> > Wes,
> > I agree with you and Mousie. So does that make the three of us biggots?
> Make that four of us. We are having the same problem in our country. Aboriginals want traditional tribal land back. They feel they own it. Unfortunately, the farmer whose family has been on this land for five generations also believes he owns it. We're slowly working this out, in that Aboriginals are getting free access to the land, and the farmer may continue farming areas that are not sacred to the Aborigines. But that's a separate issue, sort of.
>
> The other problem our nation has, is the "Stolen Generation" But this is separate, as those people (well, the vast majority of them) are still alive. Or is it? Does it come under that law that Mousie mentioned (Which I can't remember the name of)?

I know even less about the Stolen Generation than you, probably, but it seems like those people should *totally* get some sort of reparation. As far as I understand (which isn't very far), these were children who, not too many decades ago, were removed forcibly from their own parents and adopted out to white families, solely because it was felt that Aborigines made unsuitable parents. If that's true, those parents or children should be allowed to sue the pants off the perpetrators. This seems like a *completely* different issue from the US slavery lawsuit, which is the stupidest thing I've ever heard.

We have a lot of Maori land claims here too. I think there are many cases which justify investigation into crooked dealing and illegal confiscation. But a lot of the time, it seems like somebody just jumps up to say "My ancestors sold your ancestors all this land in 1846 for two pigs and a box of nails but now it's worth $6.3 million and I want it back."

Well, duh, that's the way trade works. If you sell something, you can't turn around later and say "Oops, I didn't realise I could have got more for it. You have to give it back now." But this is effectively what many Maori land claims are doing. They are all, of course, based on the deep sacred spiritual feeling which the claimant has for his ancestral land. It seems that the claimant only beomes aware of this feeling immediately after the current owners of the land convert it into highly desirable real estate, not during the previous thirty years when it was a mosquito-infested swamp.

The sort of people who make claims of this nature are drawing adverse public opinion and media attention to the whole process, which can only harm those with grievances that *should* be brought to justice. This is the way I see the slavery lawsuit too.