How Far Back Should We Go ? (homosexuality, blood, sexuality, Article)

[kreeden]

Lady L , the term I was looking for is " Terra Nullius ". It appears that I was a little off though . It was the offical stand before the Aboriginal Land Rights Act of 1975 , and which appears to still be evolving . As late as 1992 there was a land claim case known as the Mabo case went before the High Court of Australia . Although the case did more or less do away with the concept that no one had lived on the land before the Europeans , it failed to give the Aboriginal People legal claim to any land and left it up to them to prove that they had lived there before Europeans .

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terra_nullius

[Quoth The Raven]

Originally Posted by kreeden

Lady L , the term I was looking for is " Terra Nullius ". It appears that I was a little off though . It was the offical stand before the Aboriginal Land Rights Act of 1975 , and which appears to still be evolving . As late as 1992 there was a land claim case known as the Mabo case went before the High Court of Australia . Although the case did more or less do away with the concept that no one had lived on the land before the Europeans , it failed to give the Aboriginal People legal claim to any land and left it up to them to prove that they had lived there before Europeans .

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terra_nullius

Oh, there have been bucketloads of land titles cases since Mabo. It always works out the same...the aboriginals say, 'All this is ours - including this town, those three large farms and the coal mine down the road,' there's a bit of negotiation and the aboriginals end up with all the crown land, they really don't give a stuff about the town and most of the farmers are happy to have them hold a corroboree in the river paddock and say they're the traditional owners as long as it doesn't hinder their ability to graze sheep there.
The only real sticky one was the Hindmarsh Bridge affair.

[kreeden]

I'm sure that there has been , and that there will be many more . Land claims play a large part of Canadian politics too .

Hmmm ? Perhaps my question has too broad ? Perhaps each case has to be taken on it's own merits and there is no answer to how far back we should go to right something ?

[Quoth The Raven]

I don't know if it's a question of how far back you can go to right something as much as a question of whether it's right to attempt to penalise private enterprise for legitimate profits made through something that was government sanctioned at the time. If the government isn't prepared to come to the party, then I don't see how there's a legitimate case to sue even the companies that directly profited from slavery, let alone the ones for whom those companies were just an aquisition. I'll be interested to see how far they get with this though, in terms of using the companies they plan to sue as an unwilling hammer to crack the government nut.

[kreeden]

And I agree Lady L.. Well , with everything except the part of the government being willing to come to the party . Public opinion could very well force the government's hand , which I'm sure is what these people are hoping for .

Public opinion has changed greatly over the past 50 years , and it continues to change at a staggering rate . It will be interesting to see how this goes . But I think that it will come down to old fashion economics . Greed is one thing that doesn't seem to change much .

[Quoth The Raven]

Originally Posted by kreeden

And I agree Lady L.. Well , with everything except the part of the government being willing to come to the party . Public opinion could very well force the government's hand , which I'm sure is what these people are hoping for .

Public opinion has changed greatly over the past 50 years , and it continues to change at a staggering rate . It will be interesting to see how this goes . But I think that it will come down to old fashion economics . Greed is one thing that doesn't seem to change much .

The impression I get is that they're relying more on the companies they're sueing throwing themselves at the government and saying,'Ow, it burns, throw money at it and make it go away!' than they necessarily are public opinion. Public opinion may favour them in the end, but how far that will get them remains to be seen.
If they're going after universities as well though, I hope none of the professors involved is counting on tenure.

[kreeden]

Yea , I think that pretty well sums it up for these guys . But I'm just using them as an excample .

Public opinion is a very fickled thing . I think that is why these things interest me so ?