Posted on 04/26/2013 3:14:02 AM PDT by lowbridge
Imagine a country that has a corrupt authoritarian government. In that country no one knows about checks and balances or an independent court system. Private property is not recognized in that country either. Neither can one buy or sell land. And businesses are reluctant to bring investments into this country. Those who have jobs usually work for the public sector. Those who don’t have jobs subsist on entitlements that provide basic food. At the same time, this country sports a free health care system and free access to education. Can you guess what country it is? It could be the former Soviet Union, Cuba, or any other socialist country of the past.
Yet, I want to assure you that such a country exists right here in the United States. And its name is Indian Country. Indian Country is a generic metaphor that writers and scholars use to refer to the archipelago of 310 Native American reservations, which occupy 2 percent of the U.S. soil. Scattered all over the United States, these sheltered land enclaves are held in trust by the federal government. So legally, many of these land enclaves are a federal property. So there you cannot freely buy and sell land or use it as collateral. On top of this, since the Indian tribes are wards of the federal government, one cannot sue them for breach of contract. Indian reservations are communally used by Indian groups and subsidized by the BIA (the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Department of the Interior) with a current annual budget of about $3 billion dollars. Besides being a major financial resource that sustains the reservation system, BIA’s goal is also to safeguard indigenous communities, or, in other words, to make sure that they would never fail when dealing with the “outside” society.
(Excerpt) Read more at mises.org ...
I grew up near two reservations. The Fond Du Lac and now the St Croix and you don't need a sign to tell you when you're on the rez
Saw a few in NM...deplorable conditions.
Want to get rid of the reservations, then the tribes need to agree to cancel the treaties, which they won't.
I get sick and tired reading about Indian issues around here tossed about by people who have no clue of the history or the actual treaties or laws governing the trust relationship.
I spend my summers canoeing the Canadian wilderness with a bunch of yoots who always are excited about visiting native settlements. I look forward to these occasional visits with mixed feelings. It's a chance to get a little fresh food, maybe an ice cream, etc., but it usually is a depressing visit for me. Few men around, mostly young women with little children, garbage, trash and the sort of grim ambiance described in Znamenski's piece. Maybe see a few adolescent boys hanging out huffing gas.
Everything he says applies to Canada's treatment of natives except on a proportionally larger scale.
Last summer I drove a different route to Canada and ended up stuck in the upstate NY Mohawk reservation for a day until Canada Immigration's computer system was restored. There and Gallup, New Mexico are two of the more depressing places I've ever found myself marooned. Peaceful native communities practicing their traditional activities of subsistence agriculture, hunting, fishing, cigarette smuggling and high-stakes bingo.
God spare us from the do-gooders.
“I get sick and tired reading about Indian issues around here tossed about by people who have no clue of the history or the actual treaties or laws governing the trust relationship.”
You make good points, but the fact remains that the arrangements are completely detrimental to many of the people living on them. While they are officially wards of the state (unlike many of our urban “takers”), they exhibit much of the same behavior regardless of the historical arrangements.
As they were designed to be in the 19th century, to keep the defeated Indians docile and "on the reservation."
Interesting how different the other nations defeated by the United States have turned out. Germany and Japan, for example, would look very different had the crippling terms forced on Indians been expected of them.
People adjudicated as mentally ill are better treated in this country.
“As they were designed to be in the 19th century, to keep the defeated Indians docile and “on the reservation.”
I’m sure there were many reasons, but the main one seems to be that they couldn’t assimilate with the WASP culture spreading across the west.
Your statement would seem to prove the article's point, don't you think?
We drove through the Crow Reservation in southern Montana a few summers ago on I90. I would notice what looked like state highway signs at various exits that said “NO SERVICES”. I didn’t have to think twice to know that meant I was not welcome in that valley.
I cannot comment on all the reservations in the US but I can talk about two.
Pine Ridge and the tree affiliated tribes. TAT. pine ridge is a disaster. The TAT rez is different. It is cleaner.you can buy beer on it and they don’t destroy their home like they do in pine ridge. Alcoholism is rampant on pine Ridge not so on the TAT rez
No, the Army was actually concerned about the spread of diseases like smallpox and tuberculosis, and wanted to keep the Indians separated to prevent epidemics as the general population moved West. War Department and BIA annual reports to Congress throughout the nineteenth century talk about this fear. Stopping the spread of communicable diseases from Indians is one of the reasons that the U.S. Indian Health Service was created in 1955, specifically to stamp out tuberculosis on the reservations (after it was found that too many Eskimos in the Alaska National Guard were infected and could not effectively guard the DEW Line).
I go through the reservation east of Greer AZ several time a year and I’ve yet to go through and not see somebody passed out in the barditch or in the front yard of they’re house.
“Any man who thinks he can be happy and prosperous by letting the Government take care of him; better take a closer look at the American Indian.”Henry Ford
I agree. The bottom line, it cannot continue as it is. Slavery wss abolished how many years ago?
Case in point, the Pine Ridge Indian rez, one of if not the poorest in the country, just sent a house to DEE CEE, for the purpose of show and tell. The rez needs more housing. It is an example also of what happens to housing over time on the rez.
It is also an example of why Socialism is a failure, and the rez, should I say any rez, probably not, is the best example of that failure in the USA.
It cannot continue, the Indian’s know it, and we who support them, know it.
...and let me say in closing, the indian people, are people like you and me, led poorly, and enslaved by the treaties meant to help them. Yet they continue to be patriotic supporters of the country, and many have served proudly and given their lives in past conflicts as part of the armed forces of the USA.
All that remains is a solution to the socialist slavery they are NOT forced to live under, but by coersion and familial if not tribal tradition, they return again and again to the rez roots which looks upon success, as something bad, that places you above the family and more like white than red. Sort of abandoning your roots. Most of the really choice folks realize that abandoning the rez and the way of life, is the only way out of socialist slavery.
Rosebud and Pine Ridge in South Dakota are the poorest places in the nation. if there is a hell on earth, they are its vestibules.
If you are a member of a local tribe around here, you get a $72,000 a year stipend starting when you are 18. Small wonder few in that community ever go to college or even work. Gee, give the average 18 year old that kind of money for doing NOTHING and what do you think is going to happen?
I’ll tell you this: it is a huge contradiction to have a population within a population that has it’s own jurisdiction and laws that can’t apply to the rest of us because of birth...................very creepy
its
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.