In one more touchy-feely, I want the world to love me, feel-good gesture, President Obama came out in support of the U.N. Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous People. This is a break from past U.S. policy. Though the declaration is non-binding, it opens up a Pandora's Box of reparations, property rights skirmishes, mineral rights, and debates as to who is "qualified" to be labeled indigenous. This is not merely a U.S. problem. There are sure to be skirmishes, both verbal and possibly real, in regards to who is qualified in the Middle East, the Near East, Eastern Europe, and many other places. For President Obama to sign on to this Declaration shows either his naivite', or it exposes his ideological worldview as a redistributionist on a global scale that most of us never saw coming. - Brian
The Rights of Indigenous Peoples
JINSA Reports JINSA Report #: 1,048
December 20, 2010
In one of those form-over-substance moments that produce endless opportunity for mischief, President Obama announced that the United States would affix its signature to the United Nation's Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. "The aspiration it affirms, including respect for the institutions and rich cultures of native peoples, are ones we must always seek to fulfill," he said.
Americans happily adapt and adopt parts of other people's cultures (Chinese food unlike anything served in Beijing, pizza Italians wouldn't recognize, St. Patrick's Day and Cinco de Mayo parties) and respect other parts (forms of dress, holy days and fasting for Ramadan). But there are "native" cultures that simply do not warrant respect including honor killings, female genital mutilation, slavery, stripping trees for cooking fuel, clubbing baby seals and governance by the sword come to mind.
Worse, in Article 26, the Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples includes a prescription for endless warfare.
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