should one party
| totally control everything that happens with a single
| vote majority? That essentially ignores the concerns of
| the rest. The filibuster at least forces some consensus
| building.
|
| Better would be to have more than two parties. But how we
| could ever get there now I have no idea, the two parties
| in power have no intent of giving it up, and most people
| quite frankly are too stupid to even be bothered to vote,
| and those that do might be even more stupid in some ways.
| "Congress" is bad, "my congressperson" is the greatest
| ever because they get me money, and that seems to be the
| guiding principle for people voting these days. Maybe it
| always has been.
| ScottBurson wrote:
| The only way we'll get a viable third party is to change
| our voting system. Allowing a voter to vote for only one
| of several candidates locks us into a two-party system,
| because it requires the voter to vote _against_ all but
| one candidate.
|
| Approval Voting simply allows the voter to vote for or
| against each candidate independently. (The instruction is
| to "vote for all candidates you approve of" -- hence the
| name.) "One person, one vote" becomes "one person, one
| candidate, one vote".
|
| Instant-Runoff Voting (aka Ranked-Choice Voting, though
| there are other ranked-choice systems) is getting more
| buzz these days than Approval Voting, but AV is superior:
| much simpler to implement, easier to understand, and much
| less likely to return an anomalous result.
|
| For more info: https://www.electionscience.org/
| votepaunchy wrote:
| Without eliminating the filibuster the Senate can only
| pass bills with a simple majority by the extremely
| limited reconciliation process.
| caymanjim wrote:
| Filibuster is almost never used. It's occasionally
| threatened, frequently used as an excuse for not even
| trying, but rarely used. If it were used more often, it
| would elevate the debate around the bills under
| consideration. Congress doesn't even try.
| jki275 wrote:
| The threat of a filibuster is enough to make it not
| worthwhile to bring legislation to the floor. "debate" is
| pointless when everyone's mind is made up.
| coredog64 wrote:
| The filibuster doesn't need to be eliminated. It can
| serve it's purpose if we hold to the original
| implementation: Make members read the phone book on the
| floor on Sunday morning at 2am instead of requiring 60
| votes to end debate.
| woeirua wrote:
| Eh... I'm not sure about that. When Democrats had control
| of both houses + the presidency in 2008, they actually
| got some stuff done (which included the ACA).
|
| The problem with the 115th Congress is that Republicans
| have done a good job getting their base to believe that
| various policies are bad for the country, but when push
| comes to shove even they recognize that: 1 - they have no
| viable alternative, and 2 - that said policies are better
| than nothing.
|
| You should not conflate one party's inability to govern
| with Congress being dysfunctional overall. When the Dems
| get control of all branches of government again, I fully
| expect to see the logjam clear up for at least a few
| years.
| dantheman wrote:
| 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.
| mbreese wrote:
| 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.
| mywittyname wrote:
| > In retrospect, this strategy turned out to be pretty
| effective.
|
| You think so? It lasted all of fourteen years and did
| very little to stop the flow of alcohol throughout the
| country. And I believe it's the only amendment to have
| been repealed.
|
| If it were a legislative action, rather than an
| amendment, I suspect it would have been more effective in
| the long term since legislation is usually more thorough
| and detailed than constitutional amendments.
| rudolph9 wrote:
| I think their referring to the 2/3 of the house and
| senate that voted for it and 3/4 of states ratified it.
|
| Weather or not the law had the desired effect relative to
| hypothetical legislative action is an open debate but
| undoubtedly could be overturned with less votes.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > If alcohol was prohibited through legislative action,
|
| Which it was, by the (post-Armistice, pre-18th-Amendment-
| ratification) "Wartime Prohibition Act".
| wahern wrote:
| Sure it did. In the 1910s Congress' Commerce Clause
| powers wouldn't have encompassed purely intrastate
| commercial activity. The legal landscape was already
| changing, slowly, but in no way would a national law have
| been effective without a constitutional amendment. Heck,
| at that time the Supreme Court interpreted the ratified
| Prohibition Amendment _not_ to apply to homemade liquor
| for personal consumption, despite the plain text of the
| amendment.[1] Compare that to Gonzales v. Raich (2005)
| where the Supreme Court permitted Congress to regulate,
| under Commerce Clause powers alone, homegrown marijuana
| for purely personal use.
|
| Perhaps the line of reasoning you're alluding to is that,
| at the time, state and local prohibition laws were
| already so common that the Prohibition Amendment
| shouldn't have changed the effective legality of alcohol
| consumption for most Americans. But to maintain the
| status quo in perpetuity, locking in Temperance Movement
| reforms without defectors slowly eating them away, a
| national law was desirable.
|
| [1] I'm still looking for the citation, but IIRC the
| reasoning was that the court wouldn't interpret the
| amendment to reach private, non-commercial activity
| unless it was explicit on that point; it wasn't just a
| cop-out textualist dance with the word "manufacture".
| mbreese wrote:
| That is a far more well thought out argument than mine.
|
| _> But to maintain the status quo in perpetuity, locking
| in Temperance Movement reforms without defectors slowly
| eating them away, a national law was desirable._
|
| But overall yes -- this what what I was referring to.
| Even if I wasn't clear on the state vs federal level, the
| overall argument that I've seen is that the proponents of
| prohibition wanted to increase the difficulty of rolling
| back prohibition. And if alcohol was banned through
| legislation, it would just take a single election (state
| or federal, depending on the law) to change things back.
| nostromo wrote:
| Your comment seems self-conflicting.
