Today, we are bombarded with claims that the lands of the Fifty States (i.e., the United States) are “stolen lands.” And demands that the only option is to give the “LandBack.” (An organization based in South Dakota, demanding that the Black Hills be returned to the “Great Sioux Nation” (a/k/a the Seven Council Fires, consisting of the Dakota, Nakota, and Lakota people.) Which would, of course, mean that millions of people who now own and live on that land must go somewhere. For example, “go back where they came from.”
Obviously, as lovers of liberty, we understand that going around stealing people’s land is a heinous act: an act of aggression that is immoral and therefore should be punished by government and not committed by government. Even by government “of, for, and by the people.”
But we detect just a few problems with the proposed solution of returning hundreds of millions of acres of land to the descendants (and presumably heirs) of millions of people who owned that land from 400 to 150 or so years ago. And forcing more millions of people who live on that land (and think they own it) to go someplace else – where back where they came from or somewhere else.
That is no doubt too big a subject to do more than touch on. But we can point out a few things.
Start with this cartoon online:
Now, the cartoon clearly is oriented towards “old Southerners” who want the carpetbaggers (well, the descendants of carpetbaggers) and the snowbirds, yuppies, Gex-Xers, etc. who have migrated from the Northeast and the Rust Belt to the South to “go back.” And of course, therefore give the land they currently own in the Southern States back. To someone. But who?
What a can of worms!
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The Price of Liberty 
Theft by government – continues today
It is well known, and even taught in government-run, tax-funded schools, that European nobility and royalty made and maintained their wealth by stealing. Land, labor, the products of the land, and more. But those in government-ruined, theft-funded schools are told that today, governments no longer do that. After all, they are “of the people, for the people, and by the people.” We worship democracy.
But all governments, at least those which are mandatory and instituted by fallible men, are kleptocracies to some (generally large) degree. Taxes, licenses and fees, and regulatory demands are just a part of it. Stealing land is perhaps far bigger.
Consider this recent article courtesy of the Mountain States Legal Foundation, and the Baker family of Nevada, pictured below.
NPS threatens ranchers and farmers ·
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