Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach
The National Wildlife Federation (NWF) has issued a new report (PDF) asserting that the Early Asian Immigrants (incorrectly referred to as “Native” Americans) are hit the hardest by “climate-induced weather extremes”. I’ll leave aside the obvious problems with that fanciful claim, and the oddity of the idea of “climate-induced weather” whatever that means, to look at the NWF’s proposed solution to their imaginary problem.
Their solution? Well, their brilliant plan is that everyone but the Immigrants should pony up some money to give to the Immigrants.
Now, the history of the Early Asian Immigrants is a sad and tragic one. They were cheated, lied to, killed indiscriminately, and their culture and ways were denigrated and often destroyed.
The response of the US Government, after many years, was to give the remaining tribes of Immigrants their own nations. These are sovereign areas with their own leaders, where many US laws do not apply. Me, I’d give just about anything to be able to write my own laws, and not have to obey some US laws. But I don’t get to.
Now, however, the NWF wants to change the rules. They want to alter the laws so that the separate Immigrant nations can not only be sovereign and independent and run casinos and not be subject to various state laws, but they can also suck up tax money paid by people who live in my nation. As an example of what they want to change, they say:
Indian [sic] Tribes are also excluded —– because of statutes, regulations, or practice —– from dozens of federal natural resource programs that provide assistance to states, local governments, and other entities.
Well … yes indeed, they are excluded from using my tax money for a host of things, and for very good reasons. That’s the price they pay for independence and sovereignty, that they don’t get treated the same as other US citizens, or like a State, or like a local government—because they aren’t any of those things, they are a sovereign nation with all that implies. For example, I can’t go on the reservation and do what I want, that’s the Immigrant national land. Immigrants don’t have to follow a variety of laws, and rightly so. And I don’t get any money from tribal funds that they are getting from Immigrant casinos, casinos that are illegal for me to operate.
So while I definitely feel for the Immigrants, who historically have suffered unimaginably, they can’t have it both ways. If they want to be full participants in the American rush to have the US government reimburse them for every imaginary problem, they can’t also be exempt from various laws and State taxes and some even from Federal taxes and get to have their own nations. If they want the full panoply of dubious benefits that the rest of the citizens get, sorry, they’ve got to become just like me, subject to all of the nonsense which us Late European Immigrants have to put up with.
Or they could just pay for the things that they need from their casino takings … which were $7,300,000,000 ($7.3 billion with a “b”) just in California alone in 2009, and $26,400,000,000 nationally, and on which in many states they paid no state taxes. I say they should use their own money for that kind of quixotic quest. If they want to use my taxes to fight imaginary menaces, well, they should have to pay taxes just like I do and be subject to the same idiotic rules that constrain me.
In any case, if the Immigrants are entitled to my tax money, it seems only fair that in return I should be able to open my own casino. But I don’t need to make billions. If I can only make a few million dollars from my casino, I assure you that I can protect myself against the worst that man-made warming can do, and save the Government a pile of money in the process … plus I’ll pay all applicable taxes on my takings.
It’s a win-win kind of deal.
w.
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UPDATE:
Willis has free reign to publish here, however this is not an article (in its present form) I would have published if consulted. Once published, I can’t put the cat back in the bag. – Anthony
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A note from the author. Anthony has most graciously given me the room to write here without censorship or interference or suggestions of any type,and has my great thanks for the freedom. As such, I ask that everyone be clear that what I write is mine, and what Anthony writes is his. He is passionate about his causes, as am I about mine. I thought long and hard about this before I posted it, as I do with all of my posts, but even more so because it is a touchy subject. I re-wrote it several times to try to make it clearer and clearer.
Now, I could have just said “Ooooh, too hot to handle” and picked a less controversial subject … but if Anthony and I and all the guest posters did that, this would be the most boring blog on the planet.
All I ask is that people quote my words when they object, because most people are treating this subject like a web-based Rorschach test, and reading into it all of their hopes, fears, and prejudices.
Again, my thanks to Anthony for his marvelous blog,
w.
Hey Willis, the NWF talk about Lake Mead in that report in the context of droughts, but they left off this graph.
http://lakemead.water-data.com/graphingengine.php?graphing=1+back_days=
I agree. You have just about covered it all.
I can’t claim to be a native of any other country except the one where I was born; The U.S.A.
Some natives are more equal than other natives.
I’m reminded of the definition of a financial market broker as “someone who invests your money until it is all gone”. Government officials are there to find new and innovative ways to spend your money until it is all gone.
I was like National wildlife federation where have I heard that name before, oh yes in connection with being the lapdog for various oily organizations like BP, happily receiving “dirty money” peddling petrochemical based toys from china in gas stations. And weren’t NWF also quite amicable towards BP’s deep sea drilling before before…the accident.
Simple solution – remove the NWF’s ‘charitable’ status and impose a tax on all donations they receive. Give that the Early Asian Immigrants ….
You can moan about them being tax exempt, but you know what? They didn’t ask you to come to their country and [snip]. They were happy enough before the settlers arrived and set up to FED and the Income Tax shake-down. The settlers came and decided to run a [snip] economy based on borrowing money from China to buy crap from China so that China can emit the CO2 for them – and have the jobs and prosperity that goes with it. The Indians did not ask you or your ancestors to come and do that. And now you want them to pay taxes into your crappy economic system too? What, it is not enough what happened to them already? You want more?!
Good lord, Willis. When you’re making up your own private personal word for something, you’re not entitled to [sic] the normal ordinary word. Words are supposed to communicate meanings, and Indian conveys the meaning of that ethnic group to everyone but you.
‘But glory doesn’t mean “a nice knock-down argument”,’ Alice objected.
‘When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.’
NWF has a “Tribal Lands Global Warming Manager”?????
Gotta love the complaint about “..much of the housing is in isolated areas and lacks electricity and running water”. The fault of whom?? With such high unemployment, you’d think they’d be hiring themselves to do Tribal (public) Works Projects and fix the problem.
But isn’t the generation of electricity one of the principle evils causing “global warming”, along with their use of all the other modern conveniences like cars and trucks? As Willis so clearly points out, they want it both ways. What I must be missing is why the NWF is involved.
Maybe the simple answer would be found by following the money.
Mr E
Your writing brightens up my day – thanks
Dave G
Perhaps those with Neanderthal genes should sue those with only “modern” human genes for wiping out their ancestors.
Native Americans is NOT an incorrect reference. If Native Americans aren’t “native” after 14 thousand years or more, then the word “native” has NO meaning.
Early Asian Immigrants properly refers to the Chinese of the early 1800’s. Fourteen thousand years before them were the Early, Early, Early, Early, Early, Early, Early, Early, Early, Early, Early, Early, Early, Early, Early, Early, Early, Early, Early, Early, Early, Early, Early, Early, Early, Early, Early, Early, Early, Early, Early, Early, Early Asian Immigrants…..
@chris SMith — either you forgot the /sarc or you are showing your true colors — [snip]
A couple of things. First, like Dave Stephens pointed out, Native American is not an incorrect word. I am Native Ameican as is my whole family, my wife, etc. We are Native Americans or even Indians. We are NOT Early Asian Immigrants. Second, most of the tribes are not rewriting the laws. They aren’t wanting it both ways. Most of them are actually holding the US government to it’s rightful obligations. The Native Americans didn’t surrender unconditionally. They signed treaties with the United States. These treaties had various conditions attached to them. The terms of which have been ignored or have been altered under a mutually agreeable new set of terms. If you want to blame anyone, blame the “white people” who weren’t able to wipe out the “Indians” and had to resort to signing treaties, some of which had very favorable conditions for the “Indians”.
If ya didn’t do the crime ya shouldn’t have to pay the fine or do the time. Isn’t there a statue of limitations in New Yak harbor that says something like that somewhere close to her bossom? It’s on a tablet, right? No?!? Ohhhhh… ahhhh this guy from Canada says it’s writen in magic marker inside her head.
Willis Eschenbach, your ignorance of Native American history, and their current status and problems is appalling. Your insensitivity in writing this drivel is even worse. Shame on you!
Roger E. Sowell, Esq.
Hey Willis, the subjects of many names receive lots in the way of Federal Programs.
Search this document for the word “Indian” and you can finds upwards of 10 billion in annual funds.
Well said Dave Stephens!!
After giving the report a quick read through, and seeing all of the imbecilic contradictions, I might have missed something, where is the pestilence? You can’t have all that anthropogenic disruption and not call in the locusts… Not a Hollywood biblical epic without them. Disappointing.
@Twiggy
Locusts? – they were Soooo last year 😉 http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/nature/australia-faces-worst-plague-of-locusts-in-75-years-2089919.html
@chris Smith – One hopes you’re being sarcastic. If not, study the history of early North American colonization by Europeans and you will find the “Indian” attitude toward the colonists to be much more complicated. The tribes of the North American east coast were engaged in competitive empire building, and the settlers were seen as sources of advanced weapons, military allies, and trading partners. To that extent, yes, the settlers WERE invited. The later tribes of the Plains were so big that they could only camp in one place for less than a week before the land was completely wasted and they had to move on. As for today, one wonders how much money made by Indian casinos has passed through China in one way or another.
They sure know how to play the guilt card. Native Americans will surely know that this is all complete bull cr@p, and that cold is what kills, and that colder times are in fact what’s coming. They know that climate cycles around, and surely must be snickering at the white man’s idiocy in believing not only that warmer is bad, but that he is responsible for it, in addition to all other “climate extremes” – floods, drought, fires, plus extreme cold, ice and snow. But, he will take the white man’s guilt-inspired climate dough gladly, and laugh all the way to the bank.
Read with interest, Willis — but as an Australian any comments may seem kinda “racist” if I made them. Perhaps I can risk “human nature”…
I get Willis’ point, and it’s well made. Genetically speaking he’s right. We can trace the genes.
I also understand the discomfort that comes from realizing that the world isn’t as we were taught it is – there were probably multiple adventures across the Bering Strait, not just during the last ice age. Those from the last ice age are just being discovered, so the previous adventurers may not have faired as well as the last ones.
As far as the NWF is concerned – just another hog, trying to find another trough. Much like the ASPCA – a lot of $ going to advertising, to create a lot of $ going to advertising, repeat. Oh, I forgot the salary increases going to the association managers due to their brilliant management of the association and the raising of so much money for a good cause.
So called indigenous Americans did not all arrive at the same time on the same bus. They came at different times, in different waves over thousands of years. I don’t imagine that late comers were welcomed with open arms, and it is silly to award the American Indian with some sort of superior moral status. It is probable that nobody got a warm welcome.
Just because Europeans were even later immigrating doesn’t mean that they shouldn’t have come. To think that a few million stone age inhabitants should have kept an entire hemisphere from the rest of the world is not realistic.
Willis is right. The American Indian has been treated shabbily, and the NWF is trying to solve a problem that doesn’t exist.
I grew up on an indian reservation in western New York State in a town that was and possibly still is the only incorporated US city completely inside an indian reservation. The land is leased from the tribe. The disputes that have arisen between the tribe and local, state, and federal governments are legion and the past 20 years have been the worst. There’s very little friction between individuals that live on the reservation it’s all between governments. The residents of the township and people from outside the reservation enjoy a lot of those tax advantages. No taxes on gasoline, tobacco, beer, wine, liquor, and so forth. There’s a large casino and big hotel just outside town built about 10 years ago that’s now the largest employer for people who live there and which attracts tourists who spend money at local stores and whatnot. Profits from the casino are shared with the city to defray the cost of city services and keep it looking good. The primary problem is that indians, who are not at all poor, are buying up homes in the city. Some 38% and rising of all the homes in the city are indian-owned and they are exempt from property taxes. So a rapidly declining number of homeowners are stuck footing the bill to pay for police, fire department, and schools which are services shared equally by everyone. The sovereign nation thing is rather exaggerated and pretty much exists in name only. Tribal justice system is generally limited to misdemeanors (no punishments greater than one year imprisonment) and only applies to tribe members. So visiting an indian reservation isn’t like crossing the border into Mexico. Not even close.
It’s the same as the ‘slavery reparations’ demands. I never owned a slave myself [& I personally feel like I’m an indentured servant to the government], but I’m supposed to pay for what someone else did a century and a half ago?? [And America’s national apologia for slavery — electing an incompetent failure who doesn’t have a drop of slave blood — how’s that working out, eh?]
The truth of this article is even worse. A lot of these “tribes” [called “bands” in California] are populated and run by scheming European descendants who have little or no Native American ancestry. They are simply a special interest group that pays a cut of their casino income to the state governments in return for special treatment — all at the expense of hard-bitten taxpayers.
It’s the same in Hawaii [sorry: “Hawai’i”], where supposedly native Hawaiians receive extra special treatment and legal rights. Lots pf putative Hawaiian ‘natives’ look like they just got off the boat from Scandinavia. But suggesting a DNA requirement to determine native Hawaiian ancestry results in instant howls of “racism!!”. Reading the incessant hurt feelings reports in the Letters to the Editor section of any Hawaiian newspaper is enough to make any normal person retch. What is the world coming to? I thought we were all supposed to be equal.
.
[BTW, nice example of an “Indian” note, Willis. I collect old U.S. currency, and that note looks great in a frame. You can find ’em on ebay. They’re about 25% bigger than modern currency notes. There were “Indian” gold coins produced, too.]
We’re all Early African immigrants. At some point, political correctness regarding long-established terminology that does not insult anyone has to stop. (Never mind that “Africa” is not an African word…)
@ Roger Sowell; So, what he said was true, it’s just that it wasn’t PC enough for you. Got it.
This rant is more than a bit embarrassing. We don’t need any more hate labels – everyone is an “immigrant” from somewhere.
This about explains it:
from a native american (aka someone born in America)
There seem to be a lot of very touchy people who misread the essence of Willis’ posting. He has zero gripe with native Americans and no enmity with their legal and economic status. His point was that the NWF has an extremely weird argument. They want US taxpayers to subsidize the Indian nations even further than they already do. This to pay for some imaginary “climate-induced weather extremes” which they purport to be harming the Indians. That’s the only point; the NWF is full of beans. Climb down. Willis is not complaining about the Indians, he is pointing out the absurdities in the NWF’s proposal.
Jason Joice M.D. says:
August 8, 2011 at 5:02 am
“A couple of things. First, like Dave Stephens pointed out, Native American is not an incorrect word.”
It’s a political distinction. We’re all the same species and our species is not “native” to anywhere except Africa. I believe that’s the point Willis was making but he certainly could have explained it better. Religious beliefs notwithstanding if wolves could talk I’m sure they’d consider you and I both as foreign invaders because they were here before any of our ancestors arrived. So what gave you the right to invade their land and start hunting on it? All claims of ownership, borders, and sovereign lands are anthropogenic inventions that nature doesn’t recognize.
This history is more tangled and painful than any essay can hope to adequately address, but one theme should not be forgotten when the squabbling over which group is to blame for the mess and who is being insensitive to whom. It is the government which has consistently made bad situations worse — from the beginning right up to the present — trampling on the natural rights and the liberty of everybody to some degree. Willis, although you get diverted into an equal rights debate, your first inclination is correct, which is to point out how the rules keep changing and only make things worse.
NWF is just another rent seeking leech. As for Native Americans and Climate Whatever – If I were in their position I would take whatever money the idiots in DC were shelling out while the getting was good. As the modern Asians (and S&P now too) have been saying of late, there’s not a lot time left for such spreading of our wealth.