|
| As you note, when congress sees an urgent problem worth
| solving, they move quickly.
|
| When I read, "congress is abdicating its responsibility",
| it seems to me people are just upset a law they like
| wasn't passed.
|
| In other words, people want a dictator they agree with,
| rather than taking the time and effort to change the
| minds of their fellow citizens on any given issue.
|
| Besides, inaction is often the best path to take,
| particularly when there isn't a clear winning idea.
| enchiridion wrote:
| I tend to agree with this. Some complain about the size
| and complexity of federal law, but also want more federal
| law.
| TigeriusKirk wrote:
| Political parties have very intentionally created the
| deep divides in the electorate. It's not something that
| just happened, it was something that was made to occur
| for the benefit of the politicians.
|
| So I'm still putting the blame right on them.
| monocularvision wrote:
| The power of political parties has _greatly declined_ in
| the last 50 years. Do you think perhaps more powerful
| parties had a longer-term outlook and were more willing
| to compromise?
|
| Personally I don't think the decline in Congressional
| power has a single cause. But the decline of political
| party power is surely one.
| brandmeyer wrote:
| > 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.
| nostrademons wrote:
| The opportunity probably isn't for an existing political
| party to move to the center - it's for a third party to
| come _up_ the center, capitalize on the two major parties
| being so obsessed with making the other lose that they
| can 't articulate a clear reason why they should win, and
| capture the voters who have become cynical about politics
| altogether.
| kelnos wrote:
| I wonder if the voters would have a lasting appeal for
| this, though. While I would appreciate more consensus-
| building and agreement in our government, there are quite
| a few left-leaning positions that I will just not budge
| on, and consider the centrist approach on them to be just
| tolerance of and pandering to bigots. Not sure how many
| share that attitude, but I bet there are quite a few on
| both sides of the aisle.
| redblacktree wrote:
| This will likely require some form of ranked-choice
| voting.
| buzzerbetrayed wrote:
| If there is something that both the left and right
| leadership can agree on, it is that there will never be
| ranked choice voting. It benefits the Democrats and
| Republicans (the leadership) to have a 2 party system. So
| I don't see either of them trying to change that.
| lostapathy wrote:
| I agree completely. I really think the current state of
| affairs is the only likely conclusion of a winner takes
| all system in a society with instant, nationwide
| communication.
|
| Not voting for someone who can win is "wasting your vote"
| so people won't do that. Which, essentially, locks us
| into two parties. When the two parties know they are safe
| from a third, they're naturally going to be driven by the
| extremes and not the middle ground, because the national,
| fast-paced media lives off controversy between the
| extremes, which just ratchets it up farther.
|
| IMO, the fact that we had political parties rise and fall
| (via third parties) in the past was more a historical
| artifact of not having a national, near-instant media to
| make sure things were polarized the same way nationally,
| nor could they let you know that a third party vote was a
| waste. In a sense it was more like local politics today,
| in that things weren't uniformly hyper-partisan, and a
| third party could make headway regionally and become a
| real contender before the rest of the country knew they
| were a wasted vote.
| anderskaseorg wrote:
| Although ranked-choice voting (more precisely, instant-
| runoff voting) is a step in the right direction, it will
| not solve this problem. Yes, it lets voters safely
| express maximum support for a third-party candidate
| that's guaranteed to lose. But as soon as that candidate
| gains enough support to become a viable threat to the two
| major parties, the game theory doesn't work out so
| nicely.
|
| Approval voting is a much simpler system that gives
| better results.
|
| https://www.electionscience.org/library/the-spoiler-
| effect/
| lostapathy wrote:
| Don't fool yourself - both sides think the other is
| guilty of this.
| BoiledCabbage wrote:
| But yet again, while both sides may feel this way, when
| measured objectively (as has been done) it's shown that
| almost all of the sudden polarization of the past 30
| years has come from the right continuously moving further
| right.
| sam_goody wrote:
| > when measured objectively (as has been done)
|
| Citation needed.
|
| I have seen this claim about the left at least as much as
| about the right. I would definitely appreciate someone
| who could bring facts to the discussion.
|
| And a one sided list of things that party X did is just
| emotion.
|
| (Also, a good rule in honest debate is to never argue
| unless you have at least two advantages to the opposing
| position. Such that I hate Windows, but I wish Linux had
| their GUI... This helps bridge the "us" and "them", and
| gets to a much more accurate result)
| bananabreakfast wrote:
| Look at the number of filibusters executed by party over
| time.
|
| The republicans have led for decades. They are
| responsible for each vast increase, especially during
| Obama. Always pushing it further and further toward
| nothing getting done in the name of never compromising.
| lostapathy wrote:
| Have they really moved farther right, or do they seem
| farther to the right since a lot of politics have moved
| to the left over that time? See same sex marriage, for
| example.
| Majromax wrote:
| A 2011-era FiveThirtyEight article
| (https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-liberal-is-
| presiden...) looked at average DW-NOMINATE scores over
| time for the House of Representatives. Its conclusion
| was:
|
| > According to the system, both parties have been on a
| trajectory toward more "extreme" positions since roughly
| 1970, the natural result of which is more polarization.
| However, the parties do not quite share equal
| responsibility for this: Republicans have moved about
| twice as much to the right as Democrats have to the left.
| Also, while the Democrats' leftward shift was essentially
| a one-off event, the result of many moderate, Southern
| Democrats losing their seats in the early 1990s, the
| Republicans' rightward transition has been continuous and
| steady.
