Reply #35: Again, I'm having an impossible time understanding your point.

[AP]

First thing I should note is that NatAms do get a form of redress (however inadequate): they do have soveriegn nations in some areas, they get to run extremely lucrative gambling casinos, and there was a huge trust fund worth billions which was robbed blind (but it was there, and they should get their money back, and they should try to track down the people who stole from it and get the money back&crimially punish people who took it), and they do get to avoid lots of sales taxes on goods sold in their soveriegn nations.

Don't get me wrong. In no way do I think this is adequate compensation. But it's a far cry from saying they get nothing.

Now, for your argument, like I said, I don't get your point.

In Africa, exiting colonizers totally acknowledged that they didn't have a legal right to the lands they seized. They set up programs to return the land (like voluntary buyer/seller, which they then refused to fund and execute as promissed, which is not unlike the theft from the BIA trust).

We're so far past arguing whether it's sad that a white farmer has to lose the land. What we're up to is accepting that it's the right thing to do, given what we know about, not only colonialism, but also about what happened to Native Americans.

It seems to me that your argument against progress is, 'hey, we didn't do this 200 years ago, so why start with Africa?" My argument is, if we knew the what we know now, we would have done for Native Americans what they're doing in Zimbabwe and Namibia today.

That's progress. Either you can look forward and repeat the mistakes of the past, or you can look forward and avoid for Africa the kind of misery that has been inflicted on Native Americans. You post all those pictures of suffering babies in Africa. You want that to stop? I have two words for you: LAND REFORM.

Get it?