To add to @Mister44’s comment about the use of the law, another case was with the trail of tears, where the Creek and Cherokee were driven out of North GA and AL, despite having the SCOTUS ruling in their favor. It hasn’t really mattered, often times.
Whoops! @RickMycroft beat me to it!
The US will never stop manipulating and abusing the native inhabitants of North America. It’s not in the DNA to do so. It never has been, and it appears that it never will be. It is unfortunate, but we would at least be more truthful with ourselves if we came to terms with this sad fact.
The land that would later became the US was “built” by Europeans who came to extract wealth, that’s it - the primary reason. Read if you don’t believe. The documents are there and easily accessible. The stories about escaping religious persecution are largely BS. The stories about “discovery” and such are of the same line of flimsy nonsense. Generally speaking, the Spanish sought mineral wealth. The French, English and Russians sought the same but had better luck with furs. Other European nations acted similarly, and, along the way, all found that much of the land was fertile and good for growing. I think we all know what that led to. Even our school-boy and school-girl “history books” don’t skip the part about purchasing Africans along the way.
At every turn of the dial, the various native tribes have suffered through all possible means you can think of. Most of the treaties were put in place for temporary placation, no matter what the text of the agreements might actually say. All that to say that lawyers, those that have genuine passion for justice, don’t stand a chance when the laws on which they base their very careers are easily broken and “not worth the paper they’re written on.” This may seem over the top, but consider this: have you ever once come across a town or city in the US that is well-placed geographically (i.e. a sea port or major branch of a river) and is controlled by Native Americans? Yeah, me either. And I don’t think it’s by chance.
Well we could compromise and have Ralph Bakshi Do the design.
Technically “Miss America”, not “Liberty.”
I think you mean “uninhabitable”.
Coonskin; totally offensive and un-PC, but fully awesome in its own right, regardless.
Yes, it is “uninhabitable”.
Swinomish, in Washington state, but it’s only starting to get developed.
I didn’t actually intend to start a dogpile on this, BTW.
I’m particularly sensitive to the “illegal” framing because, in my neighbourhood, it’s frequently applied to refugees. Who are not “illegal” in any sense of the word.
OTOH, I’m also a “fuck nation-states, open the borders” sorta person.
The clouds gather in your forests
Drift to my desert town
And I think of far-off places
As the rain is coming down
You’re bent down in the fields
Picking fruit there from the vine
And it ends up on my table
As it moves on down the line
The moon shines brightly in the night sky
The river flows from south to north
With the changing of the seasons
The birds migrate back and forth
But they say that you can’t come here
Not in the light of day
Somebody has got plans for you
Starve at home or hide away
Will we open up the borders
Tear down the prison walls
Declare that no one is illegal
Watch the giant as it falls
So much travels across these borders
So much is bought and sold
One way goes the gunships
The other comes the gold
Free trade is like a needle
Drawing blood straight from your heart
And the border’s like a prison
Keeping friends apart
Will we open up the borders
Tear down the prison walls
Declare that no one is illegal
Watch the giant as it falls
Hear the stockholders cheering
The world’s getting smaller
Hear the drowning child crying
“Why are the fences growing taller”
Some whisper in the shadows
While others count the dollars
Some have suits and ties
Others, chains and collars
Will we open up the borders
Tear down the prison walls
Declare that no one is illegal
Watch the giant as it falls
May the fortress walls come down
May we meet our sisters and our brothers
Stand arm and arm there in the daylight
No longer fighting one another
Will we stand together
For therein lies our might
Will we understand these words
“Workers of the world unite”
Will we open up the borders
Tear down the prison walls
Declare that no one is illegal
Watch the giant as it falls🎵
Oxford is more authoritative, by far
B. n.
Thesaurus »
- = illegal immigrant n. at Compounds.
1939 Times 31 May 11/1 Placing the illegals in concentration camps is no solution.
1946 A. Koestler Thieves in Night 328 The old tramper was lost—but there were two others on their way with eight hundred illegals this time.
1960 H. S. Agar Saving Remnant viii. 208 The British announced that all future ‘illegals’ would be taken to Cyprus.
1970 Sunday Times 1 Feb. (Colour Suppl.) 29/4 In the year 1968 alone 142,000 illegal immigrants were caught… There is no onus upon an employer not to take on illegals.
I know what you’re thinking. 1939=nazis, right?
wrong.
illegal immigrant n. orig. a Jew who entered or attempted to enter Palestine without official permission during the later years of the British mandate; now used more generally; so illegal immigration.
1939 Times 31 May 11/1 Illegal immigration into Palestine probably dates back to Turkish times, but it is now assuming alarming proportions.
1939 Times 31 May 11/1 These illegal immigrants come practically penniless, and have no documents to indicate their origin.
1946 Times 23 Sept. 4/3 The British ‘clamp down’ on illegal immigrants.
1949 A. Koestler Promise & Fulfilm. vi. 59 The hunting down of ‘illegal immigrants’ became gradually an obsession with the Palestine authorities.
1963 J. Joesten They call it Intelligence ii. viii. 73 Once in this country, Abel headed straight for New York, a good place for an illegal immigrant.
1969 New Yorker 29 Nov. 151/1 Moshe Pearlman…an organiser of illegal immigration to Palestine…for all his wit and sophistication, still takes his Zionism very seriously.
1970 [see sense B. 1].
1970 Times 2 July 1/4 Police…took away 40 men who had come from the Punjab… All the men had been established as illegal immigrants.
Can this term get any more loaded?
One of the cliches of politically correct language is to focus on the person.
“Illegals” does the opposite. Perhaps that’s why it has staying power among the deplorables.
Thanks, I’m embarrassed I forgot about the court case that preceded the Trail Of Tears.
And thanks to @Mister44 too, for his own account.
The United States has a long history of not living up to the ideals it supposedly enshrined in the Constitution.
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