|
| Although to caution too-credulous interpretation, the DW-
| NOMINATE scores are derived from roll-call votes, so they
| may be biased by the issues brought up for such votes.
| digitaltrees wrote:
| People can think whatever they, that doesn't make it
| real. Your argument is a false equivalence. Even if both
| sides do it, it's not of the same proportion and that
| matters.
|
| Objectively, Republicans are not compromising, they are
| often explicit that they are waging a scorched earth zero
| compromise negotiating style. The heritage foundation
| wrote the template for the ACA in the 70s as an
| alternative to Medicare expansion. It was then Bob Dole's
| plan when he ran against Bill Clinton, and was Dole's
| alternative to Clinton's health plan. Then Romney passed
| it in Massachusetts. But when Obama consciously tries to
| compromise and meet in the middle instead of
| participating they say it's communism. They spent a
| decade to repeal a plan they invented.
|
| Similar with global warming. Cap and trade was a
| republican idea. Where have they compromised? Instead
| they are demonizing all of science to shift the
| conversation to absurdity.
|
| How about the 2008 stimulus. Obama has to fight tooth an
| nail for 800 billion even though economists say the
| output gap is $1.5 Trillion and the stimulus needs to be
| bigger. But Obama agrees thinking when it's clear more is
| needed more will be available. He underestimated how much
| Mitch meant it when he said "the single objective is to
| make Obama a one term president" and was willing to let
| the economy struggle if needed. Then Trump gets $3
| trillion with Democrats compromising all over the place.
| colde wrote:
| The republicans effectively demonised the ACA, even
| though it was basically the compromise position (as it
| was quite similar to what Mitt Romney did in
| Massachusetts). I would love some examples of democrats
| doing that.
| [deleted]
| kec wrote:
| Gun control and the "Gun Show loophole" comes to mind.
| Avoiding background checks for private transfer was the
| compromise position for requiring background checks for
| sales from FFLs.
| lostapathy wrote:
| Very much this. There hasn't been a gun rights
| "compromise" (or proposal for one) where democrats gave
| anything back in congress in ... well never. It's always
| more restrictions of existing rights.
|
| Compromise implies both sides give and take, and in the
| case of gun rights, democrats have only taken.
| dougmany wrote:
| I know a lot of liberal gun owning people. I have a hunch
| this is like environmental issues. I think many
| conservative want to support environmental issues but
| since it clashes with more government control, it get's
| thrown under the bus.
| ardy42 wrote:
| > I know a lot of liberal gun owning people. I have a
| hunch this is like environmental issues. I think many
| conservative want to support environmental issues but
| since it clashes with more government control, it get's
| thrown under the bus.
|
| The American political system doesn't support a la carte
| ordering, it only has prix fixe options. If your priority
| is some main course, you might not be able to get the
| side you want with it.
| efreak wrote:
| To make things worse, your main course might well be a
| side course; the thing you want might well be sacrificed
| for something else.
| kelnos wrote:
| I think the problem here is that the left has learned
| that compromise positions leave gaping holes in the legal
| framework to the point that the laws that do get passed
| become largely useless.
|
| Sure, we can compromise on the background check
| requirements such that certain types of sales don't
| require background checks... well, ok, but then that just
| means that the people who would fail a background check
| will buy privately or from a gun show, and their access
| isn't really diminished, so the so-called "compromise"
| was little better than not passing a law at all.
|
| It still boggles my mind that if I want to drive a car, I
| have to be tested and licensed, and carry insurance, but
| if I want to buy a device specifically designed to kill,
| I can just walk into a store, and after any weak legally-
| mandated waiting period, walk out with a gun I don't even
| know how to use, let alone use safely.
|
| And all this because it has to do with an amendment to
| the constitution that was never intended to mean what
| people have since "decided" it means. The current legal
| interpretation of 2A only exists because of lobbying
| groups like the NRA.
| kec wrote:
| > well, ok, but then that just means that the people who
| would fail a background check will buy privately or from
| a gun show, and their access isn't really diminished, so
| the so-called "compromise" was little better than not
| passing a law at all.
|
| This is a gross misunderstanding of the law. If you run a
| firearms business, you must have an FFL. If you have an
| FFL your must perform background checks for transfers
| regardless of where they occur.
|
| Private party transfers are only from one non-dealer to
| another and must be infrequent / not a source of income
| for you. Purchasing a gun on behalf of another (such as
| to avoid checks) is called a straw purchase and is
| illegal regardless.
| alasdair_ wrote:
| >Very much this. There hasn't been a gun rights
| "compromise" (or proposal for one) where democrats gave
| anything back in congress in ... well never. It's always
| more restrictions of existing rights.
|
| This is actually a very good point. I wonder what the
| response would be to a Democrat-authored bill that (say)
| demanded universal background checks and proof of a
| firearms safety course completion and mandatory insurance
| like a driver's license that ALSO banned any restrictions
| on large magazine size and removed any restrictions on
| fully-automatic weapons, or something similar.
| R0b0t1 wrote:
| Seeing how compromise didn't work and the history of
| abuse some of the restrictions you gave have seen (i.e.
| poor availability of classes, failure to issue in
| reasonable time, concerns about abuse of psychiatric
| diagnoses, or attaching a monetary cost to the exercise
| of a right) many will no longer settle for anything but
| the repeal of all restrictions on the right to bear arms.
|
| Imagine carrying free speech insurance.
|
| Most accept drivers licenses however the constitution
| grants the absolute right to travel in the same way it
| grants the right to speech. This has actually been used
| by the ACLU in an attempt to challenge no-fly lists, and
| hopefully drivers licenses will also be challenged.
