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"Native Americans"

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Vetiver

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My contention is that "the people" cannot own anything. Ownership is a function of individuals or their delegated entities, such as corporations (thank you, David Odden, for making that clarification above). Essentially, all of the land, factories, equipment, etc., that were operated by the Communist government, is the equivalent of the open prairie of the American West.

This reminds me of a time, when a friend inquired of my behavior vis a vis traffic laws, I mused half-jokingly that public roads were in fact terra nullius, the whole concept of "public property" being invalid.

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  • 11 months later...

I was talking about this on a non-objectivist board, and a wanna be socialist(eventhough they won't admit it) posted the following post to me and I was wondering is this wrong? Well obviously it is but I was wondering what they presented as fact about the indians were wrong. This is a view of many "intellectuals"

"Native Americans viewed the Earth as sacred. What is development to you? Their communities thrived culturally, were egalitarian, and cooperative without exploitation. The land to Native Americans was already developed, with enough resources that were to be respected. Whites did not view the land as something sacred, which was why it was easy for them to destroy it by putting all of the roads, buildings, and all of that other shit that is labeled as development, in European terms. Also, Native Americans that the land belonged to ancestors and the spirits that manifested within the Earth, and not the them. To take advantage of it would be considered criminal and abusive. The idea of owning land in itself was strange to them. But white capitalists saw the land as something that should be possessed and eventually saw no profit in preserving it, other than to establish their own interests."

Edited by dadmonson
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I was talking about this on a non-objectivist board, and a wanna be socialist(eventhough they won't admit it) posted the following post to me and I was wondering is this wrong? Well obviously it is but I was wondering what they presented as fact about the indians were wrong. This is a view of many "intellectuals"
It's at least typical. It's an example of typical collectivist ignorance, not even competent by educated "intellectual" standards. For instance "The land to Native Americans was already developed" is true if you are referring to the Quechua and completely false speaking of the Lakota. If you want to see complete lack of development, head for your local Sioux res. We have hardly any idea how these guys viewed the Earth -- as you may be aware, they were hardly prolific writers. I don't see in what sense you could say that they generally "thrived" culturally, although some of them did manage to develop decent art, especially among those who abandoned the primitive hunter-gatherer ways. But they were illiterate and thus as fundamentally uncultured as the ancient Germanic hordes were.

The fundamental difference between Indians, meaning especially the primitive ones in most of North America, and westerners, is that the Indians did not generally have a political concept of individual rights and ownership. Although his overall factual representation of Indians is inaccurate in a number of respects (this "egalitarian" nonsense is flamingly untrue of many tribes, see especially those in the Northwest), it is true that the Indians largely chose to remain only minimally civilized and existed as hunter-gatherers. Which is fine, but it has to give way to agriculture and industry, which requires stable ownership of natural resources. He is on the right track in some areas: all capitalists see the land as something that needs to be possessed and exploited, and there is no profit at all in merely preserving the land and taking it out of the dominion of man, where it belongs. The difference is, he actually wants to live as an unshod, pantless hunter-gather, or at least "intellectually" speaking.

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One cannot properly talk of property rights without reference to a political and legal system. Property rights are relevant only when one is living in a society. As such the question of "what should one have to do to have rights in a capitalist system?" is not related to the question of "Were Europeans morally entitled to acquire land from tribal Americans by force?"

I submit that the first question cannot be answered by philosophy in any detail. It is to be answered by laws that would depend on the state (technological abilities) of the society concerned.

To the secon question I can only say (as others have said before on this thread) that conflict between Europeans and the tribals was inevitable and the Europen culture was undeniably objectively superior.

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It's at least typical. It's an example of typical collectivist ignorance, not even competent by educated "intellectual" standards. For instance "The land to Native Americans was already developed" is true if you are referring to the Quechua and completely false speaking of the Lakota. If you want to see complete lack of development, head for your local Sioux res. We have hardly any idea how these guys viewed the Earth -- as you may be aware, they were hardly prolific writers. I don't see in what sense you could say that they generally "thrived" culturally, although some of them did manage to develop decent art, especially among those who abandoned the primitive hunter-gatherer ways. But they were illiterate and thus as fundamentally uncultured as the ancient Germanic hordes were.

The fundamental difference between Indians, meaning especially the primitive ones in most of North America, and westerners, is that the Indians did not generally have a political concept of individual rights and ownership. Although his overall factual representation of Indians is inaccurate in a number of respects (this "egalitarian" nonsense is flamingly untrue of many tribes, see especially those in the Northwest), it is true that the Indians largely chose to remain only minimally civilized and existed as hunter-gatherers. Which is fine, but it has to give way to agriculture and industry, which requires stable ownership of natural resources. He is on the right track in some areas: all capitalists see the land as something that needs to be possessed and exploited, and there is no profit at all in merely preserving the land and taking it out of the dominion of man, where it belongs. The difference is, he actually wants to live as an unshod, pantless hunter-gather, or at least "intellectually" speaking.

I think what the person ment is that their sense of culture for peace and Hunting and gathering societies were egalitiarian because they depended on cooperatives and equal relations among members in order to survive.

