In Regards To Billie Eilish: Basically Every Country On The Planet Has Been Conquered and Had or Supported Slavery. GET OVER IT!!! I thought what she said at the Grammys was stupid, but shouldn't have to give up her house ... BTW, she said "No one is illegal in stolen land." Her Mansion in California sits on land that once belonged to the Yongva Tribe. Since her statement the Yongva Tribe has issued a statement: WE WANT OUR [STOLEN] LAND BACK ... You can't make this up ...
A Clash of Narratives: Property, Hypocrisy, and the Uncomfortable Truths of History
Pop star Billie Eilish’s declaration at the Grammy Awards, “No one is illegal on stolen land,” was met with rapturous applause from an audience clad in haute couture. It is a simple, emotionally potent slogan, perfectly suited for the era of social media activism. Yet, the swift and pointed response from the Tongva Tribe—who noted that Ms. Eilish’s own luxurious mansion sits upon their ancestral territory and expressed a desire to have it returned—has thrown that simplicity into stark and revealing relief. This incident is not merely a case of celebrity hypocrisy; it is a microcosm of a profound philosophical and historical conflict between a modern progressive narrative and the foundational principles of conservative thought, as well as the uncomfortable, complex truths of human history.
From a conservative perspective, Eilish’s statement represents the logical endpoint of a worldview that privileges grievance over gratitude, and emotional rhetoric over practical governance. The core of the argument rests on two premises: that the land was “stolen,” and that modern political boundaries are therefore illegitimate. Conservatism, in its American form, begins from a different foundation: the rule of law, the sanctity of legally acquired private property, and the recognition that the present is built upon a past we can learn from but cannot undo.
The conservative view holds that property rights, enshrined in law and defended by institutions, are the bedrock of a free and prosperous society. To declare all land “stolen” is to unravel the very concept of property title. On what basis does Ms. Eilish own her microphone, her awards, or her earnings? They are secured by a legal system whose legitimacy her statement implicitly denies. If the standard is original, pre-historical possession, then no individual or nation on earth holds legitimate title to anything. This is not a philosophy for building a functioning society; it is a recipe for endless conflict and societal collapse. The Tongva’s request for the return of her mansion is the perfectly logical application of her own logic. If she takes her slogan seriously, what is her answer? To vacate? To deed her home to a tribal council? Her likely inaction will speak volumes about the difference between fashionable sentiment and serious principle.
This leads to the second, and far more profound, point: the breathtaking historical naivete of the “stolen land” narrative as it is commonly presented. It posits a static, utopian pre-colonial world of fixed tribes living in eternal harmony with borders unchanged since time immemorial. This is a historical fairy tale.
Consider the “fun fact” about the Great Plains, a brutal but accurate summary of a deeper truth: **The Sioux took the land from the Cheyenne, who took it from the Kiowa, who took it from the Pawnee, who took it from the Crow, who took it from the Arikara.** This cycle of conquest, displacement, and enslavement was not unique to North America; it is the story of humanity. The victors did not merely take the land; they often enslaved the vanquished, absorbed them, or drove them out. The Mongols conquered. The Romans conquered. The Zulu Empire expanded through conquest. The Aztecs subjugated their neighbors. Every square mile of this planet has been contested, traded, settled, and resettled through millennia of migration, war, and treaty.
This is not to excuse or minimize the particular injustices inflicted upon Native American tribes by European settlers and the U.S. government. Broken treaties, forced removals like the Trail of Tears, and outright brutality are dark chapters that must be studied and remembered. But conservatism argues for a clear-eyed view of history, not a selectively guilty one. To single out the European-derived American project as uniquely “illegal” or “sinful” for doing what every human civilization has done—compete for resources and territory—is to apply a political and moral standard to our ancestors that is absent from the rest of human history. It is presentism of the worst kind.
The conservative alternative is not to ignore history, but to build upon it with realism and gratitude. The American experiment, while flawed and often violent in its expansion, also produced something historically exceptional: a constitutional republic based on individual rights, a system of laws that applies (in theory) equally to all, and the capacity for self-correction. The treaties, however dishonored, were at least an attempt at a legal framework—a concept often absent from inter-tribal conflict. From this hard-won foundation, the United States has provided more liberty and prosperity to more people from more backgrounds than any nation in history, including, today, to the descendants of those very tribes.
Furthermore, the practical implications of the “stolen land” narrative are both nihilistic and paralyzing. What is the prescribed action? The dissolution of the United States? The deportation of over 300 million people to countless points of origin across the globe? The redistribution of all private property based on genealogical claims lost to time? These are not policies; they are incantations of guilt. They offer no viable path forward, only a permanent state of apology and alienation from one’s own home.
Conservatism offers a different path: patriotism as a forward-looking commitment, not a blind worship of the past. It is the love of the country you have, the community you build, and the laws you uphold. It involves honoring specific treaty obligations that remain in force, supporting tribal sovereignty on existing reservations, and preserving historical sites. But it firmly rejects the idea that current citizens, whose families may have arrived generations ago or last year, bear personal, inheritable guilt for historical events they did not cause.
Billie Eilish, in her mansion on Tongva land, is the perfect symbol of this cognitive dissonance. She benefits entirely from the system her rhetoric condemns—its laws protecting her property, its economy generating her wealth, its platforms amplifying her voice. Her statement is cost-free activism, a luxury good afforded by the very stability she calls illegitimate.
In the end, the clash is between two visions. One sees a nation born in original sin, forever tainted, its people illegal occupants. The other, the conservative vision, sees a nation born in a revolutionary idea of liberty, forged through a difficult and often tragic history, but capable of justice, growth, and greatness. It chooses to build upon the legacy we have inherited, to improve it where we can, and to defend the civilized structures of law and property that prevent the world from reverting to the brutal, conquest-based reality that was the true norm for all human history—a reality where, as the plains tribes knew well, land was always taken, and the victors always took the spoils. We can acknowledge that past without being condemned to live in its shadow. The first step is to stop uttering slogans that would, if taken seriously, dismantle the very stage on which one stands.
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