United States Some thoughts on Gorsuch and the indigenous Americans.

[Deleted member 1]

Gorsuch's decisive vote interpreting Native Treaty.


Indigenous rights (and gun rights) are the particular issues which I feel worth fighting over in the modern world, the post-aesthetic civilisation in which we now find ourselves. The reason for this is simple–indigeneity is a critical component of traditionalism. In modern politics it also brings forth many of the complexities of political affiliation. In this case, a left-wing American state tried to grind a non-white sovereign nation under heel and was stopped by a conservative justice operating in combination with the left wing of the Supreme Court.

Ideologically, modern pit progressivism has a deep hatred of indigenous peoples, particularly those nations holding some degree of sovereignty on their native land. I have heard horrible sentiments expressed many times over two decades, insisting the state has a sovereign right and duty to destroy their nation and forcibly integrate them into society to “uplift” their standards of living. This sentiment comes from the fact that their inherent rootedness in their local ecoregion and traditional culture, which has resisted the erosive power of the pit, is a deep and abiding threat to the complete annihilation of racinated identity. It reminds people there is a powerful spiritual alternative, and that is something that cannot be permitted. Because of this, it is frequently an occasion on which we see the usual partisan lines break down and sentiments expressed by individuals which are very revealing about the philosophic condition of pit society.

 

[prinCZess]

That's...A very optimistic outlook on the status of the Indian nations? And, if you'll forgive me, one that generalizes what might be a subset of positive examples over a mess of others that are decidedly less-so?

This is, I will fully admit, wholly anecdotal (and I really have no idea if any kind of actual data is available at all), but I'd offer that many Native tribes do actually suffer more from a lasting removal of any traditional culture that might've existed. Much of it was instead papered-over into a generic "Native culture" (as defined by Federal administrators in the Great Depression who had a romanticized view of what that meant or consisted of). Which has, by extension, created decades of ensuing problems and corruption that functionally can't be opposed or worked against because of bureaucratic entanglements which never existed before then.

Further, I'd point out that the 'local ecoregion' inhabited by natives has a tendency to not be all that connected to traditional regions where they lived, and the federal bureaucracy that sprung up to manage and oversee tribal relations has also had a corrosive impact on the roots and social cohesion of many of those bands and tribes because of some tribes going unrecognized entirely, unrecognized at one level while recognized at another, or some being cobbled-together masses that had no functional existence in reality before the Feds threw various bands and groups onto the same reservation land and called things good. Neither of those is a recipe for a successful nation, and ongoing federal mismanagement and local corruption (which, again I will note, has functional problems being gone after because of a federally-imposed organizational system that can* actively incentivize natives to turn on one another or, alternatively, segregate themselves into people-groups which didn't exist before and can have their own problems of internal division) has only made things worse.

*Not always, mind you. But the mishmash that federal law and ostensibly-sovereign state membership decisions tribes can make CAN cause this.

That said, I'd note the referenced case seems positive--the federal government has done terribly in regards to adherence with treaties made with native tribes, and however late, the feds should recognize that at least (it tending to be the positive portions of many of the messes they've made).
The federal government has just also done such a bad job relating to those tribes (and recognizing them--which has led to divisions within those tribes) that it started a rolling-snowball of shit that's still going to this day. Frankly, as a polar-opposite viewpoint to yours, I'd tentatively agree that Indian nations as the concept exists now need to be integrated into the United States--the existing entities have a tendency of being federally bungled amalgams that have only relatively recently been given some sovereign status that has only fueled issues on those reservations as power blocs vie with one another and destroy whatever community was left after decades of federal BS. Reorganizing those universally as private associations would remove some of the worst incentives for membership manipulation and intra-'tribe' discrimination.

Also, just as an aside, I'm unsure if there's much of any 'spiritual alternative' to Indian philosophies or cultures anymore. In my experience, much of what existed of such has long since gone the way of the Dodo alongside native languages--or, perhaps more accurately, become more entwined with local beliefs than is apparent on a national scale. I have, for instance (and what little it's worth ), interacted with a number of off-reservation whites who share some of the same stories and oddball customs as I grew up with which were, at least ostensibly, 'Native Ways'.

As mentioned--a lot of this is anecdotal and may not apply on a tribe-by-tribe basis. I just don't know if there's much of any way to speak on a general scale about the Indian nations in the US--there's too many differing levels of organization and wide scales of difference between different tribes or reservations.

 

[Deleted member 1]

Oh, I think your words are quite wise in certain respects. Now, I have indigenous friends who are very for their nationhood--from several nations, east, southern, Plains, and Southeast Alaskan. So I think part of the issue is the oppositional matters in tribal politics in what is still a deeply flawed system.

