Anyway, we are talking goods here and the issue was realty, about which I don't pretend to know anything at all -- I did take property, but that was mostly future interests and such stuff, not relevant here.
There's the further complication that JT says the NAs didn't claim to own the land in the sense that the Europeans owned land, which would not be surprising, since the common law evolved over centuries to meet specific conditions of feudal aristocratic and then early capitalist class struggle. If so, was there an original owner from whom the Europeans larcenously (in a legal sense) took possession or from whom they appropriated land by force or fraud?
The real point is that however one describes it legally, the European appropriation of NA land was in main unjust and immoral, and I think this is generally recognized. Also that the NAs remain shamefully treated today. Everyone knows that outside a few cases where tribes may have a legal case to this or that parcel of land the land is not going back to the NAs as a practical matter.
JT talks about "reparations," and I guess that is discussed among NA activists as it is among some black ones, but I think that monetary payments are not going to be forthcoming and would be totally inadequate -- this is a real instance where there is no remedy at law and the harm is irreparable. I also think (for reasons I have explained in discussing the issue of reparations for slavery with Charles) that they would be a bad idea, but the point is moot.
So the question is, in terms of solidarity struggles (a) what is to be done in the light of what I take to be the above facts, and here I don't think it is my place to make proposals, just to make objections. (b) Whether attempting to induce guilt is a good political strategy, and I think not.
Anyway, thanks for the correction and explanation. It teaches me not to write law when I am 3/4 asleep.
jks
--- John Mage <jmage at panix.com> wrote:
> Justin citing UCC 2-403 says:
>
> > Please notice that a good faith purchaser for
> value may acquire good
> > title regardless of whether the procurement of
> the goods was
> > larcenous under the criminal law.
>
> NO. Not so, and not what section 2-403 says.
>
> Justin, assuming you have studied sales, I can only
> figure you were
> asleep during the void/voidable distinction lecture.
> If you get a sales
> case you will learn it very quickly.
>
> Basically (and this is really basic) a thief
> ("larcenous") - i.e. one
> who takes without the owners consent - cannot
> transfer title. A bfp
> ("good faith purchaser for value")'s title is good
> against anyone EXCEPT
> the original owner's (and of course anyone taking
> under him). As to the
> original owner the bfp's title is VOID.
>
> Fraud (owner's consent was induced improperly),
> contracts by minors &
> some other categories (but never theft) give rise to
> VOIDABLE title.
> That is, repudiation by the minor or the finding of
> a court of fraud
> render an otherwise valid title void. Until that
> happens good title can
> be transferred to a bfp. This, and only this, is
> what UCC 2-403 and
> explicitly 2-403(d) refers to. That is why (d)
> spells out that although
> as a result of legislative action some frauds may be
> "punishable as
> larcenous under criminal law" that does not affect
> the rule that fraud
> does NOT count as theft for the purposes of the
> void/voidable
> distinction in regard to sales.
>
> Dust off your grandfather's [Judah P.] Benjamin on
> Sales and check it
> out. If you client has in good faith purchased
> another man's stolen female
> slave, he is plumb out of luck (though he can of
> course proceed against
> his seller, but he loses the slave without
> compensation). Our task as
> lawyers is to make a colorable claim that he can
> keep her afterborn
> children.
>
> john mage
>
>
>
> ___________________________________
>
http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
>
__________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com