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I think what the person ment is that their sense of culture for peace and Hunting and gathering societies were egalitiarian because they depended on cooperatives and equal relations among members in order to survive.
I don't believe that is what he intended, but it would be hard to verify the intent. Regardless, it simply is false or meaningless as a statement about Indians.
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This discussion might be helped if we realized that not all Indians were (or are) the same. For purposes of this discussion, maybe it would be helpful to clarify what we're talking about. Here are four categories:

1. Assimilated Indians with Western conceptions of property rights whose land was expropriated because they were Indians (e.g., the Cherokee of the Trail of Tears)

2. Indians who improved their land and had individuals who "owned" it in ways not unsimilar in practice to those in West (not all Indians were quasi-Socialist)

3. Indians who improved their land (e.g., agriculture) but considered it collectively owned

4. Indians who didn't improve their land much (e.g., Great Plains Indians)

I would hope that we would all agree that Indians in category 1 have suffered a grave injustice--the US government of the early 19th century clearly is guilty of mass murder and theft, if not genocide.

I would also argue that Indians in category 2 suffered a grave injustice: is the ability to give a Lockean justifiction for property rights a prerequisite to "really" owning anything? If so, then I'm perfectly justified in stealing from pretty much any American I meet.

I think cases three and four are harder, and I didn't really want to get into a big debate about them.

I just thought this discussion might proceed on more intelligent terms if people clarified who exactly they were talking about.

-Kirk

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There is a "construction" myth about property rights, which I so wish would go away.

I absolutely agree, it's also the reason why I've always been reluctant to become a physiocrat or a "Georgist Libertarian". There're many flaws with that system too, like if all I have to do is change land in order to own it, then does that mean if I roll on the grass over the hill and flatten the grass that the hill is mine? What about the miles of earth beneath the surface, how does one claim a piece of the earths mantle to themselves just by changing the surface? and why should a government claim random ownership over that land as some "collective entity", if man didn't make land then I can bet you anything that a government sure as hell didn't make it either.

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Just a question. Are the words Native Americans and Indians, interchangeble?
Contextually. That is, Panjabis, Tamils and Hindis are Indians but not Native Americans, and we understand that there are two (historically related) words "Indian". A person born in America is a native American, but not a Native American (which is a proper name, referring to Indians, i.e. the entirely of the Lakota, Miwok, Zuni etc etc).

----

The PC term Native American, which was cooked up in the 70's, does not generally refer to Eskimo and Aleut, but the term might be marginally used to refer to them -- they are never known as "Indians".

Edited by DavidOdden
Clarifactification
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You guys are forgetting that if it wasn't for the Indians the settlers would of died. If it wasn't for Pochahantas who saved John Smith the settlers would of died. The settlers didn't know anything about the land and they wouldn't of succeeded without the indians help. Expecially in that harsh winter. They took good care of the land and stuff I don't think that is evil.

Edited by shyboy
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You guys are forgetting that if it wasn't for the Indians the settlers would of died. If it wasn't for Pochahantas who saved John Smith he would of died.

That may be true, but how is that a racial issue? Isn't that between Poca and John?

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You guys are forgetting that if it wasn't for the Indians the settlers would of died. If it wasn't for Pochahantas who saved John Smith the settlers would of died. The settlers didn't know anything about the land and they wouldn't of succeeded without the indians help. Expecially in that harsh winter.

How is the survivability of the settlers relevant to property rights?

They took good care of the land and stuff I don't think that is evil.

I don't believe anyone is suggesting that they were evil because they cared for their land.

Edited by Chops
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Well some people would say the indians culture was superior. The Europeans were tribal just like the indians. Kings and Queens? They just had superior "technology" and weapons.
It's true, people may say such a thing, but do you think there is any fact whatsoever that suggests that the Indians were, in any way, superior to the Europeans? For example, in their literature, philosophical treatises, economic and political systems, and so on? What aspects of Indian "culture" are claimed to be actually better?
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It's true, people may say such a thing, but do you think there is any fact whatsoever that suggests that the Indians were, in any way, superior to the Europeans? For example, in their literature, philosophical treatises, economic and political systems, and so on? What aspects of Indian "culture" are claimed to be actually better?

I'm saying the European's philosophy was no better than the Indians. Europeans weren't individualist.

Did the Europeans build this...

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/216/4919251...a66a36f.jpg?v=0

The Native Americans were much smarter than some people give them credit for. They had to have some kind of underlying philosophy that enabled them to keep things going for all that time.

Edited by dadmonson
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I'm saying the European's philosophy was no better than the Indians. Europeans weren't individualist.
No, but they were capitalists, which the Indians weren't. The Europeans actually had philosophy -- quite well developed epistemology, ethics, and metaphysics. The Indians only had primitive superstition as proto-philosophy.
Did the Europeans build this...
Did Indians build this or this or this, or one of these?
The Native Americans were much smarter than some people give them credit for. They had to have some kind of underlying philosophy that enabled them to keep things going for all that time.
They were exactly as smart as I give them credit for. They were inferior to the Europeans, although in fact the Inca were better at planting on wickedly steep hillsides than the Europeans were. The question isn't whether they were completely devoid of some kind of philosophy, it is whether they actually developed any serious philosophical ideas, like a theory of knowledge, and they didn't.
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