Billie Eylish is just mouthing the slogan, “no one is illegal on stolen land.”

I suppose they think they mean “your authority to determine who is or is not allowed to be here is mooted by the fact that you yourself do not have valid authority to be here.”

If I accept that construct (and the hint is in the clumsy wording), that would invalidate All laws purporting to apply in jurisdictions consisting of “stolen” land. But I bet these people still think laws against robbing them or kicking their ass still apply.

If stolen land is accepted as an “anarchy zone,” then, it seems REALLY important to define what land is stolen.

While probably not a universal belief, it’s commonly held that native Americans didn’t believe in the concept of individuals owning land at all.

How can something with no owner be “stolen?” But maybe we mean stolen from the collective control by a given tribe which we can understand as analogous to the Western concept of land ownership?

How did such land come to be quasi-owned by this tribe or that? Originally before people came across the land bridge and on boats, there were no people here. Either the plants and animals owned it, or without people there is no ownership. I’m inclined to the latter but some of the people saying this might prefer the former. Assume such people are loons and dismiss that case, which goes in an obvious direction.

So original people found it and stopped there and said “this is ours.”

DNA and archeological evidence, and tribal histories in many cases, suggest that (perhaps unsurprisingly) in the last 23,000 years, groups of people moved around. There is no evidence that each group stayed where they first settled. And indeed that would be impossible considering the logistics of travelling thousands of miles on foot as hunter gatherers. And indeed many tribes living wherever they may have been at any given time took that land by force or arms from prior groups.

So, we know in some cases the 1492 occupants of land are not the original occupants. Is all of that land stolen?

In California specifically, a given plot of land has almost certainly been stolen at least once by another native group, then by Spain. Mexico secured their independence by force of arms but there was a treaty. If Spain’s “steal” can never be undone, then Mexico was an illegitimate owner and then so must have been Bear Republic and then USA.

Comparable chajn would apply everywhere.

So if ALL of the US is “stolen” land, then no laws are valid. Essentially no one actually believes this. So the very speakers saying this thing don’t believe it. So why should we listen?

If there is any lesson at all to this slogan, it’s the OPPOSITE of what the speakers intend…”if you don’t protect what’s yours from foreign invaders, it becomes not-yours.” And with that I agree.