Personally I think this post would have been better if it had restricted itself to the climate angles without bringing in quite so many social ones. Not to say social isn’t important, more that I don’t think a science blog is the place for it. I hate political correctness with a passion but opening up another front isn’t a good move. If it must stay, a bit of a glossary for those of us outside of North America might be helpful.
In 2010, the median US household income was $52,026. This means that for every $1 million this scheme proposes to spend, it will consume the entire annual income of 20 households. If there is anything lacking in this scheme, it is any sense of the economic destruction it implies with those who will be imposed upon to fund it.
A few years ago, a federal lawsuit moved sufficient forward for it to be clear how the federal government had grossly mismanaged and stolen hundreds of millions in royalties due to native peoples. If the NWF wants to truly help this group, the easiest way would be to help them to maximize the amount of oil and gas resources on their lands that can be developed and from which they can earn royalties that are honestly accounted for.
@bladeshearerJack Maloney:
“everyone is an ‘immigrant’ from somewhere.”
I’m not! My father’s father was, but my Dad and I were born right here. My Dad emmigrated to the ‘happy hunting grounds’ a few years ago, but he was never big on hunting; he liked beer and cards, and fishing sometimes. I might emmigrate to Oz or NZ one day, then I’d be one too (after I got there). But the way things are going with the economy, I’ll probably just die a pauper right here and then emmigrate up to the “happing hunting grounts” myself.
Could we be looking at a case of minorities hoist by their own petard?
Willis,
You’d be speaking of the extensions to the Harvard Project American Indian Economic Project that began in the late 70s & early 80s?
http://hpaied.org/
Stephen Cornell http://www.banffcentre.ca/departments/leadership/aboriginal/faculty/faculty_member.aspx?facId=165 and
Joseph Kalt
http://belfercenter.ksg.harvard.edu/experts/51/joseph_kalt.html
published extensively on native economic development.
Their Harvard model was exported to Australia, Canada etc in various shapes and forms.
Their earlier papers comparing various tribes forays into logging, agriculture and such endeavours or suggestions for self-development $ schemes, when analysed, make interesting reading.
re Casinos; that must be a mighty investment in telecommunication infrastructure you have their in outback US. Especially now that the one arm bandits are digital.
Dave Springer says:
August 8, 2011 at 5:45 am
Question. Who regulates to prevent water, air, and land pollution, and protect endangered species?
Heh, the picture got skipped completely.
http://lib.store.yahoo.net/lib/demotivators/governmentdemotivationalposter.jpg
I agree. The NWF is cracko. They are the ones taking political correctness down to the size of a hair on a gnat’s arse. At this level, I can play this game too. I would like to put in a complaint over my difficulties related to having red hair, being short, being of Irish descent, etc. There has GOT to be tax dollars in there somewhere for me.
And to put a fine point on it, these complaints I have logged and my need for tax dollars are related to FUTURE problems arising from PROPOSED scenarios.
Dave Stephens says:
August 8, 2011 at 4:33 am
“If Native Americans aren’t “native” after 14 thousand years or more, then the word “native” has NO meaning.”
I was born in North America. That makes me a “native” too. Nobody gets to choose where they are born. You’re fortunate if you can choose where to live after you are born. Ancestral rights are political inventions worth nothing absent the ability to defend the claimed rights.
“Native Americans” were at constant war between tribes before Europeans decided to settle and would still be at war. I think if the groups want full sovereign nation status they should receive it and be treated as a separate country rather than “In Name Only” except for benefits. Most of the current crop of “Native Americans” have a small percent of “Native Blood”. My Great Grandmother was descended from the Cherokee Nation that was not displaced from the Appalachian region during the trail of tears. That would make me as much as one eighth Indian but I was raised as an American Citizen of European decent. There are those with lower percent heritage claiming native status in an attempt to be something they are not. Europeans brought the Americas out of the “Stone Age”. Yes Willis is correct about the history of the “Natives”. They should be paying tribute to the descendants of the Europeans for all the advances that were introduced into their lives.
Fred H. Haynie says:
August 8, 2011 at 6:41 am
Dave Springer says:
August 8, 2011 at 5:45 am
“Question. Who regulates to prevent water, air, and land pollution, and protect endangered species?”
Lawyers mostly.
Its amazing how quickly the “Race” card gets played. Just yesterday Bishops Hill had its resident troll trying it!
Where do you start? Spanish out of S.America? Dutch out of the East Indies? Criminal class out of Australia? (Sorry Antipodean readers, I could not resist it!).
Probably best to have steered clear of this one Willis. The NWF is probably to be trusted about as much as the WWF when it comes to “climate-induced weather extremes”!
Van Jones is likely behind this
I agree with many before. Willis, you do a discredit to this blog by demeaning Native Americans. Your point that the NWF recommendations are ridiculous could be made without espousing your lack of respect for Native Americans. Shame on you.
Hmmm. Just like the Canadian model for what we call “First Nations”.
With all those zeros, shouldn’t the b be a t?
Chris Smith says:
And now you want them to pay taxes into your crappy economic system too? What, it is not enough what happened to them already? You want more?!
****************
Reading comprehension isn’t your long suit is it ?
The article was commenting on the native Americans getting money WITHOUT paying taxes..
They don’t pay taxes, so fine …………………….. they don’t get benefits.
We are all immigrants, if we look back far enough. More trendy left wing hand wringing, no doubt funded by the taxpayer. But that’s what they are good at, creating false us and them scenarios so that they can tax us to pay them. As for historical injustices, get over it and stop using it as an excuse for deficiancies in your own societies.
It’s really funny to see commercials in California asking people to support indian casino rights. You see these guys all dressed up like they’re part of a show about indians, and they’re asking you to feel sorry for the tragic position their in and how they need indian gaming to help people out.
LOL.
I still laugh thinking about it. These are nations of people who lived off the land for centuries, and now they’re lobbying the public for rights to cold hard cash. Any true native-americans should lose their lunch of the existence of such commercials. lol.
It’s like they refuse to assimilate over and over and over… until you hand them wealth, and then of course its “Hell pardner, pass the real-estate and let’s get cozy with the politicians!”
Thank goodness Columbus didn’t think he had landed in Turkey.
Dave Springer says:
August 8, 2011 at 6:15 am
. Religious beliefs notwithstanding if wolves could talk I’m sure they’d consider you and I both as foreign invaders because they were here before any of our ancestors arrived.
###
Canis lupus is a new comer also. Probably reached the central US less then 15000 years ago. Though the traditional date of the arrival on this continent is often given as 1 M years ago, there is really little evidence to support it. Wolves are immigrants too. Now the Coyote on the other hand is a true native.
DesertYote (2011/08/08 at 8:27 am)
Sounds like the rural area where I live – if your grandparents weren’t born there you are considered ‘a blow-in’.
Why is it that the answer to everything is handing out money? I’ve come to the realization that if you get money changing hands, then someone else has an opportunity to grab some of it, either legally (taxes) or illegally.
Typical of organizations like the NWF. Pick something they feel is sacrosanct, which can’t be disagreed with without giving them an opening to cry racism or such. First it was “cute, cuddly” polar bears, now the Noble Savage, standing on a mound of garbage with a tear running down his cheek. They always look for someone/something they can claim has victimhood status and turn that to whatever ends they want.
Hey, I know. My ancestors were enslaved by the Romans in great numbers. Nevermind that same ancestors also contributed greatly to the fall of the Roman Empire, at least in the west, where’s my reparations? I think the Italians should be taxed and the money given to me, after the noble bureaucrats at the UN manage and collect it and take their cut of course. I still have nightmares every time I see the ship scene in Ben Hur! Ain’t I entitled to something?
Notice how the end always justifies some unelected bureaucrat managing the money transfer and running the system? Climate justice for everyone!
So the lefties, who were behind all of the terrible miss treatment of the Indians to begin with, now claim they what to help them yet again? Sounds more like they want to insure they stay on the reservation, just like they want all of the other lefty subjugated “victim groups” to stay on their reservations, and to destroy the economy while doing it. For them its win-win.
@ David says:
August 8, 2011 at 7:23 am
Explain to me how he was “demeaning” native americans. I don’t see it at all. In addition, I don’t see the point of showing “respect” towards an entire race. Some people are deserving of respect and others are not. Demanding that an entire race be respected is just plain racist.
Examination of DNA evidence has shown four waves of ‘immigration’ to the Americas from Asia. And then surprise, surprise a fifth wave was found and it was European! No, not the post Columbus conquests but from way back during the ice age. The ancestry of ancient Americans is not quite as clear as one might think. But does this really matter? The United States has often fallen far short of the vision of its founding fathers but their words must surely ring down the ages: ‘We hold these truths to be self evident; that all men are created equal….’ And this must apply to the whole of the Republic from sea to shining sea. Stop wringing your hands and live the vision.
It’s just another instance of the politics of division.
Is there anyplace in the world where the “natives” are the true original population of the area? Anyplace settled once and only once? Even “Native American’s” came from somewhere else.
Fascinating, but I think one lesson to be learned here is not to include side issues, like ethnicity or religion, in posts about AGW-related subjects. It just clutters up the thread with off-topic opinion. Unity, coherence, emphasis, students!
I sometimes assuage my guilt for Custer’s sin by making offerings at Indian casinos, which, interestingly, are not mentioned anywhere in the NWF report. Note, however, the ludicrous mention of “declining mountain snowpack,” The report is high-priced, slick proctoganda.
I suggest a raid on the BIA. Run off their Mercedes’ and steal the money back.
Maybe every American should have their genetic code deciphered and genealogy completed to determine the correct percentage of blame that should be apportioned to each, and then have wages garnished appropriately to pay for their ancestral wrongdoings. This includes all possible previous wrongdoings, including atrocities to Native Americans, African American slavery, Japanese internment, women’s rights violations, and modern immigrant intolerances, just to name a few. Now I’ll grant you that some will not do well with this, but really they should have to pay for their ancestors sins. Besides, just think of all the productive government jobs that would be created in this endeavor!
The world is made up of special people and the others. In times past, the special people were the majority who then, being special, abused and took the stuff the non-special people had. In the current times, the minorities are special and the majority, non-special. The minorities take from the majority … you get the idea.
Political correctness is also political correction. But still we have the “specials” and the “non-specials”. In the left-right, socialist-capitalist, humanist-technocratist dichotomy of thinking there are always the specials and the non-specials. May one day we all be either special, deserving respect and recognition, or non-special and deserving to get on the best way we can! Whichever way, as long as we are all the same.
Give up this romantic notion of the noble american aboriginal from Asia traversing the Bering land bridge during the last Ice Age, living in harmony with Nature. They weren’t all so peaceful and kind. They not only drove many mammals to extinction, they murdered each other. But they weren’t the first to arrive. The real first immigrants were more african, not asian, the same people known as the aborigines in Australia or melanesians. They were nearly exterminated by the wave of asian immigrants from the north, surviving at the tip of South America.
http://www.andaman.org/BOOK/chapter54/text-Fuego/Genetics/text-FuegianGenetics.htm
http://cogweb.ucla.edu/Chumash/EntryDate.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luzia_Woman
Chris Smith says:
August 8, 2011 at 3:31 am
You seem to have missed the point entirely, and gotten everything backwords. I don’t want more, not one bit. They want more.
I don’t want them to pay more taxes, I’m perfectly OK with what they pay. They, on the other hand, want to increase my taxes to pay them for a totally imaginary problem.
Shoe is on the other foot, Chris …
w.
polistra says:
August 8, 2011 at 3:54 am
Look up the history of why they started calling them “Native Americans” … because in fact “Indian” didn’t convey the meaning of that ethnic group.
w.
Dave Stephens says:
August 8, 2011 at 4:33 am
Sorry, Dave, but there are lots of animals that are native to the Americans. That’s the meaning of the word, that the animal originated here.
And no, humans are not among them.
w.
Jason Joice M.D. says:
August 8, 2011 at 5:02 am
Thank, Jason. No, you are not a native American, you are not one more whit native to this continent than I am, and I am quite tired of people like you pretending that you are native to this continent. Your ancestors immigrated to American from Asia just as surely as mine immigrated to America from Europe.
w.
Roger Sowell says:
August 8, 2011 at 5:07 am
Gosh, Roger, thanks for the clarity. You claim I’m “ignorant” of Native American history, but you don’t say where I went wrong. You say their current status and problems are appalling, and we have no disagreement there.
In other words, your post is content free and contains only emotion. Heck, from the terms you use it seems you think they’re actually natives of America, rather than interlopers like the rest of us.
w.
Dave Springer says:
August 8, 2011 at 5:45 am
If so, then that’s the only res I ever heard of where that is true, because the rest all have plenty of internal dissension. The idea that Early Asian Immigrants all live in pastoral harmony is a joke. They have the same problems and disagreements that the rest of us have. Heck, the corruption of tribal governments in many places is a running sore. So no, you can’t sell me any of that “noble savages living in domestic harmony” nonsense, it’s way past its use-by date.
w.
As someone from Europe who worked with first nations peoples in Canada I find this posting distasteful and not up to the usual high standards set by Mr.Watts. I trust he will do the right thing and remove it. It is silly to say first nations will be affected more others by climate change, but it is not an excuse to post this sort of nonsense. If you knew what life is like in such areas for many native people you would never write such tosh. You’ll be saying all white people are rich next or that all Welsh people can sing and Scots people all wear kilts.
“climate induced weather” is pretty close to literally the tail wagging the dog. Last time I checked, the individual values determine the mean, not the other way around…
Lol, Willis, I like the way you don’t shy from any hornets nest. I haven’t read all of the comments, but many. First, holy crap! We pay them already. A quote from a comment….
“Native Americans is NOT an incorrect reference. If Native Americans aren’t “native” after 14 thousand years or more, then the word “native” has NO meaning.” It doesn’t. What’s the time frame in which I will be afforded the luxury of claiming “native” status? For those sympathetic to their plight, I share the sympathy. However, there comes a point in time when one should realize this is the way it was suppose to be. Cultures die. Other peoples and cultures fill the vacuum. Do the people of England pay reparations to the people they replaced? Germany? Egypt? What of the Byzantines? This status that we do and many advocate we afford “native Americans” seems to afford them a status which no other failed culture or society has enjoyed throughout the history of the world. (There are a couple of recent exceptions in other similar western cultures.)
The various histories and cultures of the “native Americans” should be preserved and celebrated….. as in an historical view. Given my observations of various native reservations and areas where they gather, it seems rather obvious to me that we cause much more harm by affording a special status to them, rather than encouraging assimilation into the greater melting pot of this nation. I know this will anger many who read this, but it is the way it is. I make no judgement as to whether it is right or wrong, but, simply address the reality of the situation. Disclaimer!! I’ve much Osage blood running through my veins, but I’ve never used it to claim any special status. But, using the same line of thinking, and rationale, I think the Iroquois, Cherokee, and Choctaw owe me some special status and monies they’ve gained by taking the land of my ancestors. But, then, don’t ask about the Caddo tribes. Its a ridiculous bit of rationalization to believe any justice can be made from that type of logic.
My thoughts,
James
‘We hold these truths to be self evident; that all men are created equal….’ (and women).
Though the time that must elapse before Mr Eschenbach considers someone as “Native” seem absurd at first glance “Native” has nothing to do with time of residence and everything to do with “fitting in” (speaking the language, obeying the laws, paying the taxes and enjoying the benefits). If you want to be a part of it, be a part of it – if not, you’re not.