| bananabreakfast wrote:
| That's... nearly entirely false?
|
| America has by far the most relaxed gun laws in the
| western world. Most other countries simply ban ownership
| of most guns outright.
|
| The current situation IS the compromise. And it's pretty
| stupid I agree. But, there are no states that ban guns
| and plenty of them want to.
|
| There is no hyper political, highly targeted, industry
| funded political action group just like the NRA on the
| side of banning guns.
|
| After every mass shooting in this country democrats have
| to fight tooth and nail to get even a tiny consideration
| of regulation in response to human tragedy. And even that
| usually fails. In what world is that rational? In what
| world is that not compromise from the left?
| lostapathy wrote:
| Our country was founded with gun rights, and 100 years
| ago gun ownership was nearly unrestricted. Our country is
| unique in the fact that we have a constitutional right to
| arms - most don't.
|
| At every step, law-abiding gun owners have given up
| rights and gotten nothing in return.
|
| The great irony, to me, is that almost all of the
| "successful" gun/weapon control campaigns have been
| rooted in nearly blatant racism. Yet repealing those laws
| born of racism isn't something the left is willing to
| entertain.
| joshuamorton wrote:
| > Our country was founded with gun rights, and 100 years
| ago gun ownership was nearly unrestricted.
|
| Supreme court opinion on gun ownership was that it could
| be far more restricted (and it was in many cases!) until
| Heller.
| lostapathy wrote:
| That only started with Miller, which was about 100 years
| ago and also a pretty good example of justice not being
| served.
|
| Miller was dead by the time his case was decided, nobody
| argued his side, and the courts argument was was
| dishonest at best.
| kelnos wrote:
| > _Our country was founded with gun rights_
|
| No, it wasn't. The current legal interpretation that most
| gun-rights advocates swear by has existed for a
| relatively short time, after the lobbying efforts of
| groups like the NRA.
| kec wrote:
| > There is no hyper political, highly targeted, industry
| funded political action group just like the NRA on the
| side of banning guns.
|
| You may be unaware because this isn't an important issue
| to you but just off the top of my head the Brady
| Campaign, Everytown for Gun Safety and the Coalition to
| Stop Gun Violence all have major financial backing and
| support firearm bans in one form or another.
| roenxi wrote:
| Putting aside a lot of nuance and complication, both
| parties have an 'ideal state' in mind. They will make
| decisions that move the law closer to that ideal state.
| It'll be happening all the time, neither of them think
| the ideal state is compromising with the other.
|
| And if you want an example of the Democrats doing
| something similar, maybe the immigration situation? It is
| also nuanced and complicated, but the appearance isn't
| that the Democrats are consistently working to uphold the
| consensus position as found in the law. There is a lot of
| demonising.
| wutbrodo wrote:
| Would same-sex civil unions count? Or women and gay
| people in the military? There are a ton of social issues
| that society has moved dramatically leftward on; the fact
| that I agree with them doesn't mean I'm unable to step
| outside of my biases and understand why a conservative
| could just as easily make the claim that the left is
| intransigent.
| dougmany wrote:
| But we are not seeing further-to-the-left arguments on
| marriage rights. It's not like now that same-sex people
| can marry, people are pushing for plural or animal
| marriage.
| Kye wrote:
| There is a movement for polyamorous marriage. A city in
| Massachusetts just recognized that arrangement for
| domestic partnerships. I think, like with same-sex
| marriage, most people would struggle to think of a reason
| to be against it that isn't rooted in appeals to
| tradition.
|
| https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2020/07/massachusetts-city-
| begin...
|
| For animals, there's the Harkness Test.
| jcranmer wrote:
| Note that the dissent in Obergefell (the case ruling that
| states had to recognize gay marriage) actually explicitly
| said "It is striking how much of the majority's reasoning
| would apply with equal force to the claim of a
| fundamental right to plural marriage."
| digitaltrees wrote:
| Most of those changes were driven by courts not
| republicans consent and compromise in legislation.
| vkou wrote:
| > The center is there for the first party that chooses to
| leave its entrenchement.
|
| 1. What sort of compromises with the modern Republican
| party do you expect the Democrats to have to make, that
| they haven't already been making?
|
| 2. And what will their reward for making them be? Another
| supreme court appointment unfilled until the president is
| a Republican? Another crappy compromise healthcare bill
| that maintains the status quo? Another decade or two of
| inaction on climate change?
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > The center is there for the first party that chooses to
| leave its entrenchemen
|
| No, it's not; political opinion in the US is closer to a
| bimodal than a normal distribution; the center of the
| current Overton Window is a place where you lose your
| base while not meaningfully appealing to people inclined
| to vote for your opponent, plus even if you succeed
| momentarily when (probably not "because") you do that
| (e.g., Bill Clinton), the result is shifting the near
| pole of the Overton Window toward your opponents'
| position which almost invariably results in a similar
| movement of the far pole maintaining the width of the
| Window.
|
| A lot of the dynamics of this is tied to the structure of
| our electoral system; more effectively representative,
| multiparty systems have different dynamics.
| seehafer wrote:
| 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 Federalist 10. The idea of a legislator who would derive
| self-worth not from actually _doing_ things (good or bad)
| but rather by approbation from their faction solely for
| making the other side mad was not something they thought
| possible.
| azernik wrote:
| Despite their fashionable references to Rome, I think the
| English Civil War was a stronger influence on their
| thinking - a king's attempt to establish untrammeled
| authority leading to a parliamentary backlash that was
| equally untrammeled.
