-1
User voted Yes.
1 vote
Sep 24, 2015

I hesitantly say yes, although i think anyone who can get there should have every right to do so without a permit/visa/etc, I think this on the grounds that we were there first and we planted our flag up there, so by that logic i think that we own it i.e. we've got dibs on it.

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50
main reply
2 votes,
Oct 22, 2015

This logic was controversial in the 16th and 17th century, when England used it to claim all of North America while Spain, France, and the Netherlands (to say nothing of the Native Americans) rolled their eyes at it's absurdity. It has not turned into wisdom during the intervening years. Planting a flag doesn't mean anything.

(Also, the United States has declined any claims of possession over the moon.)

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0
User voted Yes.
0 votes,
Oct 23, 2015

I stand by what i said before, did you not read what i said about the Indians? they claimed America first that's why we should have been grateful that they were willing to let us colonize beside them and even engage in trade with us as neighbors, but we had no right to take what they had already claimed, what you are saying whether you know it or not sounds more like this, "the Indians had no right to the land because it's not about who found it first," or it even sounds like you are denying their Humanity by talking like they couldn't make a valid claim, not saying that you said that per se, but i am saying that is what it almost sounds like to me, but it's not really a racial issue, it's a property issue, and the point is, that's how it works, he who claims the land first and guards it with weapons is king, and woe to he who would challenge his sovereignty ill prepared.

The Whites should have respected the Indians prior claim to the land and only settled where they were permitted to, and also, Spain, France and the Netherlands also stole land from the indigenous peoples.

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50
2 votes,
Oct 23, 2015

Did you read what I said? Flags and footprints to prove possession was an English fiction. Native American residence was their proof of possession. No one lives on the moon, so thete's no claim of possession.

Flags and explorers don't establish possession except in an absurd, discredited English policy circa the 17th century. The natives had no flags; their claim came from residency. No one lives on the moon, so no one owns it. A flag and some footsteps mean nothing.

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0
User voted Yes.
0 votes,
Oct 23, 2015

"No one lives on the moon" ,...Yet, and thus far we are the only ones who have been there, so since possession is 9/10ths of the law we already own it, and the Indians just replaced flags with skulls and bones etc, to mark their territory and if you crossed the wrong tribes boundary marker it could've meant certain death, regardless of whether or not they had even used that land in recent times.

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67
linked reply
3 votes,
Oct 23, 2015

Natives shared land. Territory usually meant hunting rights and permission to pass through. Actually owning land was an oddity to them. Use rights like that are meaningless if you don't live there.

Soverign ownership was an European idea, used by landlords to get tenant-farmers to work the lord's land without takibg it from them. Even they didn't recognize each others' ownership unless there were settlers there working the land (farming, building buildings, etc). Empty land (like the moon) was considered abandoned. The idea that explorers could plant a flag and thereby establish ownership was a British idea, which they made up in hopes of expanding their domain without expensive wars. It didn't work because the French, Dutch, and Spanish (rightly) considered the idea silly and did not recognize the British claims.

You say people have to guard land with weapons to possess it. Since the USA isn't guarding the moon with weapons, they don't own the moon even by your stated standards.

You think you're defending the Native Americans' claim to their land by drawing a parallel to the moon, but you're not.

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-1
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1 vote,
Oct 9, 2015

This logic >> I saw it first! It's mine!

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0
User voted Yes.
0 votes,
Oct 12, 2015

That's about how it works in real life, that's why it was wrong for us to run the Indians off of their land during manifest destiny, it was rightfully theirs because they "saw it first" and laid claim to it first, so they were gracious enough to let us colonize some of the land that they didn't have any major claim on, but then in the 1800's starting with the presidency of Andrew Jackson it all started to go awry, so in the end what I'm trying to convey to you is this, that's how land claims on unsettled/uninhabited land works.

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