In this age of performative virtue-signaling, allow me a modest proposal that’s equal parts logic, history, and delicious irony. The sacred progressive mantra that we all live “on stolen land” has been weaponized to bash ICE, Trump, and anyone who thinks borders aren’t a hate crime. Barring time travel, we cannot undo the past, but we can stop repeating it. The only way to ensure no more stolen land is to close the border now, bar new uninvited arrivals, and end the cycle of incursion starting today.
Let’s rewire the slogan with the very same historical rigor the left demands: “Because it’s stolen, we (the current occupants) get to decide who comes in now, to prevent anyone else from stealing more.” Brilliant, no? After all, the “on stolen land” phrase is a relatively recent invention, a mash-up of 2010s activist chic and land acknowledgments that only went mainstream after Standing Rock in 2016. It didn’t exist when Columbus sailed, Jamestown was founded, or even when Obama was deporting record numbers. Funny how the same enforcement conditions under Democrat administrations never triggered Grammy-worthy meltdowns or campus chants. Selective outrage is a hell of a drug.
And let’s be consistent, as the slogan’s biggest fans insist. Every inhabited patch of dirt on Earth has been appropriated, conquered, traded, or swiped multiple times. Romans, Mongols, Zulus, Aztecs, Comanche, Iroquois, you name the group, they took land from somebody else, then had it taken from them. In nearly all cases, the takers and dispossessed are long dead. Yet here in 2026, actual living people (Native Americans, descendants of colonists, legal immigrants, and yes, even pop stars) have clear legal possession. Isn’t letting newcomers seize resources or space right now just another fresh act of “stolen land”?
Which brings us to the pièce de résistance: Billie Eilish’s recent Grammy faux pas. Fresh off winning Song of the Year, she solemnly declared“No one is illegal on stolen land… and f*** ICE.” The internet promptly reminded her that her $3 million Los Angeles mansion sits squarely on ancestral Tongva land.
The tribe politely noted the ancestral connection, appreciated the visibility, but wished she’d named them specifically next time. A cheeky LA law firm even satirically offered to evict her pro bono on the tribe’s behalf. No actual lawsuit materialized, just the glorious spectacle of a celebrity discovering that “stolen land” rhetoric is easier to preach than practice when it’s your gated mansion on the line. It’s like burning the Constitution because it’s a document of dead white men, then demanding your “constitutional rights” in court the next day.
In practice, this contradiction fuels chaos: Open-borders idealism (no walls, no enforcement, no deportations) collides with the reality that unchecked flows of illegals strain resources, depress wages for low-skilled workers, and overwhelm communities, the very people progressives claim to champion. Yet critics get called “xenophobic” instead of addressing the math. Noble in theory, but in practice, it selectively vilifies U.S. enforcement while the same conditions chugged along without comment under Obama (record deportations) and Biden (record encounters). No Grammy rants or campus chants back then, funny how the outrage only flares under Republicans.
In our modern mixed-race utopia, where most folks (like me) are genetically multiracial, how do we even divvy up “who gets what”? DNA tests? Family lore? It’s chaos. Better to lock in the status quo: Current occupants decide. Right the wrongs going forward, by keeping what we’ve got and closing the door to prevent the next theft. So, here’s the modest, tongue-in-cheek solution: If we’re all on stolen land, the only moral course is to lock the borders extra tight against the next wave of uninvited arrivals. We wouldn’t want to repeat the original colonial incursion, would we? Close the border to stop more stolen land, consistency demands it, history demands it, and Billie’s backyard demands it.
Right past wrongs going forward. End the cycle now!
Vince Phillips
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