| neilk wrote:
| Madison is still correct, in a way.
|
| The US Congress has incredibly low approval ratings, as a
| whole. But each individual congressperson enjoys
| surprisingly high approval from their constituents. I
| guess Madison just didn't see that those two things could
| happen at the same time.
| yepguy wrote:
| Well, Congress is only able to abdicate their
| responsibility because we have departed from our
| "Constitutional design." All 3 branches now write law,
| not to mention other unelected government agencies, so
| Congress is now free to avoid doing their job and point
| the finger at someone else instead.
| ballenf wrote:
| Not to mention our new 4th branch of government:
| bureaucracy. They do tremendous work, but I don't think
| they should have the power to draft regulations that have
| the force of law.
| tempestn wrote:
| 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 more analogous
| situation to modern USA. (Not to say it's identical, of
| course!)
| salmon30salmon wrote:
| 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!
| klipt wrote:
| There's some evidence that presidential democracies are
| inherently less stable than parliamentary democracies:
|
| https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/is-the-us-
| presidenti...
|
| America was thought to be an exception because both
| parties used to be more centrist with wide overlap, but
| it seems they've become increasingly polarized, which
| makes the whole system less stable.
| jrumbut wrote:
| I wanted to provide a little near-contenporary source
| material to back up this answer which ought to be read by
| everyone. From Suetonius' _The Twelve Caesars_ :
|
| "The violent death of Caligula [the previous emperor]
| afforded the Romans a fresh opportunity to have asserted
| the liberty of their country; but the conspirators had
| concerted no plan, by which they should proceed upon the
| assassination of that tyrant; and the indecision of the
| senate, in a debate of two days, on so sudden an
| emergency, gave time to the caprice of the soldiers to
| interpose in the settlement of the government.
|
| By an accident the most fortuitous, a man devoid of all
| pretensions to personal merit, so weak in understanding
| as to be the common sport of the emperor's household, and
| an object of contempt even to his own kindred; this man,
| in the hour of military insolence, was nominated by the
| soldiers as successor to the Roman throne."
| 0x8BADF00D wrote:
| Ironically, the Gauls who would sack Rome multiple times
| were more "Roman" than the inhabitants of Rome proper.
| The Gauls had strong chieftains and military generals,
| whereas Rome had weak ones.
| SubiculumCode wrote:
| It may be that the 17th Amendment changing the appointment
| of Senators to a popular vote from elections by state
| legislators was a mistake, as "anti-democratic" as that may
| sound, it may be a good principal in a Republic. The house
| weighs the popular opinion, the Senate, the will of States.
| paulmd wrote:
| the senate itself existing was a mistake. It only is fair
| in the context of some kind of relative equality of
| states, letting low-population states grind policy to a
| halt is inherently antidemocratic.
|
| (by design! the point was to give smaller states a say
| and that itself is the problem, it is a bad idea to let a
| minority be able to grind all action to a halt. You say
| "but what if they do something I don't like" and the
| answer is vote them out next time, elections should have
| consequences and winning an election should result in a
| government that is able to accomplish policy. Setting it
| up deliberately to deadlock just because they might do
| something you don't like is a terrible idea and needs to
| stop being viewed as some kind of virtue of the design of
| the American system. Just because the founders did it,
| doesn't mean that it is a good design, they had lots of
| bad decisions... like slavery, and setting up the
| government to allow slave states to have equal control to
| the free states.)
|
| if you assume some kind of relative equality of states,
| then on the whole the senate should approximate the
| house, and you can easily come to the conclusion that we
| really don't need the senate itself at all. abolish it
| and go to a unicameral system.
|
| Similarly the parliamentary system where the executive is
| chosen by the majority of the legislature is a much
| better idea - again because it results in a government
| that is actually able to accomplish policy.
|
| there is very much a reason that none of the other
| countries whose constitutions we wrote over the years
| (Japan, Germany, etc) use the American system. Everyone
| in power realizes that the American system is terrible
| and doesn't produce a mandate to govern.
| dhosek wrote:
| Not to mention obvious moves to exploit the system. The
| reason there are two Dakotas was literally to give the
| Republicans two extra senate seats.
| triceratops wrote:
| It was a necessary compromise to get 3/4 of the first
| thirteen states to ratify the constitution. I'm not
| saying it's great now, just pointing out why it exists.
| drewmate wrote:
| It's ironic, isn't it? Our system was designed as a
| compromise, and has resulted in compromise becoming
| essentially impossible (or at least unpalatable.)
|
| It's amazing that it worked for as long as it did.
| Symmetry wrote:
| Our system of government really, really wasn't designed to
| handle politically polarized parties. We've had
| partisanship forever but mostly it was about competing for
| patronage rather than ideology. Then after the Progressive
| reforms of the turn of the 20th century we had a long
| period where each party had their liberal and their
| conservative wings that meant low polarization.
| ameister14 wrote:
| >Our system of government really, really wasn't designed
| to handle politically polarized parties. We've had
| partisanship forever but mostly it was about competing
| for patronage rather than ideology.
|
| The first hundred years of the US tend to disagree with
| that statement
| Florin_Andrei wrote:
| > _they have deadlocked themselves into uselessness_
|
| Are you talking about Congress or the country as a whole?
| specialist wrote:
| I've recently adopted both Francis Fukuyama's vetocracy
| thesis as well as Ezra Klein's prescription for majoritarian
| rule.