On the substance of his piece; NWF is just another organisation looking to make a fast buck out of being offended on behalf of others – who are very rarely offended in fact but are smart enough to take a share of the cash. “Sins of the fathers” is just an attempt to make a “right” out of two wrongs.
David says:
August 8, 2011 at 7:23 am
Read what I wrote again, I am not demeaning anyone except the NWF. I have the same respect for Early Asian Immigrants that I have for everyone else, which is to say, the respect that they have earned. So for some Immigrants I have great respect, and for other Immigrants I have no respect at all.
Unlike you, I guess, I don’t “respect” groups or tribes because of who they are. I respect groups or tribes for what they have done.
w.
mojo says:
August 8, 2011 at 9:11 am
Now that I could get behind. Historically the BIA (Bureau of Indian Affairs, or as I would have it, “Bureau of Immigrant Affairs”) is one of the larger groups of crooks and thieves on the planet. They have lied to, cheated, and stolen from the Immigrants without end.
w.
I’ve been reading some more comments…… I’m gobsmacked by the ignorance displayed. For those that don’t know, the history of American Indians (seeing that “native” is a controversial attribute) is quite similar to the rest of the world’s. It was a continuous history of wars, violence, interloping, alliances and broken alliances, usurpation of lands and people! Apparently, in the view of some here, might made right, but only when applying to Indian on Indian violence.(This almost makes sense.) I should be made to feel guilty because of my European ancestors’ unfair advantage of mastering metallurgy and the wheel and displaced my Indian ancestors as land owners of the Americas.
Gareth Phillips says:
August 8, 2011 at 10:25 am
Well, like many others your post is much more heat than light. What is it that you object to in my post?
I say again (and again, and will no doubt say again), QUOTE MY WORDS when you are discussing my ideas. You seem rabidly upset by something I said, but I haven’t a clue which of my ideas you are objecting to.
Oh, and I’m very aware what “life is like in such areas” for the Immigrants, I’ve lived and worked next to them.
Finally, as someone pointed out above, modern scholarship indicates that what you are calling the “First Nations” are likely some combination of Second and Third Nations who stole the land they are living on from the previous inhabitants. Your assumption of their nobility is badly flawed. They are just like the rest of us, simply fools whose intentions are good that are trying to make it in a difficult universe.
w.
Phil’s Dad says:
August 8, 2011 at 10:29 am
‘“Native” has nothing to do with time of residence and everything to do with “fitting in” (speaking the language, obeying the laws, paying the taxes and enjoying the benefits). If you want to be a part of it, be a part of it – if not, you’re not.”
================================================================
Absolutely, and to the point! It isn’t logical to expect to reap the benefits of a society while claiming not to be part of it.
It’s been perishing cold in my bit of the southern hemisphere this winter. A little bit of “climate-induced weather extremes” would be most welcome just now, as long as it is the warm extreme that we are talking about.
Willis, the NWF deserves a bigger stick in their eye than this one in relation to Native Americans or whoever one wishes to call them. Shame on you for not knowing that the way things work here is that having introduced the issue of Native Americans in this way, that your point would be corrupted into a rant about pesky freeloaders who don’t pay taxes, etc… If you think many here in this kind venue didn’t get your real point, wait until the rest of the blogosphere gloms onto this. You and WUWT will get a black eye on your ‘insensitive’, blah, blah, even though you weren’t guilty of this. The CAGW folks are badly wounded (they’ve never hesitated to twist and misrepresent people, data or whatever before the wounds) and they are starving for this kind of opportunity. This was a bad idea for so little profit.
Willis, by denying them native status, you disrespect them. They are NOT “Immigrants” like everyone else. Whether they have done things that earn your respect or not, there are common issues that befall every indigenous population that has been overrun by European values. And in the fact that just “assimilating into the culture of today” is not easy, or an option at all for some despite trying, they show the fact that they are NOT immigrants like you and I. Assimilation policies have failed in the US, in Australian, and in other places, for exactly that reason.
Interesting post Willis, one never knows what to expect from you. I enjoy the diversity of thought. My granny was a squaw from wyoming and saw no glory in it. She really liked indoor plumbing and electricity. From my own observation, I deduce there are very few if any ( full blooded ) ( early Asian immigrants ) left among us.
Why do we call ’em “Indians”? Columbus must surely have been a good enough navigator to have known he wasn’t in “India” (no?). But he’d promised Queen Isabella that he was going to India, so that’s what he claimed to have done. Been pretty much all downhill from there…
Best,
Frank
Willis says: “..simply fools whose intentions are good…”
Oh, Lord please don’t let me misunderstood.
Where have I heard that before?
oh, willis. it’s time for some education when you start ranting like sunday drunk.
1) “paid by people who live in my nation”
willis, you do not own any nation.
2)”they are excluded from using my tax money”
tax money is like virginity, willis – once you give it up, you gave it up. it’s not yours once you do that. don’t whine about what you gave up and is no longer yours. upgrow and unwhine.
3)”they can’t have it both ways”
yes, willis, they will take it any way you give it up. what you say has no relationship with reality. ‘they can’t do that’? disney quote? do you even know what ‘can’ means?
4) “If they want the full panoply of dubious benefits that the rest of the citizens get, sorry, they’ve got to become just like me, subject to all of the nonsense”
nobody has to be like you, willis. nobody has to suffer impotently and whine like you are doing. nobody has to match your witless moaning. nobody has to be subject to nonsense just because you can’t find a way to deal with it and burn with butthurt.
oh, this was by far the worst thing i’ve ever seen written by you. doesn’t even sound like the willis i admire for his cogent perceptions and logical thought processes. maybe you are typing under the influence? it’s pretty archie.bunker kind of crap.
the ‘ancient immigrant’ meme is pretty good, but not in service of a squabble over that special recycled soup from the publick kafeteria.
Willis said:
“Thank, Jason. No, you are not a native American, you are not one more whit native to this continent than I am, and I am quite tired of people like you pretending that you are native to this continent. Your ancestors immigrated to American from Asia just as surely as mine immigrated to America from Europe.”
Okay, if that’s how you see it then we all came from Africa. Period. It makes no difference what route you came or the timing of your ancestors migration.
That still doesn’t change the fact that the US government and the early African/Asian/land bridge immigrants both voluntarily entered into treaties. The US is bound to those treaties like it or not. Not upholding those treaties and their subsequent agreements would be like Japan reneging on the Japanese Instrument of Surrender to end WWII and suddenly starting up the war a few years later. It’s a legal issue. It’s not a racial issue or genetic issue or immigration issue.
mkelly says:
August 8, 2011 at 11:26 am
Willis says: “..simply fools whose intentions are good…”
Oh, Lord please don’t let me misunderstood.
Where have I heard that before?
=====================================================
Great song!! While I prefer their House of the Rising Sun, this one is up there, too!!!
“Early Asian Immigrants”
So are Europeans now called early African immigrants?
In fact should we not call Early Asian immigrants early African immigrants as well?
I have to say some of the crazy garbage Eschenbach comes up with is mind blowing.
Why even get into this debate when you don’t even need to?
“In any case, if the Immigrants are entitled to my tax money,… ”
They are because we evil white men got our riches from colonialism.
Sustainable Development, which a UN site says is the successor in many ways to the New International Economic Order (NIEO) will facilitate this redistribution of wealth from us evil white men to the rightful owners we stole it from.
By your standards I guess we are all Africans, as that is where we evolved.
Whoa! WTFUWT? There is so much bang-on accurate criticism of the fallacies of AGW in this blog – or so it seemed – and then a piece of vitriol like this turns up. Have I missed something and I’m in bed with right-wing hate-mongers?
Hey, I’m a Native American – I was born here.
“Early Asian Immigrants”
I always say “Aboriginal Americans.” You know, like the aboriginal Australians and the aboriginal Japanese (that no one’s ever heard of) in northern Japan. I’ll bet there are other countries with aboriginals, too – at least, those that haven’t just killed them all. I think the Basques are aboriginals of some kind; if I understand correctly, their language isn’t French- or Spanish-related.
Ok, I’m a native Pangeamerican. How many millions or billions of years do we have to go back to claim nativity? I was born in the USA. I’m a native Amercian, and an African american via our common african ancestor. Nobody is going back to their “native” land whatever that is.
Native: belonging to a particular place by birth.
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/native
Do we all have to get labeled by our mitochondrial DNA alleles to establish special status or blame? Multi-generational grievances plague other places in the world. Why should we try so hard to make the same mistakes? There were different expectations and different standards at work in the past that we reject today. (Can we all get along? – R. King.)
Here’s a pretty good conventional description of human migration. They leave out the sea route of migration, which could include aboriginals to South America perhaps 20,000 years ago, and Europeans to North America possibly 12,000 years ago. http://essayweb.net/history/ancient/prehistory.shtml
And there is the complicated tale of Kennewick Man. Some people think he was of european ancestry, dying 9000 years ago on the banks of the Columbia River in Washington. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kennewick_Man
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/tech/meet-kennewick-man.html
http://www.nps.gov/archeology/kennewick/index.htm
Looks like the molecular biologists did the PC thing and assumed the sample possessed asian aboriginal mtDNA alleles (A, B, C, D). They also mentioned the X haplogroup, but didn’t test for it (see below). No PCR amplification was observed. Several positive and negative controls were reported, but I didn’t see any mtDNA amplification positive controls. They concluded no useful DNA was extracted from bone samples. Hmmm. Really? Perhaps Kennewick man really was an ancient European.
The X haplogroup is found in North America and Europe. It could indicate an ancient link betwen Europeans and aboriginal Americans from Asia.
http://www.kerchner.com/haplogroups-mtdna.htm
Some suggest Kennewick man was Ainu. Apparently, Ainu genetic analysis doesn’t indicate caucasian origin; however, I have not determined whether an extensive haplotype analysis of chromosomal DNA has been performed. Chromosomal crossovers increase variability in offspring and is the basis of ‘genetic distance’. “Caucasian” sequences might be present in Ainu, while mtDNA haplogroup analysis would not support the conclusion.
Barry Fell thought Europeans and Africans came to the Americas long before Columbus. Maybe. At least it’s interesting. Although his work is criticized, there is some recognition of a pre-columbian European presence in North America.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barry_Fell
What I often find interesting, kind of a doublethink or blackwhite thing, with many on the left who support this kind of wealth redistribution and victimhood is that they are by and large the same people who hold up their belief in Evolution as some kind of proof of their pro science superiority, often resorting to calling more religious right leaning people anti-science, creationist spewing knuckle draggers. Odd isn’t it that they are by and large the same people who get the most upset by evolution, social or Darwinian biological, when it’s at work? Move mountains, divert water from people, to save the bait fish snail darter from extinction! They can’t abide it when evolution actually is in process, when species that are incapable of changing to adapt to the environment get eliminated as they should be. Same for social Darwinism, the rule of history has always been that societies that are weaker get replaced by ones that are stronger, and an awful lot of history has been driven by those with the weapons and the will to use them being the stronger ones that make all the rules and survive. It’s upleasant for the losers, and it’ll be our turn soon enough if we don’t adapt, but that’s the way the world operates and always has. And it’ll be our turn if we surrender to the kind of weak and muddle headed thinking that places a premium on victimhood and weakness over strength and success sooner rather than later I think.
East Texas Red says:
August 8, 2011 at 12:45 pm
Whoa! WTFUWT? There is so much bang-on accurate criticism of the fallacies of AGW in this blog – or so it seemed – and then a piece of vitriol like this turns up. Have I missed something and I’m in bed with right-wing hate-mongers?
======================================================================
Why is it that when someone presents a thought that may be disagreeable to some the knee-jerk reaction is to paint it as a “right-wing hate” thing? I’m a fairly conservative individual. Most would categorize me as right-wing. I’m not aware of any conservative faction that makes American Indian /ancient immigrants/native/aboriginal…..whatever, discussion an issue. Why can’t you identify it with some left-wing hate mongering? Or principal-compromising centrist hate mongering? WTFUWT? People whine about some political factioning and the dispersion of views, when they themselves participate in politicizing issues. East, do you think its possible for people to have a discussion on issues without you or someone like you categorizing it as a left/right issue, or do your blinders only view issues politically?
Joshua Corning says, “Why even get into this debate when you don’t even need to?”
Why? Because, at it’s root, that is what much of this debate is about. It’s about the elite using class and race warfare to manipulate the general public into handing over money and power to the few to “fix” this problem. It’s about appealing to emotions and knee jerk reactions. It’s about name calling with no substance behind it because it’s a strawman. It’s about accusing others of vitriol, disseminating crazy garbage, and being a Sunday drunk instead of actually addressing the arguments. While people are doing this, the elite, with their sleight of handing are stealing your money and your children. This goes for both the white man and the minority of whatever “color.” For those who think entitling others to my money is a good thing, have you ever heard of the tragedy of good intentions? The road to hell being paved with good intentions? What has entitlement and government “charity” done to third world countries? What has it done for Americas inner cities? How are we doing on this war on poverty? Will the AGW wealth redistribution plan achieve its goals if implemented or the exact opposite? Do government wealth redistribution plans EVER work or do they only cripple those they intend to help?
Willis, I find your sweeping example ridiculous. It offends me and every other Native who work for a living same as the next man. I’m a full blood Native American in American terminology. Here in Canada we’re called First Nations Peoples. As a Treaty native here is what I have gotten to this point in time due to MY STATUS – NOT A DAMN RED CENT. I work for a living here in the oil sands, I pay taxes the same as the next Canadian, I put my kids through University on my own savings – I have NO land. And please experience OUR Health Care system that is so bad I have never used that system for anything. I have Health Care from the oil sands that I pay my fair share for as does my wife and now my kids! In my part of the world Native companies compete on the open market for oil sands work and have grown to fifty five companies able to compete with anyone in the field of oil and gas hiring thousands of workers. There are numerous whilte owned Casinos all over North America – why concentrate on only those owned by Native Americans?
Perhaps it may well be of a shock to you but I can’t get a casino either – nor do I ask for a dime from any color taxpayer and wouldn’t accept one if offered. There are hundreds of thousand just like me working for a living simply because nothing on a reserve exists. Nor was it my choice to be removed from my parents as a child and brought into residential school to be “civilized.” And yes, this IS our land taken by force and kept by force. For opening our doors and helping the first “immigrants” survive in the new world we have lost and entire nation to a more aggressive peoples, reduced to reservations and until YOU sir have lived on a reservation you have no idea what you’re talking about!
Anthony, mate, if you are considering turning this great science blog into a political propaganda platform for the taxed-enough-already party and its acolytes, please, do say so explicitly, so that we may read this blog with more caution, if we read it at all. I am getting increasingly jittery about one of my favourite blogs becoming ever more political and straying even further to the right.
If Native Americans want compensation for such absurd notions as ‘climate-induced weather extremes’, then that’s not the fault of the Native American movement but the fault of climate scientists and the religious CAGW movement that they helped create. That is the aspect of the story that is relevant to a science blog, not Native American rights and/or taxation policy.
It is one thing to target Al Gore for criticism -gods know he deserves every iota of it- it is something quite else to launch an attack on the much-dispossessed Native American minority in such a disrespectful and politically loaded term as ‘Early Asian Immigrants’.
It is one thing to read such outrageously far-right diatribe as Eschenbach’s in the comments section, it is another to see it get editorial approval and published on WUWT front page. The blog clearly has a right-wing editorial line on climate policy issues; you are entitled to that much, but…
WUWT is read all over the world, and the blog can claim climate skeptic readers from across the entire political spectrum. This ‘watermelon’ became a climate skeptic thanks to the science in WUWT pages.
