Replies

Compare that attitude with the Israeli's who took a hard scrabble piece of land nobody thought was good for anything and turned it into a bountiful agricultural exporter.

That's a bad analogy - the Lakota/Sioux don't have religious and historical ties to the land going back 1000s and 1000s of years that Jews and Christians do to Israel. If you were on the Israel ping list, you'd see that things that might seem minor if they were anywhere else will set people off if they happen in certain parts of Israel, Jerusalem, etc.

I've been hunting and fishing all over North Dakota and Montana, and there are plenty of places that could provide a living (and do). The reservation areas usually suck (the justification being that the Sioux lost).

I will admit that it would be better if some left the reservations and went elsewhere, but I also see why they are trying to hold on to some semblance of culture or at least try and have some sort of identity - if they become 100% assimilated in American society as some here would like, then a people have basically vanished - game over, that's it. It's not like say somebody from Mexico who comes here and assimilates - their society still exists in Mexico. If these people assimilate, the Sioux as a recognizable group of people are gone forever.

I don't think much will come of this, but if somebody wants to get the federal government out of their lives, I'm all for it.

That's a bad analogy - the Lakota/Sioux don't have religious and historical ties to the land going back 1000s and 1000s of years that Jews and Christians do to Israel.

Which is precisely why I also included the analogy about Las Vegas in the post.

I also see why they are trying to hold on to some semblance of culture or at least try and have some sort of identity

I certainly understand the aspect of trying to preserve a culture. Many Freepers are old enough to have had the chance to meet old indian warriors, cowboys, cavalrymen and settlers. Some Freepers are old enough to have met Civil War veterans and former slaves and to have heard them tell their stories.

Several generations are required to change from one way of life to another. In the case of the American South, it was a little over a century... and many are still "fighting" the Civil War.

For the present day indians, many of whom grew up listening to their elders tell first-hand stories about the "Old ways", they have a certain romantic view of what life was really like living the "Old ways". They speak romantically of the former life they are told their people lived yet, are unwilling to put on a loin cloth, give up their pickup trucks, electricity, air conditioners, running water and return to the "happier existence" everyone speaks of but no one seems to actually try living.

if they become 100% assimilated in American society as some here would like, then a people have basically vanished - game over, that's it.

The problem is, they can't/won't return to the "Old ways" and life on the reservation is a relatively modern construct. The former pre-reservation culture is gone, all that's left of it are stories and re-enactments.

It's not like say somebody from Mexico who comes here and assimilates - their society still exists in Mexico. If these people assimilate, the Sioux as a recognizable group of people are gone forever.

Again, the Sioux, as a nomadic collection of hunter gatherers wandering about the Plains have been extinct for a little over a century. Some, (including members of most indian tribes) periodically try to return to the Old life but none manage to do so for any length of time. There's just something about being out in the elements, being rained on, swatting at swarming insects, and not able to find anything to eat for a couple of days that makes it awfully tempting to return to the trailer where there's food in the fridge and a clean bed.