|
| Yes, both are major oversimplifications to a complicated
| situation, with path dependencies and subtle counterintuitive
| cofactors. But it's good battle cry.
|
| We need _more_ accountability, more transparency, more
| democracy.
|
| A systems engineer strives to create functional feedback
| loops. Today, that means closing the gaps in our broken
| feedback loops. Consent of the governed, and so forth.
| j-c-hewitt wrote:
| There are countless situations in which Congress tries to
| punt its responsibility to the other branches. If they want
| to be a responsibility-free elected TV pundit class that
| lives high on the taxpayer hog, then let's amend the
| constitution accordingly. Congress just tries to delegate
| responsibility to the other two branches so it can get back
| to fundraising, "investigating," and grandstanding.
| spaetzleesser wrote:
| "As with so many controversial court rulings like the ACA
| mandate case, our courts keep getting put into the decision
| because of the massive failure that congress is. Congress
| should either fulfill the promise or not, or whatever.
| instead the judicial bodies end up making legal judgements
| with big ramifcations that largely should be left to the
| legislative body. "
|
| Agreed. Congress is way too addicted to political
| grandstanding and partial fighting instead of making laws to
| clarify the situation. It seems pretty clear that with all
| the 5-4 divisions the Constitution is not precise enough to
| decide these things unambiguously.
| hinkley wrote:
| > our courts keep getting put into the decision because of
| the massive failure that congress is
|
| We need more Civics classes for students.
|
| Branches of the Federal Government being put into the
| decision because of a massive failure of another is exactly
| why we have 3 branches. It's rock-paper-scissors. Checks and
| balances. Which is why, for instance, people squawk so much
| when the executive branch imagines itself new powers it was
| not granted.
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| I disagree with your assertion that this "is exactly why we
| have 3 branches".
|
| The normal idea behind "checks-and-balances" is that if one
| branch exceeds their authority, the other two branches can
| serve as a check on abuse of that authority. The argument
| being made by GP, though, is pretty much the opposite:
| Congress isn't overstepping their authority, they're
| abdicating it. It's basically like they _want_ to be
| 'checked' by the Supreme Court, because they don't want to
| have to take a clear stand in the first place.
| krapp wrote:
| I feel like that's implied by the "balance" part of
| "checks and balances."
|
| It's also simply the fact that politics abhors a power
| vacuum. If one branch of government abdicates its power,
| that slack has to be taken up elsewhere.
| wnoise wrote:
| I would have hoped it could be taken up by the people.
| krapp wrote:
| The people have ceded their authority in this regard as
| well, through their own apathy and cynicism. Democracy
| requires an educated and engaged voting populace that
| actually believes effective government can exist and
| politicians should be qualified and held up to a
| standard.
| hindsightbias wrote:
| Many of "the people" have gotten lucky because SCOTUS
| went "their" way over the last few generations. Part of
| that lies with Executive choices for judges and some has
| been a wildcard (Kennedy, Roberts on ACA, Gorsuch for the
| last couple of weeks).
|
| It could all spin based off of the next appointment.
|
| But The Founders clearly thought Congress should be
| somewhere else than yelling from the sidelines.
| e40 wrote:
| Do undue the decades assault on the very idea that
| government can be good or efficient.
| FPGAhacker wrote:
| I don't have kids so I have no idea what is thought/taught
| anymore, but this is the sort of thing I was exposed to
| repeatedly starting in late grade school through early high
| school. I found government boring back then so I didn't
| elect to take classes beyond the basic curriculum in that
| area.
| phnofive wrote:
| Each branch needs to be moving for this to work - even the
| gutters on a bowling lane require someone to start the ball
| rolling.
| dkarl wrote:
| I realize this is a petty concern compared to the repeated and
| compounded violations of the rights of Native Americans, but I
| can't help wondering if the unsettled questions related to this
| ruling will make it impractical for Tesla to choose Tulsa as a
| factory site.
| grizzles wrote:
| Ok City is just down the road from Tulsa. Guess this means Liz
| Warren was born on a Native American reservation.
| vmception wrote:
| > 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.
| phaedryx wrote:
| He'll just be re-tried in the correct jurisdiction. I doubt
| there will be much avoidance.
| vmception wrote:
| 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
| JoeAltmaier wrote:
| Is that the Tribal police?
| mac01021 wrote:
| What are the implications of this for non-tribe-members who live
| and have business on the land in question?
| rootusrootus wrote:
| Unresolved. All they've really judged is the jurisdiction of
| the state government over tribal members in this area of the
| state. It does not affect non-tribal members. And it may also
| only apply to tribal members who have committed crimes against
| other tribal members.
|
| So the scope is very limited at this point, but it does open
| the door for more interesting discussions.
| abeppu wrote:
| > 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.
| Mangalor wrote:
| All these legalistic reponses, and yet none really touches the
| sheer absurdity of sentencing someone to 1,000 years. Doesn't
| the lifespan of a human being figure in at any point? Talking
| this way is dehumanizing.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| Why do you think taking a legal and numerical approach is
| dehumanizing? How would you like the human lifespan to figure
| into the calculation?
| luckylion wrote:
| Yes, it's called a life sentence. Nobody is expected to live
| a thousand years, and they're not going to keep them in
| prison after they die.
| ggggtez wrote:
| In the US, it's possible to be let out of jail for a life
| sentence in only 7 years, when you account for parole.
|
| Judges are elected officials, so sometimes they like to
| make a nice big show of giving out a 1000 year sentence to
| appease the masses, when "life in prison without parole"
| would have done the same job.
