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From: flink@umcp-cs.UUCP (Kreilick slapper)
Newsgroups: net.politics,net.politics.theory
Subject: Libertarianism and American Indians -- a clarification
Message-ID: <3777@umcp-cs.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 2-Mar-85 23:22:39 EST
Article-I.D.: umcp-cs.3777
Posted: Sat Mar  2 23:22:39 1985
Date-Received: Tue, 5-Mar-85 02:22:34 EST
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Xref: watmath net.politics:7937 net.politics.theory:306

Dan McKiernan's reply to my ribbing demonstrates that libertarians
are second only to feminists in the sense-of-humor category.  OK,
you want to be serious, let's be serious.

>> ... Should I ever possess a piece of land such that an Indian can
>>reasonably demonstrate that (s)he is legitimate heir to a legitimate
>>owner who had the property wrested from h(im|er), I will turn it over.
[And in another article]

> not surrendering their land to Indians.

Mr. McKiernan took my jibe as an accusation of hypocrisy.  WRONG.  It
was an attempt to show how libertarians fail to examine the consequences
of their principles, by way of an example.  I think that libertarian
principles, together with a conveniently ignored fact, imply that 
massive numbers of "rectifying" property transfers are in order.  The
conveniently ignored fact is that almost none of what any of us possess
is untainted with coercion in its history.  The disruption and confusion
that would result, if we tried to trace the history of each possession
to find its "rightful owner", constitutes a reductio ad absurdum (or at
least "ad implausibilium") of libertarianism.

Note that Mr. McKiernan seems to put the "burden of proof" on the Indian,
above:  the Indian must *demonstrate* his ownership.  If all he could say
was, "My father['s father ...] told me [my father, who told me ...] that
he would have bequeathed the land to me", but couldn't prove this, would
that do?  The answer is important, because if the burden of proof is on
the Indians, few of them can meet it so the "ad absurdity" can be avoided.
However, if there is no such burden of proof, THEN THE INDIAN HAS THE
BETTER CLAIM to the land, and much redistribution of land is necessary.
And then there is compensation to made for depriving the Indian of the
*use* of the land -- and so on, ad absurdum.

One more point.  Mr. McKiernan tries to reduce the problem by saying:

> It should be recognized that not all the land of the Americas was used
> by Indians, and that this land was therefore legitimately up for grabs.

But in the absence of a precise definition of "use", this begs questions.
If buffalo need to roam far and wide and the Indians use the buffalo, 
perhaps they use more land than one first thinks.  As Biep Dieroux (sp?)
pointed out, what constitutes "use" is not obvious.

			--Reappointed,
			Paul Torek 	[followups to .theory please]