[Arkinsaw]

We have treaty obligations but

Does the other party to the treaty want to re-negotiate them? Unless the answer is yes any ideas about buying out reservations is pointless.

[Right Wing Professor]

Well, I'm not lawyer, but I did find the text of the 1838 Buffalo Creek treaty between the New York tribes and the United States.

http://tuscaroras.com/jtwigle/pages/treatyof1838.shtml

And it seems to me, under the text of the treaty, that the New York tribes agreed to be removed from New York to Indian territory. So I'm wondering how come there are any tribal lands left in New York state?

[marron]

We don't know until we start down the road. What has suddenly made tribal sovereignty valuable is the casino trade. That could be dealt with easily, by "grandfathering" the existing casinos, or conversely by legalizing them state-wide.

I honestly have no problem with reservations as a tribal trust, or corporation, which in effect is what they are anyway, and I don't really object to any treaty obligations other than the issue of sovereignty. It is already a modified sovereignty, it is not complete by any means. Our choice is to continue to modify it over time as problems and abuses arise, or simply to eliminate the fiction at once. The latter is probably not politically possible, without something that makes the tribes want it.

But they are not actually sovereign even now. They are exempt from certain state laws but not all, and they are not exempt from federal law. It is just a muddy area of law that needs to be clarified.

It could be that we need to take the opposite approach. The level of sovereignty that exists is probably not really any greater, or perhaps less, than that which the states themselves would enjoy if the 9th and 10th ammendments were honored. So maybe the question isn't less sovereignty for the Indians but more sovereignty for the rest of us.