| Mangalor wrote:
| I think you miss the point.
| vorpalhex wrote:
| Let us say that the punishment for murder in the first
| degree is always a 50 year jail term. A man who is 75
| years of age is charged with two murders and convicted.
|
| 1. At 75 years of age, he will not live to be 175
|
| 2. The law dictates that the punishment per murder must
| be 50 years
|
| 3. He's been convicted of two murders, and must have both
| charges applied to him unless we are not to expect
| punishment for one of the victims.
|
| Ergo, he must have a term much longer than his lifespan.
|
| There are a thousand details I just skipped over
| (concurrent sentances, multiple crimes commited in the
| same act, stacking versus non-stacking offenses, etc) but
| this isn't unusual and is a perfectly rational and sane
| outcome.
| eutropia wrote:
| Raping a 4-year-old girl is pretty dehumanizing for the
| victim. I think of an absurdly long sentence as a way of
| conveying how abhorrent the justice system finds that
| behavior.
| travmatt wrote:
| It factors into parole release and other calculations
| viggity wrote:
| 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.
| [deleted]
| dharmab wrote:
| > However, AFAIK, rape or even murder aren't federal crimes,
| unless the crime crossed state/tribal boundaries.
|
| That was at issue in the case; the plaintiff was convicted by
| the state and argued that the state didn't have jurisdiction.
| seiferteric wrote:
| Pretty sure it is just the sum of all the sentences they
| received.
| sonofgod wrote:
| So let's say fraud has a standard tarriff of ten years. And we
| agree that committing two frauds is twice as bad, so we add
| them together. Still makes sense. And someone defrauded a LOT
| of people. Say sixteen THOUSAND.
|
| That's how you sentence someone for 141,078 years... (They
| served eight.)
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_longest_prison_sentenc...
| bonzini wrote:
| In other words, jail is only for punishment and revenge, and
| doesn't give a s*it about reeducation.
| abeppu wrote:
| Thanks for linking that wikipedia page. Some of those
| examples sound crazy. In particular, I don't understand the
| motivation in cases where there was a sentence of several
| thousand years, and later it was reduced by 500. Does that
| reduction in sentence provide any kind of actual benefit to
| anyone?
| evgen wrote:
| It is perverse, but there is a method to the madness. Some
| sentencing mitigations or parole decisions are based upon
| length of sentence. Someone who is given a 20 year sentence may
| be eligible for parole when, for example, 1/4 of the sentence
| has been served. By setting the sentence to a ridiculous length
| it is effectively denying any possibility for parole without
| directly stating that the sentence is to served without any
| chance for parole.
| seebetter wrote:
| They already do this in LA. Get sentenced to 120 days in jail
| but due to overcrowding you'd do 5-10 days in jail.
|
| Soon local politicians will require you only to do 1% of jail
| time so you'll be sentenced to a 100 years in jail for a
| misdemeanor. This already exists in the California bail
| system where you pay 1% of astronomically high bails (eg
| $60,000 bail for 1st time misdemeanor, like if they change a
| court date and fail to inform you).
| jandrese wrote:
| I figure it must have been to get around a rule that says
| "you can't add a no-parole rider for this kind of crime".
| [deleted]
| jtlienwis wrote:
| "Unlawful acts, performed long enough and with sufficient vigor,
| are never enough to amend the law. To hold otherwise would be to
| elevate the most brazen and longstanding injustices over the law,
| both rewarding wrong and failing those in the right." Courts need
| to apply the above to Article 1, Section 10 of the US
| Constitution, as well as the 10th and 2nd amendment.
| shpongled wrote:
| I agree, it's far past time to remove California's
| unconstitutional gun laws.
| antics wrote:
| 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 Tribes" in about half
| of OK--this is what the press means when it calls this territory
| "Indian reservations." They did _not_ decide things like: Do the
| tribes get the taxes from people living in Tulsa? Do non-natives
| have to abide by rules of the respective nations? Does the tribal
| government have the ability to reclaim land through land-for-
| trust? And so on.
|
| Further narrowing the ruling, my understanding is that this only
| applies when all persons involved in the crime ( _e.g._ , the
| victim) are also tribal citizens.
|
| But, this ruling does open the door to a lot of those types of
| questions. It is possible we see several cases related to the
| sovereignty of these nations over the next few years, possibly
| greatly expanding the scope of the jurisdiction of the tribal
| governments.
| Vysero wrote:
| Yeah I was wondering what exactly was meant by "reservation"..
| in my experience you can't, as an outsider (non-native), just
| go, and live on the reservation. So unless it's unlike any
| reservations in my state then there must have been something I
| was missing.
| pnw_hazor wrote:
| Back in the day, enrolled members of some tribes could sell
| land to non-members. I think most tribes prevent that now.
| Land sold to non-members became Fee property that can be
| owned by non-members or sold to non-members.
|
| Depending on the reservation, you will find plenty of non-
| members that own property within the reservation.
| Wohlf wrote:
| Does this depend on the reservation? I've heard of
| reservations where you basically couldn't build a permanent
| structure or get a building loan due to how the tribal land
| rules work.
|
| It's kind of fascinating having these micro-nations that
| aren't quite nations within our borders, I should read more
| in to this subject.
| refurb wrote:
| Up in Canada some of the reservations do 99-years leases
| with developers.
|
| They retain ownership, but can actually get something for
| it.
| azernik wrote:
| Interesting - that's how the Israel National Fund managed
| its land in the pre-state period.