It is quite disorienting to now read, regularly, political propaganda pieces in WUWT, which are barely disguised as science and economics, and authored by the same aging TEA Party romper stomper.
sHx
Willis has free reign to publish here, however this is not an article (in its present form) I would have published if consulted. Once published, I can’t put the cat back in the bag. – Anthony
A note from the author. Anthony has most graciously given me the room to write here without censorship or interference or suggestions of any type,and has my great thanks for the freedom. As such, I ask that everyone be clear that what I write is mine, and what Anthony writes is his. He is passionate about his causes, as am I about mine. I thought long and hard about this before I posted it, as I do with all of my posts, but even more so because it is a touchy subject. I re-wrote it several times to try to make it clearer and clearer.
Now, I could have just said “Ooooh, too hot to handle” and picked a less controversial subject … but if Anthony and I and all the guest posters did that, this would be the most boring blog on the planet.
All I ask is that people quote my words when they object, because most people are treating this subject like a web-based Rorschach test, and reading into it all of their hopes, fears, and prejudices.
Again, my thanks to Anthony for his marvelous blog,
w.
A great book on the subject of Asiatic migrations to the Americas is “Lost World”. In it the authors and archeologists make a very strong case for coastal island hopping migration and not the traditional down the center of the continent passage.
Wil, are you making a sweeping statement that all native americans are like you and don’t accept government money and willingly pay government taxes (meaning the United States and Canada)? Interesting thing, it’s governments that make sweeping statements, regulations, and laws. So, we speak in similar terms when describing what government does or wants to do. Whether or not the individual accepts or appeals to government to receive those entitlements is another thing entirely.
What seems lost here is the posit of Willis’ post, and the question it proposes. Should we, as a national society, give monies, to a group within(or without, depending upon one’s perspective) this society for imaginary damages caused by the society as a whole? Let’s not pretend that the first nation/aboriginal/early immigrants/American Indian (Dear God!!! Do people ever tire of this correctness categorization?) people don’t participate in the same behaviors that people attribute to climate change. They do. They drive cars, eat trucked groceries, run air conditioners and all of the other neat stuff we’re suppose to fill guilty about. Now, for reasons that can only be viewed bizarre, the NWF seems to think that not only should they be exempt from the guilt, but should be beneficiaries of the guilt expressed in monetary terms. Let’s not loose focus of that bit of inanity while we quibble over the origins of the people of the western world.
I thought Willis was talking about the National Wildlife Federation and the NWF’s proposed solution to their imaginary problem and how the NWF wants to change the rules………..
Gareth Phillips says:
August 8, 2011 at 10:25 am
As someone from Europe who worked with first nations peoples in Canada I find this posting distasteful and not up to the usual high standards set by Mr.Watts. I trust he will do the right thing and remove it. It is silly to say first nations will be affected more others by climate change, but it is not an excuse to post this sort of nonsense. If you knew what life is like in such areas for many native people you would never write such tosh. You’ll be saying all white people are rich next or that all Welsh people can sing and Scots people all wear kilts.
Willis Eschenbach says:
August 8, 2011 at 10:47 am
Well, like many others your post is much more heat than light. What is it that you object to in my post?
I say again (and again, and will no doubt say again), QUOTE MY WORDS when you are discussing my ideas. You seem rabidly upset by something I said, but I haven’t a clue which of my ideas you are objecting to.
Oh, and I’m very aware what “life is like in such areas” for the Immigrants, I’ve lived and worked next to them.
Finally, as someone pointed out above, modern scholarship indicates that what you are calling the “First Nations” are likely some combination of Second and Third Nations who stole the land they are living on from the previous inhabitants. Your assumption of their nobility is badly flawed. They are just like the rest of us, simply fools whose intentions are good that are trying to make it in a difficult universe.
Gareth responds
My issue is that you have classed a whole group of people as having one characteristic. That is nonsense and you know it. That is a foundation of racism and I do not believe you are racist. But by the same token you’ll be saying all American are rich right wingers next. Your insulting of Native peoples in Canada and the Americas is also flawed and indicates a poor understanding of the rich tapestry of human existence. They are called first nations because they were the first nations in that country ( the clue is in the title) and no, they were not immigrants. An immigrant is someone who comes to your country from another country. If you insist they are immigrants, perhaps you could let us know which country they came from? And what country did they arrive in? When they arrived on the American continent a nation was your people, not the geography. Your nation migrated with you. You made a mistake writing this, and when in a hole stop digging. You are inflicting untold damage on this first class website, only you can rectify that.
@ sHx says: August 8, 2011 at 1:42 pm
====================================================
Really? Now you’re assuming an inane compensation idea towards the climate change end for a specific group of a people is a TEA party cause? That it’s somehow a political idea? Now you deem terming “Native American minorities as ‘Early Asian Immigrants” as disrespectful? How so? It is what it is. One of the things that endears me to WUWT, is the fact that the adults here can usually discuss issues without having to prance around verbiage so as not to offend the sensibilities of our more squeamish politically correct intolerant individuals. It lends to an honest and open discussion. Why do you people wish to politicize everything you read that you disagree with? This hasn’t got a damned thing to do with the TEA party.
Latitude says:
August 8, 2011 at 2:13 pm
I thought Willis was talking about the National Wildlife Federation and the NWF’s proposed solution to their imaginary problem and how the NWF wants to change the rules………..
==============================================================
He was, but he used politically incorrect terminology, and he said it in a mean tone(well, my feelings were hurt a bit, so it must have been mean)….. so we must hate on him. God knows it must be an insult to be noted that one’s ancestry came from Asia…… for some reason. So, obviously, aliens abducted the real Willis and replaced him with a right-wing TEA party hate guy. I think it’s a Murdoch/Koch bros conspiracy. Its strange how no one picked up on the obvious insult that this disgusting proposal came from the National Wildlife Federation. But then, maybe the ones howling about this are indeed Darwinists and make no distinction between people and animals. But I do.
Gareth responds
My issue is that you have classed a whole group of people as having one characteristic. That is nonsense and you know it.
===========================================================
Gareth, not to quibble, but I think it was the NWF that classed them as a group.
Wiglaf
I’m talking about no one set of people can easily be described – for instance climate change. Any Native American, First Nation, or Caucasian or any other race of people with even rudimentary knowledge of its own people can find all to many examples of historical climate change throughout North America or indeed in the larger world. As you well know AGW advocates have a habit of using various tribes in North America for their own purposes – such as common in the High Arctic in reference to ice. Yet the very same Native tribe is not questioned about their killing of endangered right whales. That’s wrote off to cultural practices – which I call stupid in the extreme. Once the right whales are lost they’re lost forever, period. The same happens in my peoples – chiefs with a grade eight education, and I’m NOT kidding about grade levels, making sweeping AGW statements when none of them have the skills or the talent to complete high school. Nor to learn as they age either. For instance I wrote about trees in the high Arctic yet no “chief” up there, and these are my own peoples, have enough education to even form a rudimentary understanding of the historical earth. Moreover, there are very good examples in North and South America of change in native history brought about long before industrial and or man was to blame – example, architectural remnants of an American Indian culture that roamed the Four Corners area of the Southwest from 1200 B.C. to A.D. 1300 to name just one due to space.
To be very frank – I take what modern day natives say and I quickly dismiss it as less than trash. Its just a retelling of the AGW storyline.
Barbara Skolaut-“if I understand correctly, their language isn’t French- or Spanish-related.”
Indeed, Basque is in fact unrelated to any modern European Language. It’s what is known as a “linguistic isolate”. It might be related to the “Iberian” language, from about the time that the Romans arrived to replace it with Latin, but this has not been clearly shown. Another theory is that it is from the Afroasiatic Berber group. It’s only know ancestor is the extinct Aquitanian language, which likewise has not been conclusively connected to other language groups, historic or modern (some theorize that it may not be a direct ancestor, but if it isn’t it is a very close relative of any direct ancestor). There is quite a bit of interesting work in linguistics!
David says:
August 8, 2011 at 11:14 am
Are they immigrants like everyone else? Well, no. They immigrated earlier than most people … although it is likely that most tribes of Immigrants historically lived on land that they took by force from other Immigrants. None of that makes them native to the American continent, and it is no disrespect to say so.
Do you truly read what I wrote as either advocating for or against assimilation? I said neither, nor did I said anything about “earning my respect”. You need to up your reading level, turn down your PC alarm, and QUOTE WHAT I SAID that you object to. I’m tired of fighting your imaginary demons. I said absolutely nothing about either respect or assimilation, go argue those issues with someone else.
What I said was if the Immigrants want to get all the benefits of the other citizens they should have the same responsibilities and legal obligations as other citizens.
You seem to think they should have it both ways, that they should be free to write their own laws and open casinos and not pay state taxes, AND that they should get money to cure imaginary ills from those of us that can’t open casinos or write our own laws.
Me, I think that’s nuts.
w.
BTW, I should also point out Willis Eschenbach is NO RACISTS! It is not wrong to write from his perspective and in fact it should be encouraged more. Climate does indeed play within tribal communities as does politics within the Global Warming community and climate within the larger community. Many here have and do comment on political grants to one sector of the warmest community and not to our camp. I often wonder what or where would we be without an Anthony?
I welcome Willis and this article – he is a good man and contributed so much to my education. We merely disagree on this one point – as is very normal in any relationship.
Gary Pearse says:
August 8, 2011 at 11:09 am
Gary, thanks for your thoughts. Several things. First, yes, I knew going in that people would have a problem with this piece. It’s terribly un-PC … perhaps you think I should act like I care about PC-ness, or pretend to be someone I’m not, just to get my ideas across. I don’t do that. (“PC” in the US means “politically correct”, meaning you can’t ever offend anyone for any reason.) I write about things as honestly as I can, and I will not pretend to hold positions I don’t believe in, or shy away from the ugly side of things, simply to get my ideas across.
Second, the implicit argument from the NWF is that the Early Asian Immigrants should get special treatment simply because they are “Natives”. I reject that argument completely, and this was one way to make the point loud and clear. Seems to have worked, huh?
Third, if the controversy over my words is made an issue all round the web, and on the basis of that controversy people come to read what I wrote, I see that as a net gain. I stand by what I wrote, and if controversy makes more people read it, that’s ok with me. So if that’s your worry, I say bring it on.
Finally … why on earth should WUWT shy away from controversial subjects? If we restricted ourselves to only write about vanilla beliefs and common ideas that are shared by everyone, and we used only the most PC of terms … do you really think that anyone would be interested?
w.
Well, Anthony, you can at least put an update to the post and declare it as such.
It is just not good enough saying it here, unless of course you want to see how people will react.
Should you expect more of the same from Eshcenbach?
Jason Joice M.D. says:
August 8, 2011 at 11:40 am
Um … er … no, Jason, we all came from Africa whether that’s how I see it or not. My point of view is immaterial to the facts.
I agree wholeheartedly, Jason, the treaties are sacred. They’re the basis of the relationship between the early and the late immigrants, and to the shame of my ancestors, the late immigrants often have not honored the treaties. Shame on us, but we’re doing better … and we treated you when we defeated your ancestors somewhat more generously than those people that you killed and drove out of whatever piece of earth is your historical homeland. Did any of the Tribes set up separate nations with their own customary laws to preserve the culture of the Tribes they defeated? Did Homo Sapiens allow the Neanderthals to retain some of their own land and keep their ways? I don’t recall reading about that. So you should be glad that you were not treated in the way that you treated those that you defeated. Doesn’t make what the US did right by any means, it was wrong in so many ways … but what the Tribes did was wrong too. It doesn’t get any press because it happened so long ago, and besides, you killed (or absorbed wholly into the Tribe) anyone who might be around to protest. That’s one way to keep down complaints … so before you start busting my ancestors for their wrongdoing, take a hard look at your own history, my friend.
Setting that aside, clearly we agree about the importance of the treaties, and that they should be honored in the letter and in the spirit.
So when the NWF wants to tear up the treaties, and says we should start treating the sovereign Nations as though they were not sovereign Nations at all but as if they were, what was their phrase, a State or a local entity, you would no doubt be there with me shoulder to shoulder saying the NWF shouldn’t do that, that the treaties should be honored, that you can’t treat a sovereign Nation as though it were a State …
Right?
w.
Did we all read the same article?
I saw it as a critique of NWF or was I wrong?
Anyway, as far as I’m concerned, PC has never been anything but counter-productive!
DaveE.
East Texas Red says:
August 8, 2011 at 12:45 pm
Yes, you’ve missed something. You missed quoting what I said that you object to. I find no vitriol in my post, and I supported Obama, so if you are in bed with right-wing hate-mongers it’s not here, and it’s your business.
QUOTE WHAT I SAY so I can know what it is you are objecting to.
w.
I wonder if the National Wildlife Federation considers the First Peoples “wildlife.”
You really brightened my day, Willis.
Whenever I’m feeling just the slightest bit down, I go looking for some pearl-clutching whiner to complain about how some of his tax dollars might go to help the group of Americans who have the lowest standard of living.
It cheers me so to read someone complaining about how unfair it is that Native Americans live so high on the hog.
Joshua,
You don’t have a clue, do you?
“Denier” is a deliberate insult, equating scientific skeptics [who, it turns out, have been right all along] with Holocaust deniers. Show me where Willis insulted anyone.
I doubt that you ever gave a nickel to a poor
IndianNative American, and I’m really tired of race-baiting by people who cry crocodile tears over people they won’t dig in their own pockets to help.OTOH, I’m very impressed with Wil’s attitude. Instead of complaing about how unfair life is, he went out and made something of himself.
Hi Willis,
First let me say that I always look for your articles on WUWT, and enjoy them the most. I find your common sense approach to life, and your clear explanations of complex things, very refreshing.
Second, I agree with your point regarding the absurd NWF claims. These types of reparations are just fantasy – one group trying to wrest economic benefit from another under a dubious guise. I do not think that native Americans (or “early Asian Immigrants” as you deem this ethnic group) are behind such silliness. I would guess it is primarily European descended folks who try to assuage their self-inflicted guilty consciences by forcing genetically similar peoples to surrender their wealth to a perceived less fortunate ethnic group.
However, those points are not what has garnered the most comments. Most of the comments are regarding your assertion that “native Americans” are more properly referred to as “early Asian Immigrants”. And frankly, I agree with those objections.
Yes, the genetic heritage of the poorly named “Indians” is Asian. However, that is not entirely true. Were we to trace the heritage back far enough, they are actually Indian, then African. So, I suppose the correct term is “early American nee Asian nee Indian nee African immigrants”.
By their own reckoning from the Bible, Israelites who consider themselves of genetic Jewish heritage are actually early Iraqi, to Israeli to everywhereelseintheworld to Israelites. And Europeans? Nope. They are early African immigrants. So us formerly “European Americans” are now “early African to late European American immigrants”.
I would argue that a peoples who populated a continent prior to any other dominant homosapien offshoot, and inhabited that continent for thousands of years, can fairly be called “native” to that continent. Genetically, no, they are not “native”. But realistically, and quite frankly rationally, yes the are.
I gotta’ admit, I find this whole exercise of arguing genetic heritage quite silly and distracting. It detracts from the otherwise valid argument.
Smokey – what I find so amusing is that many of the people so “concerned” about the un-politically correct use of the term “denier” are the very same folks who whine incessantly about there being too much political correctness in this country.
Your doubts are ill-founded.. And even if they weren’t, I wouldn’t reduce myself to pearl-clutching about the poorest community in the country getting some of my tax dollars.
