Ayn Rand's argument against the Native Americans and her concept of rights

The Native American people were wronged in many ways over hundreds of years. Their homes have been stripped from them from under their feet, their culture has crumbled under their noses, the blood of the millions of their fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, cousins, the people have been degraded and wronged for thousands of years for the simple reason that the Pilgrims wanted wealth and to achieve that they started off an ongoing genocide. It is not far fetched to compare this genocide to the Holocaust since the Holocaust had 6 million killed while the Native American genocide had much more indigenous people killed. http://rationalwiki.org... And how this topic of the genocide from the Pilgrims is completely ignored by Ayn Rand's arguments is definitely not surprising since hundreds of years have blurred that part of history. Hundreds of years have blurred the meanings of things and has led children to believe, as they are taught this in school, the Pilgrims were friendly and the Native Americans got along with them just find and the Native Americans weren't massacred, raped, degraded, sometimes forced to conform to "civilized" society, and stripped of their homelands for hundreds of years only keeping small quantities of land and watching in horror as their civilization is crumbling to pieces. The fact that Ayn Rand says absolutely nothing about this atrocity is extremely significant. One fatal flaw in her argument is that she says that because the Native Americans did not have "legal" property (why would they if they lived in sovereignty away from society ?) that they had no right to a land they were bred in, raised in, bathed in, slept in, played in, loved in, laughed in, cried in, hunted in, ate in, and the land that their culture survived in. She claims that they had no "rights" to begin with so their "rights" weren't violated when they were massacred. Why would any group of people be massacred then if they had no rights to the land or any reason to be massacred (such as that they were going to fight for the land they had a right in)? Wouldn't that be useless? She also seems to ignore this fact as well Tribal Sovereignty http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com... "Tribal sovereignty refers to the fact that each tribe has the inherent right to govern itself. Before Europeans came to North America, Native American tribes conducted their own affairs and needed no outside source to legitimate their powers or actions. When the various European powers did arrive, however, they claimed dominion over the lands that they found, thus violating the sovereignty of the tribes who already were living there." (West's Encyclopedia of American Law, edition 2. Copyright 2008 The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved.) The Native Americans although not having "legal property rights" (I still don't get why they would need them since they were living in independence from outside civilization. This just seems like an excuse to justify the White pilgrims), had tribal sovereignty that was not only violated, but massacred. Many at a time in history were forced to civilize, become Christians, and become more "American" The White settlers only cared about wealth, power, and land and since the Native Americans were protecting their land, they decided to massacre them Rebuttals "[The Native Americans] didn't have any rights to the land..." They were definitely using the land as their home. This is more important that using it as property "What was it they were fighting for, if they opposed white men on this continent? For their wish to continue a primitive existence, their "right" to keep part of the earth untouched, unused and not even as property..." She says that the land was "untouched" and "unused" because it wasn't used as property. There is a difference between property and possession. Possession means that they were using it (which they were since they used it as their home and used all of the resources there) and property just means that you legally "own" it. So you don't even have to use property. So her definition of property is also blurry. "Now, I don't care to discuss the alleged complaints American Indians have against this country. I believe, with good reason, the most unsympathetic Hollywood portrayal of Indians and what they did to the white man. I don't see how "unsympathetic Hollywood portrayal of Indians" is accurate. And I also am not shocked that she "doesn't care to discuss the alleged complaints" "They had no right to a country merely because they were born here and then acted like savages. The white man did not conquer this country. And you're a racist if you object, because it means you believe that certain men are entitled to something because of their race. You believe that if someone is born in a magnificent country and doesn't know what to do with it, he still has a property right to it. He does not. Since the Indians did not have the concept of property or property rights--they didn't have a settled society, they had predominantly nomadic tribal "cultures"--they didn't have rights to the land, and there was no reason for anyone to grant them rights that they had not conceived of and were not using." The white man did not conquer this country by killing the people that lived there? That seems strange. I do not believe that the American Indians were entitled to it because of their race and almost nobody who defends them does, but we defend them by recognizing that their Tribal Sovereignty was violated and their culture was massacred for years all for power. Also the Wampanoag Indians, which were the Indians that participated in the Thanksgiving with the Pilgrims, had a party nomadic, party sedentary culture. http://www.bigorrin.org... It's wrong to attack a country that respects (or even tries to respect) individual rights. If you do, you're an aggressor and are morally wrong. But if a "country" does not protect rights--if a group of tribesmen are the slaves of their tribal chief--why should you respect the "rights" that they don't have or respect.... Here she says that it's wrong to attack a country who respects individual rights. The American Indians definitely had a strong sense of rights if they protected their land so strongly. If they didn't protect their own rights, they would of just let the Pilgrims take over. But the Pilgrims had to massacre the Indians for the land which meant that they had to violate the Indians' rights to the land in order to obtain it. Where did she hear that tribesmen are slaves of their tribal chief? The Wampanoag Indians cooperated in a self-sufficient manner where the man would hunt and the woman would gather. "What were they fighting for, in opposing the white man on this continent? For their wish to continue a primitive existence; for their "right" to keep part of the earth untouched--to keep everybody out so they could live like animals or cavemen. Any European who brought with him an element of civilization had the right to take over this continent, and it's great that some of them did. The racist Indians today--those who condemn America--do not respect individual rights." Yes they fought to continue their own primitive existence among their tribe. They fought for their freedom to live in Tribal Sovereignty without white men forcing them to conform to "civilization." They fought for their homes that were taken away from them for their own profit. They fought for their culture to thrive and to survive amongst society and the government constantly oppressing them, since the American Indians didn't prove to be "beneficial" to their society, or help serve their interests. She says that they do not respect individual rights while ignoring the fact that for hundreds of years the individual rights of Indians were violated.If America has not respected the Indians' individual rights, that America deserves to be condemned