"Every American born within those borders is a Native American."
Fine. But every such "Native American" is not an American Indian, and does not bear the burden of that history. I will grant that people with very slight Indian blood do not bear much if any burden. But those who are full bloods or half bloods, or quarter blood, have almost all known poverty and struggled with major disadvantages. And this should not have been so, for that was what they were trying to prevent by the treaties their grandparents originally negotiated.
But the white Americans and the US Government: they did not uphold their end of the treaties, and the Indians were deprived of the material properties and rights they negotiated for.
In the past 50 years, real strides have been made to correct that. Nevertheless, the overhang of the past wrongs is marked heavily on the Indians of today, not just, or even primarily, in vague psychic scars, but in the real economic and educational disadvantages that the near past has left them with.
Unlike other groups in America who have also suffered, the Indians made treaties with the US government so that they would not have to so suffer. The government broke the treaties then, but today, to a much greater extent, it attempts to enforce those obligations and laws as they were originally negotiated.
So it is fine that everyone is a Native American.
Everyone isn't an Indian, and the more Indian one is, the more one has been forced to carry a great big stone he should not have had to carry, up a hill he should never have had to climb.
One cannot simply with a wave of the hand dismiss legal claims, sealed in contracts and solemn treaties, because one does not want to have to pay up. That's called "theft". It worked in the past - interesting that the term "Indian giver" was applied to Indians and not the government! - but it does not work that way any more, and it will not again.
One law for one people
We should break up any sovereign nation that tries to exist within our borders. Otherwise we will become like Europe and Canada. Islam will exploit the weakness and we will see Sharia law applied here in Islamic enclaves.
I completely agree. What kind of person goes reneges on an agreement? Not one of good character, and not one you'd make an agreement with a second time. The idea I sometimes see promoted around here that we should declare what Indians have been promised null and void is morally bankrupt and should have no place in conservative thought. Conservatives are people of their word...or at least they should be.
Some of the comments made on these threads disparaging American Indians make me sick.