I guess I just roll that way.
Jason Joice M.D. says (August 8, 2011 at 11:40 am): “Okay, if that’s how you see it then we all came from Africa. Period. It makes no difference what route you came or the timing of your ancestors migration.”
Jason nailed it. Everyone born in the Americas is either a native (or Native) American, or an African-American. Anything in between is politically motivated hair-splitting. Personally, I prefer the all-encompassing “native American” label, as it’s more consistent with the US ideal that you are what you do with your life, not what your ancestors did with theirs.
Wiglaf says (August 8, 2011 at 1:18 pm): “It’s about the elite using class and race warfare to manipulate the general public into handing over money and power to the few to “fix” this problem.”
It’s another case of what Thomas Sowell calls “The Quest for Cosmic Justice”, the impossible dream of correcting “not merely the sins of man but the oversights of God or the accidents of history.” It’s prospects of actual success are about the same as alarmists’ chances of controlling our planet’s climate system.
http://www.tsowell.com/spquestc.html
http://www.amazon.com/Quest-Cosmic-Justice-Thomas-Sowell/dp/0684864630
Dang! That should be “its” in my previous post, not “it’s”! It’s me ancestry what caused me error, I tells ye! Throw money at me!
Notice how Joshua avoids my suggestion that he should dig into his own pockets [as I have done repeatedly] and give his own money to those he cries his crocodile tears for? Instead, Joshua raises the red herring argument of taxation, rather than confronting the plain fact that the issue I raised was about personal charity — and by implication, the festering hypocrisy of do-gooder busybodies. And notice how Joshua avoids accepting this site’s long-standing Policy regarding the “denier” label, and tries to work it into the NWF debate anyway? And notice how Joshua fabricates another strawman, which then argues about “political correctness” [something that Joshua is obviously steeped in], when I had never mentioned political correctness?
Willis is right when he says QUOTE WHAT I SAID. Instead, folks like Joshua employ their impotent rhetorical tricks; that’s how Joshua rolls. There was nothing wrong or improper about Willis’ article, and kudos to Anthony for not caving in to a small minority that wants it censored. This was a spot on article IMHO, and so far no one has been able to poke any holes in it. The issue is specifically the NWF. But the race-baiters can’t let this perceived opportunity pass, so instead of dissecting the NWF, they monkeypile on political correctness and the race canard, and try to make Willis the issue instead. Alinsky would be proud.
Joshua says:
August 8, 2011 at 5:13 pm
Glad I could help you work on that depression issue, Joshua. But the Immigrants are living high on the hog? That’s news to me. I’ll have to ask you for a citation for that one, I’ve never heard anyone complain about that.
The point is that the NWF would like change the laws and abrogate the treaties so that we could treat the Immigrant Nations as if they were a State. Perhaps you would like to address that, rather than wandering off into your fantasies about hogs. And if you find any pearl-clutching whiners, let me know, I’ve always wondered what they look like.
QUOTE MY WORDS, Joshua, and then respond to them. Your endless investigation of everything but what I actually said makes you look foolish and petty.
w.
Gareth Phillips says:
August 8, 2011 at 2:18 pm
Are you really that resistant to saying what you object to, or are you pretending to be? Once again you are haring off about something I never said. QUOTE MY WORDS!!
Where and when are you saying I “classed a whole group as having one characteristic?” It’s not in what you quoted above, unless you don’t think that the Immigrants by and large are like me, fools whose intentions are good. Is that what you are objecting to? Are they really fools whose intentions are bad? What characteristic did I say they had? Until you let us know what you are upset about, I cannot respond.
w.
Latitude says:
August 8, 2011 at 2:13 pm
Yeah, but you cheated, you actually read what I wrote and then thought about it before responding …
w.
Smokey –
Actually, read again, as I did address your “suggestion.” I love it that you make an assumption about me without any basis in knowledge, and then run around saying that your incorrect assumption proves some point.
Willis –
For someone who is sarcastic as frequently as you, your ability to perceive sarcasm from others is remarkably weak.
Obviously, Native Americans, as a group, don’t live high on the hog. Native Americans have the poorest standard of living (Wikipedia: “The country’s 2.1 million Indians, about 400,000 of whom live on reservations, have the highest rates of poverty, unemployment, and disease in America. Native Americans remain at the bottom in almost every measurable economic category.”)
That you’d begrudge them some of your tax dollars says a lot about you, Willis.
Quite a lot.
Joshua says:
August 8, 2011 at 7:10 pm
Gosh, Wikipedia says it’s so, and Joshua says it’s so, who could doubt that?
Well, the US census could. They say that what they call “American Indians” have a higher income ($30,599 per year) than African Americans ($29,423).
So as usual, Joshua, you are peddling misconceptions and errors at a rate of knots.
Do I “begrudge them some of [my] tax dollars”? QUOTE MY WORDS, FOOL! I never said that.
And that you would try to deceive people by using Wikipedia misinformation and would manufacture claims and try to stuff them in my mouth says a lot about you, Joshua.
w.
Joshua says:
“That you’d begrudge them some of your tax dollars says a lot about you, Willis.”
I don’t live “high on the hog,” and I resent do-gooder busybodies proposing to tax me even more in order to fulfill their junior totalitarian instincts. Who needs a Congress, when we have Joshua willing to re-direct and raise our taxes? And of course the elitists never suggest that the casino owners should share the wealth with their poor cousins, do they? I’ve read the stories about Casino/Reservation politics. It ain’t pretty.
If Joshua actually gave a damn about the poor, he would go on the warpath against ethanol and the fake “carbon” scare. One-third of the earth’s population subsists on less than $2 a day. The CO2 scare led to the ethanol mandate, which in turn led to jacked up food prices around the world, and food riots from Mexico to Egypt. Those higher prices will certainly lead to starvation for some, and lots of increased infant mortality.
No doubt Joshua cries his crocodile tears over those unfortunates, too, just like he does for the casino owners – who don’t seem willing to share the loot with their brothers from another mother. But hey, we’ve got a planet to save, and culling the population will help, right? Begrudging food for the world’s poor is just part of the agenda. Can’t be helped. The world is way overpopulated anyway, right? Ethanol and the CO2 scare will help the Animal Farm honchos fix that. Sorry about the collateral damage; gotta be done. Eh, Josh?
Wil, this is a perfect example of why I ask people to quote my words. Let me demonstrate why.
Wil says:
August 8, 2011 at 1:20 pm
Well, lets see. I was talking about Early Asian Immigrants in the US. You’re in Canada. Check.
I was talking about people in the US who get a variety of government benefits. You get nothing. Check.
So what the heck are you offended about? If it’s not clear to you already, obviously I’m not talking about you.
I was talking about tribes in the US who don’t pay state taxes on some of their income. You are not in the US and you do pay taxes on your income. Check.
Again, you are tilting at windmills.
I said nothing about health care, and you get it from your work. Check.
I said nothing about people’s abilities and work habits. Check.
I was talking about casino owners who also want government handouts. Check.
Do you start to see the problem? You are all upset about things that I didn’t say, and in fact you are passionately denying things I didn’t discuss at all. Dang, Wil, you are a good guy doing all the right things, but you are one touchy hombre, to get all that upset when you are not even the subject of discussion. I hate to break it to you, but it’s not all about you …
Read what I wrote again, Wil, and start over. When you find something you object to, QUOTE IT and I’ll know what you are objecting to.
Because proving that many Early Asian Immigrants are hardworking people means nothing when a) I agree with you and b) I never discussed the work habits of anyone.
My thanks for your thoughts,
w.
I’m just going to let this one go. Someone who has no clue about US history in regards to their fighting and signing treaties with the “Indians” isn’t going to alter my opinion of this amazing blog site. I agree with an above poster. Anthony should either withdraw this post or at least put up some sort of disclaimer at the top. A disclaimer within the comments isn’t enough.
That’s fine, Smokey. I don’t live high on the hog either – and I don’t begrudge Native Americans “even more” of my tax dollars. I guess I just roll that way. You’re certainly entitled to whine and pearl-clutch about your tax dollars going to a group in which some 24% live in poverty. It’s America – you can roll whatever way you want, Smokey.
That’s a good one, Smokey. You come on here boasting about your generosity with charity, and then call me a “do-gooder?”
Uh – Congress still performs its role re: taxes, Smokey. I just choose to not whine and pearl-clutch about my tax dollars going to a group in which 24% live in poverty. You can choose to whine and pearl-clutch if you so desire. It’s your prerogative.
No doubt – there are some tribes where casino revenues are inequitably distributed, Smokey. But that fact doesn’t lead me to whine and pearl-clutch because some kids born into poverty, or some elderly in ill-health, might get some social services paid for with a boost from my tax dollars. I guess I just roll that way.
Let’s break this down a bit, shall we Smokey? You get on here and start telling me what I should or shouldn’t do in fighting poverty (without any knowledge, whatsoever, about what I actually do or don’t do about fighting poverty) – and then call me an elitist – even though I never told you what you should or shouldn’t do to fight poverty, (but simply laughed at your pearl-clutching because some of your tax dollars might go to help a group of people in which 25% live in poverty.)
And Smokey – just like you have no idea about how I feel about the politics of Native American casinos, you have no idea what I do or don’t think about ethanol subsidies. If you want to know how I feel about an issue – feel free to ask, but either way, try to keep the non-sequitur’s to a minimum, K?
sHx says:
August 8, 2011 at 1:42 pm
sHx, I have never voted Republican in my life, always Democrat, so your “further to the right” is just your attempt to shoehorn me into a box. I’m a liberal on social issues and a conservative on fiscal issues, and I don’t know a single Republican or “right-winger” who enjoys that combination.
Second, you really should read the document under discussion before uncapping your electronic pen. The authors of the document are listed as:
NWF
Tribal Lands Program
Institute for Tribal Environmental Professionals
National Congress of American Indians
Native American Fish and Wildlife Society
Native American Rights Fund
TEC (liaison between Department of Energy and the Tribes)
Colorado Law School
So explain to me … since five of the eight authoring organizations for the document are comprised 100% of what you call “Native Americans”, including the NCAI, how is this document and its push to get more tax dollars “not the fault of the Native American movement”? They wrote it, but it’s someone else’s fault?? That makes no sense.
Unless, of course, you live in that very popular mental world where everything is the fault of someone else, usually “The Man” in one of his many guises, and the Noble Savage is never responsible for anything …
w.
PS – I hate to spoil another of your fantasies, but I’m as far from the “taxed-enough” crowd as a man can get. I think that US taxes should be raised across the board, and particularly on the wealthy … so once again, your imagination is 100% wrong. Not just a little bit wrong. Way on the far side of the moon wrong.
sHx, please take the number of incorrect assumptions that you have made about me as an indication that you are not really reading what I wrote, but simply responding from your gut misunderstanding. You don’t have to go on looking like an idiot because you haven’t taken the time to truly consider what I said and what I meant. If you have questions about what I meant, or if it doesn’t seem clear, or if you object, then quote my words and we can discuss it. But for you to assume that I am a bad person or that I hold certain views simply because you disagree with me on one issue is unpleasant and more importantly, self-destructive to your reputation.
For example, I defy you to find anything in what I wrote that indicates that I think that the US in general, or I in particular, am “taxed-enough”. That’s 100% your fantasy, made up out of your own imagination. Take that as a warning that you really are not paying attention, you are peopling the world with figments of your own inner shadow-play.
Joshua says:
August 8, 2011 at 5:58 pm
I wouldn’t reduce myself to pearl-clutching about the poorest community in the country getting some of my tax dollars.
Right, just look at what the Great White
FatherLIberal, LBJ’s, similarly focused Great Society War on Poverty has already done toward protecting the endangered “Africans” amongst us, in producing the “correct” Demo[kkk]rat run Black Inner CityGhettoscritical habitat! So shell out now, Capitalist Imperialists! A little more Federal control via a socially just “redistribution” ofyour“Washington’s” tax dollars, and the Progressive National Wildlife Nirvana will no longer be only an [alleged] Indian victim’s plaintive pipe dream!Bonus Postnormal Climate Science effect, courtesy of the UEA’s Mike Hulme: redressing the “climate’s” all important “obscence inequality between rich and poor nations” will also take the Catastrophe out of CAGW!
James Sexton says:
August 8, 2011 at 2:08 pm
Egads, sanity on the subject. My thanks, James.
w.
Joshua Corning says:
August 8, 2011 at 11:49 am
Well, I get into this debate because the document I cited says that they should be treated differently because they are “Native Americans”. Since we’re all Americans, that means that the essential difference, the reason they should get tax money regarding climate change and I should be taxed for the same reason, is that they are native to the Americas.
My point is that that is a) not true, and b) no reason for them to be treated differently on this issue from everyone else.
w.
Willis Eschenbach – The National Wildlife Federation (NWF) has issued a new report (PDF) asserting that the Early Asian Immigrants (incorrectly referred to as “Native” Americans).
Willis quote: Now, the history of the Early Asian Immigrants is a sad and tragic one.
—————–
Native American tribes showed they were comprised of four distinct mtDNA haplogroups called A, B, C, and D. This means that the Native Americans are derived from four different lineages.These haplogroups were also found in native populations in Central and South America. Utter mtDNA research utilizing ancient remains recovered in the Americas validated these four haplogroups. Three of these haplogroups, A, C, and D are found primarily in Siberian Asia. The B haplogroup, however, is found only in aboriginal groups in Southeast Asia. China, Japan, Melanesia, and Polynesia confirming a South Pacific and Japanese Migration.
Based on the mutations found in the mtDNA, most researchers think that groups A, C and D, entered America from Siberia across Beringia some time around 35.000 B.C. Group B, they assert, probably came to America from the South Pacific or Japan via boats. It is believed the B groups began this migration not long after the A, C, and D groups arrived. However, the majority of the B group arrived about 11.000 B.C. This leaves open the possibility of several migrations by the B group from different locations.
It should be noted that a few geneticists have proposed that each of these tour haplogroups came in four separate migrations. And many Clovis supporters argue that all the groups migrated together.
An Unknown and Unexpected Migration Group Confirmed
In 1997, a fifth mtDNA haplogroup was identified in Native Americans. This group, called ‘”X,” is present in three percent of living Native Americans. Haplogroup X was not then found in Asia, but was found only in Europe and the Middle East where two to four percent of the population carry it. In those areas, the X haplogroup has primarily been found in parts of Spain, Bulgaria, Finland, Italy, and Israel. In July 2001, a research letter was published in the American Journal of Human Genetics, relating that a few people with the ‘X’ type had been identified in a tribe located in extreme southern Siberia.
These people, called the Altasians, or Altaics, as Russian geneticists refer to them, have always lived in the Gobi Desert area. Archaeologists and geneticists are certain that the presence of “X” in America is not the result of historic intermarriages. It is of ancient origin. In addition, the ‘X’ type has now been found in the ancient remains of the Basque. Among Native American tribes, the X haplogroup has been found in small numbers in the Yakima, Sioux, and Navaho tribes. It has been found to a larger degree in the Ojibway, Oneota, and Nuu-Chah-Nulth tribes.
Therefore, Native American or First Nations come from multiple locations.
———-
The X haplogroup has also been discovered in ancient remains in Illinois near Ohio and a ‘few’ other areas near the Great Lakes. It has not (so far) been found in South or Central American tribes including the Maya. The X haplogroup appears to have entered America in limited numbers perhaps as long ago as 34.000 B.C. Around 12,000 B.C. to 10.000 B.C. it appeared in much greater numbers.