| curiousgal wrote:
| > _This ruling, as I understand it, resolves a narrow
| technicality_
|
| That is literally all of the SCOTUS rulings. It's petty
| listening to bright minds discuss minute details. The fact that
| technicalities have far reaching effects is a sign that the
| system is broken.
| shmageggy wrote:
| I think this a result of survivorship bias by design, not
| that anything is broken. If a case had little effect, it
| wouldn't be worth the court's time. If a case were easy to
| resolve, a lower court would have done so. So that only
| leaves important yet difficult and complex cases.
| snoshy wrote:
| I don't see that this some sign of systemic dysfunction.
| Given the significant amount of time and effort that is
| expended before a legal dispute is considered by SCOTUS, it
| stands to reason that the arguments would be sufficiently
| nuanced at that stage.
|
| If the highest court of the land doesn't sweat the details,
| why would lower courts or any other aspect of our legal
| system be reasonably expected to do so? In any reasonably
| complex system (legal or otherwise), it should make sense
| that the technicalities do matter, and that the supreme
| decision making body in that system should consider those
| carefully due to the outsized influence it holds.
| elbigbad wrote:
| Putting aside the question of what makes a "tecnicality," the
| fact that technicalities are able to be put forth and argued
| until a decisionmaker makes a ruling, rather than having a
| party decide unilaterally how to resolve the technicality,
| presumably at the peril of their opponent, means the system
| is working well.
| ianai wrote:
| I almost think they "like" to word things in this way so they
| can side step the larger ramifications of their decisions to
| certain people.
|
| It feels frustrating to those outside the law. But that's
| always been true of the law, as far as I've read.
|
| Also remember that our legal system is a direct inheritance
| of the English legal system we separated from in the 1700s.
| There's actually more history to our laws than to our
| country. So to some extent the years of buildup contributing
| to confusion stem back pretty far into the past. We would
| have a lot of work ahead of us to reinvent the quirkiness out
| of the system.
| _jal wrote:
| > The fact that technicalities have far reaching effects is a
| sign that the system is broken.
|
| I find that an utterly hilarious thing to say in a forum with
| a large number of highly technical people, and another large
| number of people who understand complex, nontechnical
| systems.
| chiefalchemist wrote:
| Does the nature of the crime in this case have any implications
| on the ongoing precedent?
|
| It's bizarre that the headline could have read: Rape-related SC
| Decision Returns Land to Native American Tribe.
| tony_cannistra wrote:
| Unfortunately there's really no "return" of land. These
| headlines are siezing on the above technicality mentioned,
| which simply formalizes Tribal jurisdiction.
|
| The big news is precisely that formal recognition of Tribal
| (and, notably, treaty-conferred) authority.
| mason55 wrote:
| I don't think so. The rape case really just acts as a vessel
| to provide standing to litigate the larger question of the
| reservation.
|
| Without the rape case they wouldn't have had a reason to
| challenge the questions about the res but now that the
| Supreme Court has resolved the larger question it's
| applicable across the board.
|
| It could have just as easily been a case about shoplifting or
| murder or anything else. In fact, last term there was a case
| similar to this that was about a murder, where the defendant
| was sentenced to death by the state and they argued that the
| state didn't have jurisdiction. Gorsuch heard the appeal in
| the circuit court so recused himself from the SCOTUS case and
| the belief it was deadlocked 4-4, so they took this case and
| made the ruling with a full nine Justices.
| [deleted]
| EE84M3i wrote:
| "The Court has only decided that the federal government has no
| prosecutorial jurisdiction against citizens of the so-called
| "Five Civilized Tribes" in about half of OK"
|
| The issue at hand was _state government prosecutorial
| jurisdication_ , not federal. From the article:
|
| _Under U.S. law, tribe members who commit crimes on tribal
| land cannot be prosecuted in state courts and instead are
| subject to federal prosecution, which sometimes can be
| beneficial to defendants._
| NicolasGorden wrote:
| Do you know if this means that the land on which buildings are
| built could be taxed by the tribes?
|
| I live in the desert in CA and here most buildings built on
| Indian reservations pay a yearly leasing fee.
|
| It would be such a huge power shift for the tribal nations.
| It's one of those things that could ripple through the system
| or hit some stone wall I'm unaware of. Really interested to
| know what will happen.
| antics wrote:
| They do not. I address this in my answer:
|
| > They did _not_ decide things like: Do the tribes get the
| taxes from people living in Tulsa? Do non-natives have to
| abide by rules of the respective nations? Does the tribal
| government have the ability to reclaim land through land-for-
| trust? And so on.
| NicolasGorden wrote:
| You're 100% right, sorry, I read through your answer too
| quickly. It was the land for trust thing that really
| covered my question and I wasn't thinking of fee land in
| that way. I'm very ignorant about this topic, thanks for
| setting it straight. :)
| ddingus wrote:
| Thanks. You helped me understand better.
| MiroF wrote:
| They're wrong - it's state, not federal.
| mason55 wrote:
| > _The Court has only decided that the federal government has
| no prosecutorial jurisdiction against citizens_
|
| Did I misunderstand what the case was about? I thought the case
| was that the _state_ government has no jurisdiction and _only_
| the federal government has jurisdiction.
|
| Or maybe I'm confused because that's what the previous (4-4
| deadlock) case was about and this one is actually bigger.
| wonderwonder wrote:
| Ruling found that state government does not have prosecutorial
| jurisdiction, the federal government does and could still
| choose to prosecute the individual at the root of this case in
| federal court.
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