Well, back when Indians didn't have money, an economy, or anything left worth taking, nobody cared or noticed... but oh, now that they have money, an economy, suddenly it's unacceptable and we need to take that from them as well.
What utter bullcrap. Arnold can kiss my butt. The indians pay enough, and if he doesn't think it's enough then maybe, just maybe Arnold should look at cutting waste in the state government and letting everyone else pay less, too.
But no. That would be too hard. It's easier to use the Indians as scapegoats for all that is wrong in California.
Well, yes and no as I understand it. They were (sort of) at one time. But then over the years they’ve managed to get into various arrangements and agreements where they’re really not.
For instance, “The compacts allowing gambling in the first place, in which Gray Davis gave away the store, are good for another 17 years.”
That just sort of illustrates that they’re not exactly sovereign or they wouldn’t need a “compact” to allow gambling.
When I was growing up one side of our land was adjacent to a reservation. They knew who we were and didn’t mind us being there (when we crossed over into their land) since we didn’t cause a problem (there really wasn’t much around anyway).
We were probably 12 years old and would drive dirt bikes up and down the roads and the county sheriff couldn’t touch us because we were on Indian land. No driver’s license, no fishing license, no hunting license, could shoot fully automatic weapons (a few Indians had them) without anyone having to have a FFL or class III permit, we were able to make and use honest-to-goodness cherry bombs without destructive devices permits, drink beer (well, probably by the time we were 15 or 16 anyway), smoke cigarettes, dip snuff – pretty much whatever we wanted.
Granted, the tribal police could have arrested us or booted us out at any time but they evidently didn’t mind us being there (or had more important things to do).
But then they didn’t have a casino either. All they had (as I recall it) was a little mom and pop convenience store with a deli and a minnow tank/bait shop in the back. That was pretty much it. No other businesses or jobs at all. Everybody that had a job had one in town.
Oh, and more power to them. If they can stick it to CA I’m all for it. Fleece whitey and don’t give a single cent to CA. Tell old Arnold to start cutting programs to free up money if he needs it.
Congress may eventually be forced to redefine "sovereignty" or do away with it altogether.
Ha, well that’s a sticky wicket. If it’s sovereign, it’s sovereign (I say realizing it really isn’t… not much). U.S. congress has about as much business “redefining” it as they have redefining China’s sovereignty.
Were I an Indian I might be tempted to make my sovereign tribal land a sovereign nuclear weapon-possessing tribal land and tell congress to “come get some” – especially if I was sitting on billions of dollars. Or they could call on the U.N. to station troops on the “borders” to protect against U.S. aggression against sovereign indigenous people or something.
I honestly don't think it would take very much to tie our congressional buffoons up in knots for the next 100 years.