Willis Eschenbach – Asian immigrants?
————–
Perhaps you better explain what dictionary you’re using in your definition of immigrant. Your usage confuses me. Or broadly speaking then everyone who walked out of Africa must also be called an immigrant in every nation on the planet if by your definition if Native Americans are
immigrants.
—————-
Willis – the US Government, after many years, was to give the remaining tribes of Immigrants their own nations. These are sovereign areas with their own leaders, where many US laws do not apply.
———
Response – Native American tribal governments are an integral part of the political fabric of the United States. As the Supreme Court of the United States determined in its 1831 decision in Cherokee Nation v. Georgia, 30 U.S. (5 Peters) 1, tribal governments are not “states” in a constitutional sense, nor are they “foreign states,” at least for purposes of Article III original jurisdiction. Instead, they are “domestic dependent nations,” with many sovereign powers retained from the pre-contact period. As tribal governments have grown in political and economic power, the Supreme Court, the United States Congress, the federal executive, and the tribes have engaged in an increasingly important discussion to determine the scope of their powers. States, municipalities and individual citizens have all contributed to this conversation.
The result is a legal regime of fascinating complexity.
Although Native Americans have been held to have both inherent rights and rights guaranteed, either explicitly or implicitly, by treaties with the federal government, the government retains the ultimate power and authority to either abrogate or protect Native American rights. This power stems from several legal sources. One is the power that the Constitution gives to Congress to make regulations governing the territory belonging to the United States (Art. IV, Sec. 3, Cl. 2), and another is the president’s constitutional power to make treaties (Art. II, Sec. 2, Cl. 2). A more commonly cited source of federal power over Native American affairs is the Commerce Clause of the U.S. Constitution, which provides that “Congress shall have the Power … to regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes” (Art. I, Sec. 8, Cl. 3). This clause has resulted in what is known as Congress’s “plenary power” over Indian affairs, which means that Congress has the ultimate right to pass legislation governing Native Americans, even when that legislation conflicts with or abrogates Indian treaties. The most well-known case supporting this congressional right is Lone Wolf v. Hitchcock, 187 U.S. 553, 23 S. Ct. 216, 47 L. Ed. 299 (1903), in which Congress broke a treaty provision that had guaranteed that no more cessions of land would be made without the consent of three-fourths of the adult males from the Kiowa and Comanche tribes. In justifying this abrogation, Justice edward d. white declared that when “treaties were entered into between the United States and a tribe of Indians it was never doubted that the power to abrogate existed in Congress, and that in a contingency such power might be availed of from considerations of governmental policy.”
Another source for the federal government’s power over Native American affairs is what is called the “trust relationship” between the government and Native American tribes. This “trust relationship” or “trust responsibility” refers to the federal government’s consistent promise, in the treaties that it signed, to protect the safety and well-being of the tribal members in return for their willingness to give up their lands. This notion of a trust relationship between Native Americans and the federal government was developed by U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Marshall in the opinions that he wrote for the three cases on tribal sovereignty described above, which became known as the Marshall Trilogy. In the second of these cases, Cherokee Nation v. Georgia, Marshall specifically described the tribes as “domestic dependant nations” whose relation to the United States was like “that of a ward to his guardian.” Similarly, in Worcester v. Georgia, Marshall declared that the federal government had entered into a special relationship with the Cherokees through the treaties they had signed, a relationship involving certain moral obligations. “The Cherokees,” he wrote, “acknowledge themselves to be under the protection of the United States, and of no other power.
Eschanbach’s defense and misunderstanding of the respectful posts that should change his mind instead do little. Maybe Anthony needs to go back to editing…
REPLY: Brad, at least learn how to spell his name correctly if you want to be an anonymous armchair quarterback – Anthony
Willis – you really have a nasty habit of formulating conclusions without sufficient evidence, don’t you? I asked you before whether your mother had taught you lessons in basic logic and civility – I guess I see now that the answer is no.
I went to Wikipedia to get a few basic numbers on poverty in the Native American community. When it said that they are the poorest ethnic group, I posted an excerpt. No intent to deceive, Willis.
Now, if we can get past your completely unsupported accusation that I tried to deceive people, we can see that whether they are the second poorest ethnic group of the poorest ethnic group does not diminish the extremely high level of poverty among Native Americans.
If you begrudge some of your tax dollars paying for social services for a sick Native American child, or a senior Native American in need of health care, that’s certainly your prerogative. I just don’t roll that way, Willis.
Oh. Wait. I got that wrong.
In reality, you have no problem with your tax dollars going to Native Americans. My bad. Sorry I got that wrong, Willis. I’m glad that you’re in agreement with me – and that it is beneath any self-respecting person to object to some of their tax dollars going to help a group as poor as Native Americans (as a group). My apologies.
Ron Dean says:
August 8, 2011 at 5:37 pm
Hi Willis,
Ron, see my post above. Five of the eight authoring organizations are 100% “Native Americans”. Since they wrote it, I’d say they are responsible for this particular piece of silliness.
w.
Ummm, Willis, you miss the point – people state they should be treated differently now because they were treated differently and horrifically earlier, not because they are “native” or hot. You conflate two arguments and come to a logical muddle, and you sound, well, like a true believer or one who cannot analyze well.
I, fact, if well argued, I would likely agree we do not need to treat native Americans differently now, we need to treat them equally now which is also something we do not do. Is that what you meant? You have conflated two arguments and gotten well off the logical track.
Jason Joice M.D. says:
August 8, 2011 at 8:02 pm
Jason, again you have not quoted a single thing I said, and as a result, I don’t have a clue what you are referring to. Until you actually raise one real, discussable issue, you’re just an angry man who won’t reveal what you are angry about. All you’ve done is rant about things I’ve never said, without giving us even one single example of what I said that has upset you so much. And now you want to call the tune for what Anthony should do, when you have done nothing? Get real. If you want to have an effect on the discussion, you need to join it first, and you haven’t done that yet.
For one example among many, what gives you the idea that I have “no clue about US history in regards to their fighting and signing treaties”? What part of US history did I discuss, and what was wrong with my discussion? Because if you believe I know nothing about the subject as you fatuously claim, you’re wrong. Heck, I’m not even that fond of twenty dollar bills, and you likely know why, but most folks don’t …
w.
After reading at least a half a dozen repetitive references to “pearl clutching’ [whatever that is, in your fevered imagination], it probably means that you’re arguing and agreeing with both of your other deluded cohorts wirh you in your mom’s basement; “pearl clutching” is no doubt your class envy code phrase for something or other among your cognitive dissonant-afflicted fellow travelers. Am I right? Yep. Without a doubt.
I’ve read this excellent site daily for the past 4 years, and I have never heard that really weird term: “pearl clutching”. Are you a secret member of some true believer Algore globaloney cult? Admit it; it’s too strange otherwise. And of course, your labeling of “whining” is simply psychological projection: You are whining about special interest groups which, in your skewed world view, don’t have thier hands deep enough into the wallets of the average American worker. Keep complaining, junior. Maybe you might generate more taxes that way.
And since you asked about ethanol subsidies, and by implication, about the “carbon” scare, step up to the plate like you said you would, and either admit that ethanol and the CO2 scare are fabricated nonsense… or post empirical, testable evidence showing that CO2 is causing global harm. Computer models don’t count. Good luck with that assignment, junior.
ethanol is fabricated nonsense?
Please explain.
yeah, willis, you have a clue. a plea of ignorance from a very clueful fellow is dishonest.
i hope you get over your jerry springer moment because when you’re good, you’re very good.
I like how you’ve re-titled the Native Americans. Can we rename the people in Europe too, something to do with African immigration?
Maybe I should be clearer, Smokey, before you go on a rant about the evil eco-Nazis and their plan to starve millions through ethanol subsidies. No need – I’ve read the rants before.
As for your point, ethanol is fabricated, but as far as I know, it is a fabricated liquid fuel, not “fabricated nonsense.” If you could explain how ethanol is “fabricated nonsense,” I’d appreciate it, Smokey. I’m always open to learning something new.
And congrats, Smokey – you manged to squeeze a record number of tired blog flame war cliches into one short paragraph. But try to get it right next time, please – it’s cognitive dissonance-afflicted fellow travelers, not cognitive dissonant-afflicted fellow travelers.
This is good. So if you haven’t “heard” a term by reading this website, therefore, it is a “weird” term? Try branching out a bit, Smokey. Use your imagination. Use The Google to expand your horizons. There are other sources of information, and you really are doing yourself a disfavor by limiting your entire vocabulary to terms you have “heard” at this site.
Anyway, Smokey – have a nice evening. Maybe I’ll catch you on another thread sometime? I certainly hope so. Reading your posts has been extremely entertaining.
Uh oh. Looks like Anthony (or whomever the moderator is) is mad at me again, and doesn’t want to let my responses to Smokey get through.
I wrote a longer response, Smokey – but since the moderator seems to have gotten upset with me, I’ll just wish you a nice evening and look forward to your amusing posts on another thread.
REPLY: Uh oh, looks like Joshua doesn’t understand how a spam filter works and is just a wee bit too impatient to allow moderators to do their work, so he spins a silly conspiracy theory. Your post is above. The trip words was “Nazis” There’s a Godwin’s law filter to prevent idiots from flaming each other by flagging suspicious posts for later inspection. Don’t use the word and you won’t have a problem. Next time don’t be so quick to blame me and others for something you did. – Anthony
One would think, then, that they would be more responsible, and not sell fireworks which are illegal 50 feet from the stands. They also might want to have some principles, and not sell fireworks at all, which celebrates the creation of the same country which destroyed their civilizations.
I’ll quote some of Willis Eschenbach’s earlier writings, which, in my view, explain an awful lot of what we are reading here today – and many of his previous writings. Mr. Eschenbach has confessed to taking LSD multiple times as a young man, and further, to being heavily drugged in a mental hospital.
To quote Mr. Eschenbach, speaking about himself:
“So we’d take LSD every Sunday night like clockwork, then turn ourselves back into the nuthouse with our eyes spinning like pinwheels on Monday morning, put on our robe and pajamas and watch the colors crawl up the wall and people’s faces change and melt … but it was worth it because it was more than a man could do to voluntarily return to that hole of lost humanity in a sane and sober state. You had to be crazy to go back there.
That split life went on for months. “ and a bit later, “ I took a massive dose of LSD and turned myself back in to Letterman Hospital . . .”
reference: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/02/28/its-not-about-me/
I’m willing to cut him some slack for this post. That much LSD must surely alter the mind, and not in a positive manner. It could very well be that Mr. Eschenbach knows not what he is doing, nor can he understand why so many, many people are not happy with his writings above. The sad thing is, the LSD-altered brain does not know how messed up it is.
Full disclosure: I have never had any LSD nor any other mind-altering drugs. When I screw up what I write, it is with my full mental faculties about me, such as they are.
Thank you Willis for your courteous reply,
Without checking into it, I stand corrected on my previously stated assumption. However, that apparently flawed assumption does not take away from the remainder of my comment, that argues the “early Asian Immigrants” label detracts from the otherwise very valid point you were making. It has turned the discussion into a debate about that questionable label, and not what your post’s main points are.
I think the comment you highlighted from James Sexton very succinctly summed up the gist of your post. In fact, I think it does it so well, I am repeating his comment below:
me says:
August 8, 2011 at 8:49 pm
me, please point out to me in the NWF paper where they make that argument, that we should give money to “natives” because they were badly treated in the past. I can’t find it in there anywhere, and I looked hard.
The argument that they should get the money because they are “natives”, on the other hand, is a core assumption in their paper. Why else would they be gathered together as a class? Why else would no other ethnic groups or races be even mentioned? If the issue were past injustice, why wouldn’t the early Asian immigrants have included African-Americans in their call for me to give them money?
w.
gnomish says:
August 8, 2011 at 9:20 pm
First, you say that I “have a clue? I’m glad I do, clues are good … but about what? And “Jerry Springer moment”? You’ve slipped into total incomprehensibility.
Having gotten this far, gnomish, surely you’ve read this next sentence already, but obviously it hasn’t sunk in. QUOTE MY WORDS if you disagree with them.
This is particularly important when you call a man a liar, as you have reprehensibly and childishly done. I don’t know where you grew up, but where I’m from you don’t call a man dishonest in his words without providing chapter and verse proving that he is a liar. Otherwise, things get real ugly.
So put up or shut up, my unpleasant friend. What was I “dishonest” about and where? You can either back up your words, apologize, or crawl out the same way you crawled in.
Your choice.
w.
Joshua says:
August 8, 2011 at 8:44 pm
Anyone who tosses out a Wikipedia “fact” without doing any further research is being deceptive. You are claiming it is a fact, when you know full well that Wikipedia is a lousy and notoriously inaccurate source.
If you grab the first thing Wikipedia says because it agrees with your preconceptions, and you don’t check it for accuracy, I can conclude one of two things:
1) You are a congenital idiot, or
2) You don’t care if you deceive people.
I strongly doubt that it is number 1 …
Apology accepted, my thanks. However, the issue has never been whether tax dollars should go to the poor, and if so, which dollars and how many dollars and which poor. That’s an important but separate discussion.
As I have said many times on this thread, the NWF/”Native American” paper wants to ignore the treaties and change the rules in their favor. It has nothing to do with poverty. They want to continue all the treaty parts that give them benefits, they want to keep their casinos, fishing rights, tax exemptions, sovereign status, tribal laws and the like … and they also want to change the parts of the treaty system that prevent them in some circumstances from getting money from the government.
As I said, if they can do that then I should be able to open a casino. They can’t have it both ways, that they both get the benefits of the treaties and their resulting status as sovereign tribes, and that they also get to ignore the treaties when it suits them to belly up to the government trough.
w.
PS – You say “it is beneath any self-respecting person to object to some of their tax dollars going to help a group as poor as Native Americans (as a group)” as though that were a given. It is not, there is a problem with your underlying premise about groups.
I generally object to my tax dollars going to any group (as a group). I think tax dollars should go to individuals on the basis of need, and not be distributed on the basis of race as you seem to be advocating (if I understand you correctly). Does the fact that African-Americans are poor (as a group) mean that my tax dollars should go to Oprah? Does the fact that Asians are the wealthiest group in America mean that we should not assist Asians in need? I’m sure you can see the difficulties with your position. For me, whether the group one is a member of by birth is rich or poor is meaningless when it comes to allocating tax resources. So yes, it is quite possible for a self-respecting person to object to tax dollars going to help “a group”.
Roger Sowell says:
August 8, 2011 at 9:47 pm
Let me get this straight. You’ve never taken LSD. You’ve never taken any mind altering drugs. You make no claim of having studied their effects scientifically.
But you are claiming that you know what their effects are, thirty-five years after having taken them, on someone you never met? Really?
Based on what? Urban legends? Your personal prejudices? Astrological signs? I know that arguing from ignorance is popular these days, but isn’t that taking it a bit too far?
I could say, with equal passion and equal lack of logic, that “the LSD-unaltered brain does not know how messed up it is” … but then I actually know something about the subject, and by your own admission, you know absolutely nothing about it.
Come back after you’ve done some research, your ignorance is showing. Next you’ll be warning us of how alcohol “must surely alter the mind, and not in a positive manner”, and implying that people who took a number of drinks thirty years ago are permanently damaged, while simultaneously informing us that you’ve never taken a drink of any alcohol of any kind, or studied the subject in any manner.
w.