There are indeed nations which have been displaced and have no real connection to their homeland. I was speaking more in terms of "ideals", which of course the pressures of the modern world fall short of in many cases. You're quite right that tribal sovereignty is extremely imperfect at the moment.

I actually think that the best solution, however, would be to group the tribes into states. This would increase their political power, and eliminate the war of laws between the current states and the tribes which is the primary reason for those nations' misfortunes IMO, the desire of the white population to govern the tribal territory at the state level. Basically, by a strict read of the Constitution and my own inclinations, I see the indigenous nations like the Indian Princely States of the Raj -- sovereign entities that the United States holds Protectoral status over.

I would observe that there is no requirement that a state be territorially contiguous in American law. We could easily organise the indigenous nations into about nine discontiguous states based on cultural groupings. Discontiguous states worked just fine in Wilhelmine Germany and harmonising the boundaries of states with the boundaries of the reservations would eliminate most of the current legal tension.

Ultimately, in the longer term, I think it is inevitable that white culture in the diuvers areas of the United States becomes more like that of the indigenous peoples of that region--it is inevitable that culture starts to accrue traits meant to adapt to the climate and geology of the land around it.

 

[HistoryMinor]

Oh, I think your words are quite wise in certain respects. Now, I have indigenous friends who are very for their nationhood--from several nations, east, southern, Plains, and Southeast Alaskan. So I think part of the issue is the oppositional matters in tribal politics in what is still a deeply flawed system.

There are indeed nations which have been displaced and have no real connection to their homeland. I was speaking more in terms of "ideals", which of course the pressures of the modern world fall short of in many cases. You're quite right that tribal sovereignty is extremely imperfect at the moment.

I actually think that the best solution, however, would be to group the tribes into states. This would increase their political power, and eliminate the war of laws between the current states and the tribes which is the primary reason for those nations' misfortunes IMO, the desire of the white population to govern the tribal territory at the state level. Basically, by a strict read of the Constitution and my own inclinations, I see the indigenous nations like the Indian Princely States of the Raj -- sovereign entities that the United States holds Protectoral status over.

I would observe that there is no requirement that a state be territorially contiguous in American law. We could easily organise the indigenous nations into about nine discontiguous states based on cultural groupings. Discontiguous states worked just fine in Wilhelmine Germany and harmonising the boundaries of states with the boundaries of the reservations would eliminate most of the current legal tension.

Ultimately, in the longer term, I think it is inevitable that white culture in the diuvers areas of the United States becomes more like that of the indigenous peoples of that region--it is inevitable that culture starts to accrue traits meant to adapt to the climate and geology of the land around it.

You're not going to get ethnostates on the federal level.

 

[Deleted member 1]

You're not going to get ethnostates on the federal level.

Yet, the constitution explicitly provides for a nation-nation relationship between indigenous peoples and the federal government. So I believe it would be on firmer legal footing than you do, since a special relationship is explicitly allowed on terms equal to the constitution itself (treaty basis). I also think the term "ethnostate" is rather problematic for the concept. It's a nation state in a subsidiary relationship, and the nation state is the normative organisation of international relations in recent history.

 

[HistoryMinor]

Yet, the constitution explicitly provides for a nation-nation relationship between indigenous peoples and the federal government. So I believe it would be on firmer legal footing than you do, since a special relationship is explicitly allowed on terms equal to the constitution itself (treaty basis). I also think the term "ethnostate" is rather problematic for the concept. It's a nation state in a subsidiary relationship, and the nation state is the normative organisation of international relations in recent history.

The constitution doesn't mean shit, ask Georgia.

 

[Deleted member 1]

The constitution doesn't mean shit, ask Georgia.

Moral failings do not change morality by their mere existence, and past evils do not make their repetition in the future good. Absolute support for indigenous rights is one of my hard limits in politics.

 

[HistoryMinor]

Moral failings do not change morality by their mere existence, and past evils do not make their repetition in the future good. Absolute support for indigenous rights is one of my hard limits in politics.

Sure, but you can't trust America to do it.

 

[Comrade Clod]

First time I've heard of this whole 'pit' theory.

 

[Husky_Khan]

First time I've heard of this whole 'pit' theory.

Well it's good you came here then. It's unfortunate that there aren't safe spaces for these kind of conversations on whatever forums you participated on back in the land down under.

Sad.

 

[Comrade Clod]

Well it's good you came here then. It's unfortunate that there aren't safe spaces for these kind of conversations on whatever forums you participated on back in the land down under.

Sad.

I don't get it are you trying to emulate the orange one or being ironic?

Regardless call me skeptical of the theory. Reeeally skeptical.

 

[Lanmandragon]

Sure, but you can't trust America to do it.

Maybe but it's not like anyone else can do it. So what do you propose be done?

 

[Deleted member 1]

@Comrade Clod , here is a link referencing the work of the Janites on Eclipses, and thus on the onset of the Pit.