we know that there were norwegian settlements in greenland from about 1000-1250, but also that it was inhabited entirely by inuit from 1450-1700. the danes should be seen as colonizers, like the english and spanish and french. modern law would argue that if the greenlanders never signed any sort of a treaty, and were never conquered, then it would follow that the land legally belongs to the inuit and not the danes and the danish clam is full throated settler colonialism, in the 21st century.

there was a treaty in 1814 that, for the first time, lists greenland as a part of denmark, but it was a result of the napoleonic wars and the inuit were not a party to it.

i can find no evidence of a treaty between the danes and inuit, which would make the colonial danish occupation of greenland illegal under modern international law. the danes would be required to transfer large sums of money to greenland in compensation, and they would retain full sovereignty to make decisions, as they may.

the americans should keep that in mind if they want to build a serious relationship with the inuit on greenland. so should canada.

if you think wyoming is over-represented, note that there are 60,000 people in greenland and 600,000 in wyoming.

i wouldn't imagine anybody wants to make greenland a state.

so, who will pay for medicare in greenland?

these are the kinds of things people will actually care about. if trump is serious, he should have a plan for these kinds of concerns. greenlanders will not want to lose their healthcare.

the population of greenland is about 60,000 people and the truth is that they're not danes or norwegians, they're mostly inuit.

i would certainly defer to the inuit to maintain their autonomy, but, as a canadian, i know that the inuit aren't actually really that concerned about autonomy, per se. the inuit are themselves relatively recent migrants to north america, having moved there from northern russia, across the north pole, in recent decades. the ancestors of today's inuit continue to live in northern russia and are ethnically closely related to siberians and mongolians. they did not cross through beringia 20,000 years ago. but, like most indigenous groups in canada, and like their siberian and mongolian cousins, they don't have clear concepts of land ownership, nationality, statehood or property. these are nomadic hunters that "govern" themselves in tribal councils. they're like big families out in the woods without state oversight. 

i would call on the united states to explain what they mean, exactly. i would suspect any polling done heavily weighted the danish colony and not the inuit groups. the inuit should be presented with a draft first, and asked to analyze it, before being asked to make a decision. i would suspect that they may have little concrete opposition, once it is explained.

what would the inuit want?

- they would want the americans to clean up their garbage

- they would want the americans to leave them alone

are the americans proposing statehood, like hawaii, or incorporation as a territory, like puerto rico? are they proposing senate seats and elections to the house of representatives, with a governor? or are they proposing virtual autonomy, with an american military occupation? because that's already the case.

i don't think that this is decision is denmark's, i think it's greenland's.

rather than cyber rattling, trump should put together a clear proposal and put it directly in front of greenlanders. it's hard for them to accept or reject a proposal that is abstract and doesn't exist.

mark carney is the wrong leader at the wrong time.

no, the solution to the problems facing canada is not more free market capitalism, and the premise that it is is retarded. 

but carney only speaks for his party, which is the elite - the canadian oligarchs - that american integration would effectively wipe out, and in that sense he's right. to the average canadian, this doesn't fucking matter. this issue only matters to the rich, and it's only the rich that carney speaks for.

the rest of us are just cannon fodder to protect the passive income sources of the canadian oligarchy, which is organizing to send us off to die in a stupid, foolish war to protect their private property and their revenue streams.

canadians need to wake up and realize that the biggest threat to their freedom is their own government, which is going to slaughter us at the alter of finance capital, if we let it.

https://globalnews.ca/news/11620877/carney-davos-wef-speech-transcript/

if you, as a canadian, are legitimately fearful of america, and truly want it to change, then let me tell you that the pen is mightier than the sword, here.

america will change via democratic elections eons before it changes by military force.

canada's best tactic to maintain our way of life is to infiltrate their democracy and change it from the inside.

what canada would instantly have as full american citizens that iraq or afghanistan never had and would never get would be the right to vote in the united states.