Roger Sowell, I don’t take and have not taken LSD. I have read through Willis’s post and your posts. What is your excuse for delusion when you have not quoted any words of Willis specifically and raised your objections to that based on facts? I don’t see any content or facts or logic in your posts, only blind emotion with no relevance to anything Willis wrote.
How about you specify your objections point by point on what was written by Willis and then say in your opinion, what was wrong? It’s not too difficult.
Smokey says:
August 8, 2011 at 5:28 pm
I couldn’t agree more. All of us have crosses to bear, for historical, genetic, political, and personal reasons. Kudos to those who stand up and give it all they’ve got and make the best of a bad universe, rather than those folks who blame history and genetics and the like for their inability to put down the remote and stand up from the couch and go out and do something, and who subsequently want the government to fix their perceived problems and imaginary concerns.
w.
Mostly I’m bemused by this article. I read it almost the moment it went up, and thought “how long until this discussion goes sideways?” I’ve just now returned, slogged through over 150 comments, and sure enough, the answer was “not long”. Cries of racism, ignorance, who did what to who, and when, and why, and who was worse, and on and on…. There wasn’t a single racist or even rude remark in Willis’ article, yet that is what most of the discussion is about, instead of the issue itself.
I’d suggest taking a moment and considering the striking similarity to the topic this site spends a considerable amount of time on. Not the CAGW debate from the perspective of the science and the facts, but from the perspective of the organizations that lobby hard to keep the alarmism alive for one single reason: It is good for THEM.
There is nothing that inflates itself faster or with more determination than a beauracracy that has no value. The less usefull the beauracracy is, the more it must sound the alarm, over state the danger or importance of what ever their mandate is, in order to maintain their status, their reason for existence…in other words, their jobs. The leadership will lobby the hardest and the loudest. Growing a beauracracy with a track record of success, be it real or fictitious, is just as much a stepping stone to an appointment to an even bigger beuaracracy as is growing a business a stepping stone to larger business opportunities. It is about money and power. The less value there is in the actual issue, the more agressively the beauracracy must build a facade that there is value.
Those who question the science, the facts, and the reality of CAGW are instantly attacked for everything from their intelligence, to charges of being in the pay of the oil industry, and associated with racists. When confronted, they refuse to debate the science, relying on everything from pictures of polar bears floating on pieces of ice to promotional videos dehumanizing skeptics to the point that blowing up skeptical children is deemed to be just fine. Any rehtoric, anecdotal story or tragic event will do to point the finger and scream “see? Its happening already!” Anything but a discussion of the facts and the science because that would expose the truth, which is that there is no, and never was a problem. They cannot allow that because if there is no problem…then there is no reason for the IPCC to exist, no value in the programs that fund everything from corn crops for ethanol that makes the problem worse, not better, to funding the drilling of holes in the earth to give researchers something to write PhD papers about even though they are just sticking a CAGW label on research that has already been done. The bigger the CAGW bandwagon gets, the more money it pulls in, the more agressively it seeks to ensure it continues to exist… and the climate has exactly zero to do with their motives in a great many cases.
Compare that to the article Willis wrote, and the reaction to it. A bunch of beauracracies have come up with a new excuse to move money from one place to another place, with themselves being paid to do it. They are working hard to inflate themselves, and are selling fiction agressively to increase their percieved value. They’ve latched onto CAGW as a bandwagon they can use to draw attention and increase the value of their supposed reason for existence, and wrap themselves in the cloak of morality as they put themselves in charge of collecting and distributing the wealth they are trying to justify moving from one place to another (assuming there is any left after they finish paying themselves to study the issues, fly all over the place to conferences discussing the issue, running projects to evaluate approaches to the issue, and maybe even doing something of actual value at some point).
Willis has correctly pointed out the complete lack of facts and reason in regard to their lobbying position, has pointed out the complete contradiction of fairness (not to mention the law itself) that these beauracracies attempt to sweep under the carpet as they trumped loudly about an issue that doesn’t exist, demand money to study it, and more money still to “do something” about it.
How is what Willis wrote criticising the intent, the value of, and the flawed logic behind this money grab any different than the exact same things he has so eloquently stated in regard to the disinformation and dishonest tactics of climate alarmists intent on scooping as many tax dollars as they can for themselves to study something that I for one suspect most already know is bogus?…but they’ll take the money anyway, thank you?
I’ll answer that myself. Willis raised the issue in his post, and was immediately attacked for being a racist, accused of ignorance, asked what his agenda was, crtiticized for making vile statements that, despite reading it three times, I could not find in his article. His repeated pleas to his critics to quote the exact words from his article that said what he was accused of saying? Unanswered. The supporters of this value system that has no real value cannot afford to debate the facts with Mr. Eschenbach, because the facts are on his side.
So instead they trot out the image of poverty stricken children…polar bear trapped on an ice flow…people who deny the science must be racists…people who deny the ancient-native-indian-we-were-here-first-second-third-or-maybe-fourth-but-before-YOU-crowd their need for support must be racists… the double standard by which the CAGW crowd…and the NWF crowd demand to be judged.
They are just beauracracies with no value screaming their lungs out to convince you of a problem that doesn’t exist in order to justify giving them money to pay themselves to fix it.
There is no difference between the facts and logic that Willis has raised in regard to CAGW or this matter. And there is no difference between the tacts of those who seek to discredit Willis and others who are willing to take a stand on the facts, and base the merit of their argument on the facts.
you’re not intimidating, willis. just vain, petulant and childish.
i’m not playing with you. adults have better things to do.
that’s another clue.
I don’t know how he does it, but Willis has managed to publish a bleeding heart Rorschach test, and his victims are lining up after seeing their own guilty image staring back at them from the ink blot. Congratulations Willis, you’ve roped in a record number of whiners and politically correct bedwetters.
What is stunning is that even after demanding from them multiple times to quote your exact words when they respond, they still cannot get with the program. Further research will show that 90% of these sloppy, careless ‘non-quoters’ will also be AGW cult members. Coincidence. Certainly not.
Anyway, I’m gonna go out on a limb here and nominate this as the thread’s best comment by far …
Clever humor in the midst of a politically correct food fight is much appreciated!
davidmhoffer,
Excellent essay, David; I agree with all of it. Willis took a principled stand, and none of his detractors were able to debunk any of it. Willis wrote that “…the history of the Early Asian Immigrants is a sad and tragic one. They were cheated, lied to, killed indiscriminately, and their culture and ways were denigrated and often destroyed.” He pointed out that the NWF now wants to change the rules. Willis has been attacked for that, by outsiders with no skin in the game. Despicable.
Willie says ( while ignoring the other parts of the post he cannot challenge, ………..2 can play at that silly game)
“Where and when are you saying I “classed a whole group as having one characteristic?” It’s not in what you quoted above, unless you don’t think that the Immigrants by and large are like me, fools whose intentions are good. Is that what you are objecting to? Are they really fools whose intentions are bad? What characteristic did I say they had? Until you let us know what you are upset about, I cannot respond”
.
Gareth responds
Willie, I see you did not challenge the idea that first nations cannot be immigrants in our sense of the word. Hopefully we are getting somewhere.
Now here are a few examples of you treating a disparate and widely varying people as one homogenous mass with one characteristic.
1) In any case, if “the Immigrants” are entitled to my tax money, it seems only fair that in return I should be able to open my own casino
2) “they” should have to pay taxes just like I do
3) “they’ve” got to become just like me
4) If “they” want to be full participants
Who is “they” Willie? Do they all run casinos? Do they all somehow tax dodge? Did they all arrive in the new world at the same time? Is a Patagonian native the same culturally, ethnically and philosophically the same as a Canadian first nation. In your books apparently so. They get rich out of Casinos and all do well in their so called “Nations” or as the rest of the world call them, poverty stricken American strips. Reflect and learn. I must confess if this is your standard of evidence on anthropology, many people are going to take your views on Climate change with a rather large pinch of salt.
By the way, yes I am angry to see a great site like this used to promote extreme right wing views against a people who can do little to challenge that aggression. Native Americans were not perfect, they fought , stole, some were good , some were bad. That is because they were human, the same as us with all our good and bad points. We would never say the average American is a callous right winger who does not give a hoot for the wellbeing of his fellow citizens just because of how the tea party behave. Native Americans are worth no less.
Anthony, thanks for your comments, but I still think you should delete this thread or it will be used by those who seek to close down debate on climate change.
Ron Dean says:
August 8, 2011 at 5:37 pm
My thanks, Ron.
Ron, thanks for your ideas and concerns. My choice to talk about Early Asian Immigrants was made specifically and consciously, in part because I knew it would arouse controversy. You see, the underlying argument of the NWF (and many of the Immigrants themselves regarding this and many other issues) is that they should be in a special category because they are “native” to the Americas, or in other words, they deserve special treatment because they are not immigrants.
I know of no way to fight that pernicious idea other than to point out the underlying fallacy in the claim. I decided to do so in an unconventional way, by playing with the name “Native Americans”. I would say that my method has been successful, in that it has focused attention on the issue. Sure, some of the folks have gone postal because they didn’t read what I wrote, they seem to be reading the words off of the insides of their eyeballs rather than the screen. That’s why I have had to repeat QUOTE MY WORDS ad nauseum.
But I don’t see that as a loss or as a problem. It has revealed who is or is not paying attention to what they read, and it has identified those who want to rant about imaginary insults rather than deal with what I actually said. I don’t mind when folks make inane claims and draw absurd conclusions. That’s all part of the learning process for people reading their words, to learn to distinguish their uncited irrelevant nonsense and unsupported inferences from an actual response to what I wrote. I see it all as part of the process, and closely related to the issues under discussion.
w.
gnomish says:
August 8, 2011 at 11:40 pm
Intimidating? How on earth could I be “intimidating” over the web? You’ll have to explain that one. All I did was to invite you to either back up your invidious claim that I lied about something (what?), or apologize, or crawl back in your hole. In true fashion, you’ve wimped out, ignored your unbelievable rudeness, and done none of those. Gosh, that’s impressive.
Um … well, I have to admit you’re correct about you not playing with us, it’s clear that you’re playing with yourself. You’re still here, and still talking about everything but the actual issues that the rest of us are discussing. And you are right that adults have better things to do, we’re discussing the issues. You’re welcome to join us.
In any case, how can we miss you if you won’t go away?
w.
Willis, thanks for writing this article. Unlike some, I found the original post and (many of) the comments both appropriate and educational, e.g. even more political applications of climate change/chaos/disruption, genetics of prehistoric American immigrants, legal status of their descendants, the new (to both Smokey and me) term “pearl clutching”, and now the mysterious and perhaps slightly sinister reference to the $20 bill. I’m guessing it has something to do with Andrew Jackson and the Creek Indian War, but my knowledge of that subject is limited to hazy childhood recollections of Disney’s “Davy Crockett”. So, once again, Willis sends me to the Web.
Gonna be a long night.
Gareth Phillips says:
August 9, 2011 at 12:04 am
Sure hope you get an answer from Willie, Gareth. On the off chance that your missive was addressed to me, you go on to say:
If you were the one that made that claim that they can’t be immigrants, I likely didn’t read it. I scanned your posts to see if you actually were willing to quote what I said. When I saw you hadn’t passed that very low bar, I went on to the next post.
In any case, as usual you haven’t identified where that claim was made or who made it. Come back with that and we can talk.
So you finally deign to tell us your objection, and that’s it? That’s your problem with what I wrote? All of the real issues in the post, and that’s what you are on about? OK, let’s deal with that.
“They” are the group defined by the Immigrant folks who wrote the pamphlet under discussion, which was inter alia the folks from:
Tribal Lands Program
Institute for Tribal Environmental Professionals
National Congress of American Indians
Native American Fish and Wildlife Society
Native American Rights Fund
I didn’t group them. The authors are the ones that are talking about the Immigrants en masse, from the very first words of their paper where they say:
So if you seriously think that people can’t talk about a group, you should direct your complaints to the authors, who are talking about all the Tribes as one.
But generally, I didn’t do that, lump them into one. You know, you could have found this out by quoting my entire words instead of picking out a tiny bit. My quote was:
So as is obvious even to a bear of little brain, “they” in the first sentence are those Immigrants who want to be participants in the American rush and yet want to be exempt from various laws etc. And “they” in the second sentence refers to those Immigrants who want to get all of the benefits of full citizenship and still want to have casinos and their own sovereign lands and their own leaders.
Clear?
You go on to say:
“Extreme right wing views”? Again, fool, QUOTE MY WORDS. Merely calling my ideas names and giving them incorrect labels goes nowhere.
Couldn’t agree more.
Couldn’t agree more. I would never say that the average Early Asian Immigrant is a callous right winger who does not give a hoot for the wellbeing of his fellow citizens just because of how the tea party behave.
So we’re in agreement, then? Well, not quite … because you have accused me of being a “callous right winger who does not give a hoot for the wellbeing of his fellow citizens”. Since I am someone who supported Obama and has never voted Republican, that’s a bizarre and other-worldly accusation. So the “Native Americans” are worth no less, but anyone else is fair game for your vitriol. Got it.
w.
Gary Hladik says:
August 9, 2011 at 12:18 am
Thanks, Gary, I wondered if anyone would pick up on that. Your guess is a good one. I found out when one of my friends from the res refused to take a $20 bill and insisted on getting two $10 bills in change instead, and that sent me for a long excursion through the Encyclopedia Britannica (it was the pre-web Google in my world) . Enjoy your cruise through the history that Jason claims I’m ignorant of …
w.
Modern humans emerged from Africa into occupied territory. Home erectus and neanderthal had been dealing quite well with the environmental challenges before modern humans arrived, but evidently weren’t well prepared to compete for resources with us. The “native americans” had plenty of blood on their hands by the time they reached the Americas, and the “first” americans are likely no longer with us. What we see are the 2nd through 4th or 5th waves of immigrants, with the Aleuts, Navajo, Apache and Eskimo thought to be the most recent arrivals.
Modern humans have a relatively small effective population size, a genetic diversity that could be sustained by a population of just10 to 20 thousand. The current leading hypothesis no longer a population bottleneck at a specific point in time, but is that diversity was lost along the way due to group competition as modern humans exterminated other groups or pushed them onto marginal resources. There is no reason to think that Native American’s hadn’t done their share of this before European’s sharing their African genesis arrived.
Conquests and human sacrifice were all in progress when European’s arrived. The Aztecs had only risen to dominance about century before the Spanish arrived and the Spaniards found the Aztec religion based upon human sacrifice particularly appalling. I guess these Spaniards hadn’t been “washed by the blood”. 😎
ok, i figure you have just that much credit i’ll oblige you.
with forethought and consideration you published a rant – a performance of ‘outrage art’ so very common on the net. (goatse man comes to mind)
you did it deliberately, for you say:
“I thought long and hard about this before I posted it, as I do with all of my posts, but even more so because it is a touchy subject. I re-wrote it several times…”
your text is deliberately provocative (clue) for youi have mistakenly come to believe that controversy, for its own sake, is why this crowd comes to wuwt. as you say:
“Now, I could have just said “Ooooh, too hot to handle” and picked a less controversial subject … but if Anthony and I and all the guest posters did that, this would be the most boring blog on the planet.”
this blog is in no danger of becoming the most boring blog on the planet, willis, it is the most popular weather blog on the net. but if it were in any danger of becoming the most boring blog on the planet, today’s contribution could not help save it. quite the contrary.
you performed an act which bombed. you were booed by much of the audience. but instead of retiring backstage and reminding yourself not to do that act in this town any more, you do like al gore and get crazy with the hecklers – the reactions you necessarily elicited, the controversy you sought – you can’t handle gracefully because of vanity.
your defense of vanity has been preposterous. it has cost you much of my formerly high regard.
your rant is substantially a whinge about ‘my taxes’ and you fume about somebody seeking a share of what you relinquished,
(you have no claim on what you relinquished. someone who tried it used to be called ‘indian giver’. funny, eh?)
when you are confronted with an unappreciative audience -( for you ARE performing – with allegedly much preparation and forethought) – you mimic the talk radio outrage artists by trying rhetorical devices to appear …. i dunno – maybe to not disappear? but your rhetorical somersaults invert the premise of your rant when you state your sincere and devout desire to share your butthurt with others by raising taxes? thanks for the offer to share your misery, but do not want.
the crude attempt at demagoguery as entertainment flopped. deal with it. you don’t own a demographic, you don’t form popular opinions, crown kings, or run jack diddly.
inviting someone to crawl in a hole is silly saturday matinee cowboy monologuin’. your act sucks.
this is what you know, willis, but are trolling you own thread to pretend it isn’t so.
that pretense, willis, is not honest.
neither is your attempt to rephrase what i said in stronger language and choose a fight over it.
you need to go to your corner for a timeout, son.
and that’s used up your credit, i’m sorry to say. i have no more to invest in someone quite so erratic.
