Posted on 12/20/2007 5:36:13 AM PST by Sopater
WASHINGTON — The Lakota Indians, who gave the world legendary warriors Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse, have withdrawn from treaties with the United States.
"We are no longer citizens of the United States of America and all those who live in the five-state area that encompasses our country are free to join us,'' long-time Indian rights activist Russell Means said.
A delegation of Lakota leaders has delivered a message to the State Department, and said they were unilaterally withdrawing from treaties they signed with the federal government of the U.S., some of them more than 150 years old.
The group also visited the Bolivian, Chilean, South African and Venezuelan embassies, and would continue on their diplomatic mission and take it overseas in the coming weeks and months.
Lakota country includes parts of the states of Nebraska, South Dakota, North Dakota, Montana and Wyoming.
The new country would issue its own passports and driving licences, and living there would be tax-free - provided residents renounce their U.S. citizenship, Mr Means said.
The treaties signed with the U.S. were merely "worthless words on worthless paper," the Lakota freedom activists said.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
Exactly! Ronald Reagan got a lot of grief when he once said that there was no greater example of the failure of socialism than the US indian reservation system.
I have long said that if we really want to do something for the indians, we should eliminate the Bureau of Indian Affairs and give the reservation inhabitants their land and houses and tell them it's all over kids. No more handouts, no more checks, nada mas.
Assimilate or die is a fine idea, unless you wish to retain the national identity of your forefathers. None of the immigrants were forced to live on an arid and unproductive stretch of desert with failed promises from the US government that their lives would nevertheless be supported so that they could feed their families.
If you made a deal with the US, you would want the deal to be honored on both sides. Especially if it was a deal reached at the end of a gun pointed at you.
This is not the same thing as lifting yourself up by your own bootstraps and sucking it up to be successful. You at least have some basic tools to use, and some economic possibilities. These people do not have the same circumstances as you.
I am also not recommending that the fix is a governmental thing. I think conservatives of good conscience should seek to educate themselves about these people and offer private help as they are able.
One idea is to offer to start a business close by to allow them to have the chance at a job. These people live miles from any developed area, and many have no transportation to travel for jobs. A little development would be a great boost to them if done in the right way.
We can still be conservatives and offer a leg up to our fellow man.
Agreed to a degree - when a people are supplied with substance to survive, they will tend to stay @ that level. The opportunities afforded in our great Republic are more than enough for those who desire to rise out of squalor.
All cultures are NOT equal and these people are perfect examples. They chose not to become part of the dynamo that is the United States economy and bitch about what happened hundreds of years ago just like another minority that suffers the same victim mentality. Well sorry you losers, there is no one alive that was a party to your plight and you can chose to bitch or get with the program and the opportunities offered to those who wish to advance.
The rest of us white folks have all sorts of time restrictions on our legal rights to redress wrongs but there are different rules for loser minorities.
Thanks for the information...
Feds owed them a lot of money and there land has already been taken.
What a bunch of Indian givers.
Well said!!
now THAT is funny
How do you know this isn’t part of the plan?
If I were an enemy of the US, I’d have STARTED my infiltration with the tribes.
These folks aren’t the Canadians. I’d be taking all of this more seriously if I were in Homeland Security.
Yes, those pesky details of losing a war over land do make it inconvenient to try to continue your way of life if you are on the losing side. For several thousand years it has been inconvenient for the world at large......
Do you think the dozen or so tribes that at one time or another prior to the white man’s arrival claimed to own, as an example, the Black Hills, were permitted to continue their culture after the next tribe decided they wanted the Black Hills as their own? I don’t think so........and I don’t think they had much of an option to try to continue their lifestyle, do you?
Yes, solidly blue several layers deep because of the dead voting with the living.
If they withdraw from the US how about giving back the billions of dollars of US taxpayer’s money that have been poured into these areas? The South Dakota portion of this new “Lakota” nation contains the poorest county in the US, (Shannon county)and the entire area of this new nation consists of Indian Reservations that depend on the Federal dole for everything from education, housing, health care, public safety to paying the actual living expenses of the residents. These reservations are total welfare states. Who does Mr. Means think will pay for all this if they withdraw from the US ...Cesar Chavez?
Don't believe this crap. They are all lurkers and steal ideas,information, and humor off this site daily.
If they set up a financial system based on hard money and put absolute privacy and free exchange laws into place, when coupled with making earnings from outside investments tax exempt and refuse to enter into tax treaties with any other country, this could get interesting. Of course the US would retaliate by refusing to allow any US bank to have a correspondent relationship, but hey, there are European correspondent banks who will correspond with anyone.
Let the economic competition begin!
Sounds like these Lakota’s wish to end the reservation system. We should grant them their wish and switch jurisdiction to the respective states they live in.
I’m thinking that Massachusetts could benefit from this example.
First the "Feds" have no money other than what they extort from us by force. So what you are saying is we owe them money. There is not a single Indian nor white person alive that were involved the taking of any land.
For the "Feds" to address the land issue would require all the taxpayers of the USA to have more money extorted from them to pay for something that they did not do.
There are time limits imposed on just about everything except murder. I guess only non-whites can demand compensation for things hundreds of years old.
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