as it was in rome, american citizenship is a powerful agent of change.

canadians might want to consider that.

i have no interest in fighting a guerrilla war against the united states like i'm some dirty islamofascist nazi and would be more likely to blow up a canadian police station if it tried to conscript me to fight it. i would tear down the statue of terry fox before i signed up to fight for it.

if the united states ever tried this, it would quickly adopt our health care model, because canada would provide the tipping point necessary for the united states to get to single payer. there is no abortion law in canada, and i would suggest that canada would provide the numbers necessary to pass federal legislation legalizing abortion in the united states. there's some other things that canadian voters would change about how the united states works and probably not much that the united states would change about canada or about being canadian. canada would benefit from more selective immigration, although i need to point out that canada doesn't have a porous border like the united states and the opposite would actually happen, as canada already has more selective immigration, but less aggressive enforcement. the best outcome would be to combine american enforcement with the canadian points system. ultimately, removing the problem of free market healthcare protected by the american border by removing it from the map would be a net asset for canadians, and i don't otherwise know why else most canadians would even give a fuck if we're americans or canadians.

i ultimately don't care about flags and anthems and hockey teams, although a us-canada hockey team would be unbeatable. i have no particular attachment to the word canada or the maple leaf and i don't care about maintaining stasis in global borders, which i think is naive and stupid. i am an advocate of the continuation of history; we're not done evolving or changing yet. we still have communism ahead of us in history, and then all the borders have to go. i would rather focus on changing the united states from the inside using democracy than on fighting some kind of stupid war against it.

https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20260120-canada-military-models-response-to-us-invasion-report

the claim appears to have been made by the danish prime minister.

i suppose it might have been mistranslated, as meaning "since 800 years", as since 800 CE. that would rely on the norwegian claim. it's still not really right.

there was a political union in the late 14th century called the kalmar unon that included all of the norse speaking areas (sweden/norway/denmark/scania, plus colonies in finland and the baltics, iceland, parts of the uk, greenland and wherever else the norse had settled in north america, but not including normandy or england) and eventually, through many incarnations, became the rump state of denmark. denmark is a rump state that is directly descended from this union, while the other countries broke away to declare independence or got conquered by somebody else. however, europe had lost contact with greenland by this time, and we know today that they were no longer there.

it's not clear exactly what happened to the settlements, with theories ranging from being wiped out by a tsunami to escaping to canada to joining the inuit. there has yet to be any convincing evidence of norse settlement found in hudson's bay or the great lakes, but that does nonetheless seem to be the most likely theory.

the specific number of 800 years is just wrong. potential dates denmark could use are:

- erik the red, c. 1000 (founded norwegian settlements)

- kalmar union, c. 1400 (union of denmark and norway, but the settlements were gone)

- hans egede, 1721 (date of existing danish settlements)

none of them are 800 years.

i would suggest that the correct date is 300 years and that the danish colonization of greenland is not different than european colonization anywhere else in the western hemisphere and subsequently is subject to the monroe doctrine.

there's a media claim that greenland's been a part of denmark for 800 years. 800 years! that's since 1226. 

unfortunately, for denmark, it's not true, nor do i know where the date of 800 years comes from. it's hard to even make sense of. there were no europeans in greenland, recently, until 1721, when a danish expedition was sent to find a lost norwegian settlement. while that is still 300 years ago, it's worth pointing out that jamestown was founded in 1607, quebec city was founded in 1608, new york (as new amsterdam) was founded in 1624, boston in 1630, montreal in 1642, philadelphia in 1682 and detroit in 1701. the danish were actually late to american colonization.

now, it is true that there was an older norwegian settlement there, founded around 1000 and certainly long gone by 1226. but it's also true that there were no europeans in greenland between the collapse of the norse settlement and the danish colonization in the 18th century.

i have no idea where the claim that greenland has been a part of denmark for 800 years comes from. it's just clearly wrong.