It's intended. When the government wanted the lands back in Oklahoma, they traded them for the personal allotments with the stipulation that they be enrolled with the federal government retaining oversight of the lands given. All rental and usage of this land is overseen by bureaucrats in the BIA. My personal experience is that every one I've met and talked to, go out of their way to keep Indians from requesting that their lands be removed from the federal trust.
To qualify my initial statement that it appears to me to be intended, from what I've seen the BIA exists merely to keep the Indians in a state of status quo. One example, being a government branch, the BIA will secure any rental or royalty lease without regard to the best interests of the owner. A lot of these leases are given to the lowest bidder just to keep the owners from profiting from their own land. In talking to one, he went out of his way to try to dissuade my mother from taking her lands out of trust. Her land is owned by herself and the families of her two brothers. He first tried to dissuade her by giving her all the cons of outright owning the land. He then stalled and avoided seeing her. Since all surveying work had to go through his office, it was impossible to get the land surveyed so that the various relatives could try to agree on allotments. To top it off, any attempts to reach management above his office resulted in the same bureaucratic run-a-round.
You're right. Socialism fails. One more example: the Indian Health Service. It was atrocious. It is a perfect example of what we could expect of public health services on a national scale. Some tribes have taken over complete management of their health services recently and the quality has gone up dramatically.
One thing I don't get; the willingness for some conservatives to sidestep the idea of individualism and group Indians as I stated in my original post. The tribes vary, but my family and most I know grew up Christian. We're not all liberal tree huggers and nature worshippers. We don't all subscribe to the leftist worldview. Most I know, even those who are apolitical, live a conservative lifestyle and adhere to conservative principles and family life. I've said this before and at least one freeper was honest enough to state that they had no idea. We're not all hollywood Indians.
Thank you very much for that personal account. I am glad to hear that so many Indians are Christians. I saw an Indian choir perform at a Promise Keepers convention some years ago. It was very moving indeed.