I, as an Australian, can’t see anything objective about this article at all. It is an archaeological fact that the original humans who came to North America where from Asia as were the Polynesians. And the Inuits in Northern Canada and native Alaskans.. But not before the last ice age allowed them to settle gradually South of The Great Lakes. Around 9,000 years ago.
I think it is a great idea that all residents of Alaska receive monies from the proceeds of mining from natural resources there.
However, by any stretch of the imagination, they should now pay taxes like everyone else in America. Not be tax exempt like some non profit organization or charity. (Albeit there is I believe those who choose to avoid it via organized crime syndicates, by laundering monies ie the Mafia not tribal groups).
But trying to avoid taxes by claiming climate change reasons, is just another trying to get on the rouse of AGW etc.
Just remember, those native Americans, Indians if you like, where in times past cheated by so called treaties that were not honored. Some (Indians) came to Australia about 20 years ago, and told our native or indigenous Australian Aboriginal descendants, don’t sign any Federal treaties.
You might know that in Arnhem Land in the Northern part of Australia, permits have to be granted to enter it, certainly as a tourist as the fishing is extremely great! (Despite the fear of crocodiles?) It is strictly Aboriginal owned land. At one stage white women were excluded unless they had some governmental reason for being there, nurses, doctors, teachers, government administrators or the like. I think they have softened up in the last 20 years. To work there one has to have a permit as the land is Aboriginal land.
I suspect you have something similar in the USA. With regards staying or visiting Indian reserves. But claiming tax exemptions is a bit much I think particularly when claiming it’s to do
with climate change. Actually it might get colder there so I expect electricity will get more expensive? LOL
I hope you don’t mind me putting in my opinion, but years ago, I was in touch with Pine Ridge
Indian reserve. I was very upset by the happenings at Wounded Knee but there was then a corrupt council at Pine Ridge at one time. I know I wrote to the author of Rescue at Wounded Knee, I can’t remember his name, he was part of the peace corp regarding Vietnam, but I know his book brought me to tears at the injustice of it and the brave attempt of those involved.
Their solution? Well, their brilliant plan is that everyone but the Immigrants should pony up some money to give to the Immigrants.
Or they could just pay for the things that they need from their casino takings … which were $7,300,000,000 ($7.3 billion with a “b”) just in California alone in 2009, and $26,400,000,000 nationally, and on which in many states they paid no state taxes. I say they should use their own money for that kind of quixotic quest. If they want to use my taxes to fight imaginary menaces, well, they should have to pay taxes just like I do and be subject to the same idiotic rules that constrain me.
Willis, I found your article interesting, thank you once again.
When I read the casino takings you have stated and read the p2 Executive Summary of NWF report the heinousness of the situation struck me. That people (where, who, ?elderly, babies, teenagers, mothers, fathers and how many) as so poorly described below should be suffering such poverty and unemployment. cf One of the four points in the Exec Summary copied below.
“Tribal communities are particularly vulnerable to increasing weather and climate extremes. Indian Tribes often have a close connection to the land for economic development, sustenance, and for the maintenance of cultural traditions, so changes to the natural systems impact them more directly than the general population. In addition, high rates of poverty and unemployment on reservations mean that Tribes have limited resources to help their populations deal with weather and climate extremes, much less to adapt to a changing climate over a long term. Finally, because Tribes are restricted by reservation boundaries, their attachment to land, and off-reservation treaty rights, moving to new areas to accommodate climate shifts is not a viable option.”
Additionally this reference (para below) to an Indian Health Service was interesting as in Northern Territory (NT), Australia the NT Health Service visited US (c 1997) and produced a report modelling a new health service for the Australian NT indigenous population on the successes discussed of the US Indian Health Service. It seems then that people live in poverty and are unemployed but are healthy??
Introduction“Indian Health Services and the 1990 Census indicate that over 12 percent of Tribal housing lacks these basic necessities (electricity and running water).” p3
It is not clear why the 1990 Census was used when the NCAI site has this link http://www.indiancountrycounts.org/home.cfm to the 2010 Indian specific Census. There appears no link to the Federal US Census.
And today in our Oz national newspaper, also being Census night here It has cost 35billion to turn on Indigenous light bulb
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/commentary/it-has-cost-35bn-to-turn-on-indigenous-light-bulb/story-e6frgd0x-1226111230818
source: Opinions n Blogs http://www.theaustralian.com.au/
NT demography paper provides ERPs and Indigenous population as proportion here as a rough guide to the 1997 Aus-US visit comment. http://www.ausstats.abs.gov.au/ausstats/free.nsf/0/B09036FECE374532CA25722500049453/$File/13627_1997.pdf
Got to say I’m disappointed in the general readership of this site judging by the overwhelming majority of comments – I thought better of it.
Willis quite rightly pointed out a logical flaw with the NWF’s report, and a bunch of small-minded, overly politically correct morons jumped all over him, without once actually attempting to debate the substance of his argument.
Incidentally though, I do find your distinction between native and immigrant a little odd – by your definition, anyone of us living outside of Africa are early African immigrants? Technically you are of course correct when you say that the people who are the subject of this report are just as much immigrants as much later arriving immigrants, but it is convenient as a linguistic reference point to refer to a group of people who have lived somewhere for such a long time as native. Only as a linguistic reference point however, not as a reason to confer some sort of preferential treatment upon them.
In the case of England for instance, which has been invaded many times in its history, you would have to distinguish between early Saxon immigrants, slightly later Roman immigrants, slight later again Norman immigrants etc – all of whose bloodlines are by now completely intertwined and indistinguishable.
Roger Sowell says:
August 8, 2011 at 9:47 pm
“I’ll quote some of Willis Eschenbach’s earlier writings, which, in my view, explain an awful lot of what we are reading here today – and many of his previous writings. Mr. Eschenbach has confessed to taking LSD multiple times as a young man, and further, to being heavily drugged in a mental hospital.”
What substance, if any, turned you into a judgemental self-righteous asshat, Roger?
DesertYote says:
August 8, 2011 at 8:27 am
“Canis lupus is a new comer also. Probably reached the central US less then 15000 years ago. Though the traditional date of the arrival on this continent is often given as 1 M years ago, there is really little evidence to support it. Wolves are immigrants too. Now the Coyote on the other hand is a true native.”
Even better. I stand corrected. Coyotes are the real McCoy, true natives. Humans are an invasive species in the Americas and most everywhere else too for that matter.
From day one, it was a clash of cultures. Sadly, it was the the Europeans’ first “Pearl Harbor” that changed attitudes and set the tone for settler / native relations for several generations hence:
http://memory.loc.gov/learn///features/timeline/colonial/indians/massacre.html
An example of how settler attitudes were shaped by this horrific event:
http://memory.loc.gov/learn///features/timeline/colonial/indians/good.html
A list of the dead:
http://webpages.charter.net/pepbaker/1622_massacre.htm
Read the post Wililie, [snip]
When you acquire the decency and common courtesy to spell my name right, you are more than welcome to come back and repost whatever you wrote. I won’t put up with your puerile tricks. – willis.
The lady from nofrakkingconsensus would be interested to run her eye over this report, as she & others have done on the IPCCs.
Indian [sic] Tribes are also excluded —– because of statutes, regulations, or practice —– from dozens of federal natural resource programs that provide assistance to states, local governments, and other entities.
A brief perusal of the 28 page NWF paper and its photography of scenic landscape and animal/vegetation, of which only 1 photo includes a person with his/her back to the camera, is supported by 94 publicly available references. This is in-kind assistance and so the Tribes are not excluded in practice or regulations from accessing this information.
A search of the references in the body of the 2011 NWF report for the year 2010 = 7. Of these 7 references: 3 are newspapers, 1 undated website and 3 NOAA & NASA. Four (4) of these references are linked to the actual sentence whereas three (3) all being newspapers, are referenced in the next sentence or paragraph.
The Introduction (p3) states there are 565 federally recognised Tribes in the US and an American Indian and Alaska native population of 3.2 million. Reference 1. NCAI.
Is this the source of Reference 1? http://www.ncai.org/
P19 “Within federal funding streams, Tribes are either excluded, not mentioned at all, or are ineligible for other reasons, leaving a gap that they are unable to fill. When the federal government does allocate funding to Tribes, it is often a very small percentage compared to funds allocated to other entities” (reference lacking).
P23 ‘Statutory Exclusion of FY2010 of $116.6 million’ is an undated link
to a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Ocean and Coastal Resource Management site. A pie graph of the 7 funding programs total $162.9million is provided. ref 92 http://coastalmanagement.noaa.gov/funding/welcome.html
However the NWF report states that the Tribes and their lands are excluded from coastal activities listing three (3); Act x1 and programs x2 among others. Only two of these stated ‘excluded programs’ are labelled on the NOAA pie graph and these two programs total $43.5 million (less $5 million for Great Lakes restoration). Presumably this means that the Tribes have access to the remaining $114.4 million funding?
P25 [not paginated] The NWF report states that ‘this Coalition of more than 30 Tribes ? is that of the 556 recognised Tribes stated on p3 and Tribal Organisations, known as Our Natural Resources …. have coalesced around a vision … for resource management and procuring resources and capacity to implement its strategy.’ Ref 94 not live link http://www.ournaturalresources.org
Wow, it seems we have entered the PC Zone (with apologies to Rod Serling):
“There is a fifth dimension, beyond that which is known to man. It is a dimension as vast as space and as timeless as infinity. It is the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition, and it lies between the pit of man’s fears and the summit of his knowledge. This is the dimension of imagination. It is an area which we call The
TwilightPC Zone.”It’s all about the guilt they feel, and by extension, everyone else is supposed to feel. It’s a strong emotion, as evidenced by some of the nasty comments directed towards Willis, and others who have the audacity to defend him. They peddle their guilt the same way that hysterical warmistas do. By a remarkable coincidence, Western religions also tap into that guilt. It is the emotion that helps bind people to quasi-religious cults like CAGW, and helps both to relieve their minds of the need to think for themselves as well as relieve their wallets of burdensome cash, which can then go to help support whatever belief system they have bought into. It is a symbiotic relationship.
Willis Eschenbach says:
August 8, 2011 at 10:24 am
Dave Springer says:
August 8, 2011 at 5:45 am
I grew up on an indian reservation in western New York State in a town that was and possibly still is the only incorporated US city completely inside an indian reservation. The land is leased from the tribe. The disputes that have arisen between the tribe and local, state, and federal governments are legion and the past 20 years have been the worst. There’s very little friction between individuals that live on the reservation it’s all between governments.
“If so, then that’s the only res I ever heard of where that is true, because the rest all have plenty of internal dissension. The idea that Early Asian Immigrants all live in pastoral harmony is a joke. They have the same problems and disagreements that the rest of us have. Heck, the corruption of tribal governments in many places is a running sore. So no, you can’t sell me any of that “noble savages living in domestic harmony” nonsense, it’s way past its use-by date.”
It may very well be unique. The white eye and red man all grew up together there. We went to school together. We won state football championships together. We hunt and fish together. We drink together. Theirs is a matriarchal society. The indian girls I went to school with now have college degrees and businesses and middle class American homes. Many of them are married to white men. Indian men not so much into western culture and more likely to be living off the land. Conflicts are almost between tribal government and state/federal government. For instance New York State is in a financial mess and are taxing just about everything. Indians have cigarette factories on the rez and they are sold tax free depriving New York State of about $6 per pack sold. But they don’t grow the tobacco. New York State is in the process (last I heard) of collecting their pound of flesh by taxing raw tobacco leaves bound for the reservation. Nobody living on the reservation supports it. Another example, profits from the casino are shared with the city as I mentioned earlier. But the shared profit goes through Albany (state capital) first who then sends it to the city. Due to the cigarette tax machinations by the state government the tribal government is refusing to send the shared casino profits to Albany. They offered to give the profits directly to the city on the reservation instead. The city government was fine with that but the state government blocked it. So now both the indians and the white people are pissed off at the state. Few people outside New York City have any abiding love for New York State government in any case and generally consider New York City to be a corrupt cesspool that is dragging the rest of the state into financial ruin. In yet another example an interstate highway runs through the res. It’s the poorest maintained, shabbiest section of interstate between there and Texas and the disrepair starts exactly on the reservation border. I know because I drive there and back on occasion and when I hit the section of interstate highway on the reservation it about makes my teeth rattle out from potholes and bad expansion joints. There’s no other reason for that other than the state government pointedly not keeping it up.
Sure there is internal conflict like anywhere else. I can like or dislike anyone regardless of their ethnic heritage as I’m sure you can. Nancy Pelosi comes to mind. She’s one of my “people” and yet I’d elect any tribal council member to replace her and the tribal government is socialist by act and by culture. The difference is their socialism is sincere, not corrupted by greed, and it works rather well.
Roger Sowell says:
August 8, 2011 at 9:47 pm
“Full disclosure: I have never had any LSD nor any other mind-altering drugs. When I screw up what I write, it is with my full mental faculties about me, such as they are.”
Drugs are for people who can’t handle reality. Reality is for people who can’t handle drugs.
There are absolutely no known long term detrimental side effects of LSD. You just made that crap up out of thin air. Probably a reflection of what’s between your ears – thin air.
The brand of res we have here in NE Oregon is about as peaceful as the city of Pendleton. We are all typically hard working, hard drinking, fight as hard as we play, kind of folks. They have as many redheads on the res as there are in Pendleton. Both our allocated jail beds are full and from time to time, we don’t like our neighbors next door or across the divide between White and Indian locals. Many of us detest the current governments in place, sometimes our own, and sometimes from the other side of the divide. Our respective carbon footprints are equal in size per capita. Yet we both have “not deserved” pride in where we live. I see very little difference between us.
“Drugs are for people who can’t handle reality. Reality is for people who can’t handle drugs. ”
Or, Reality is for people who don’t see a need to alter it.
Truth is stranger than fiction. You just can’t make this stuff up, though Monty Python comes close.
Well, Willis – I missed the WUWT post where you were appointed (by Anthony or by God?) the role of Internet arbiter.
But seriously, my man, show some accountability. You made an accusation (that I “tried” to deceive), and you were wrong. And now you double-down by offering some lame excuse that any one who uses a Wikipedia fact is being “deceptive.” Just give it up, show some responsibility for drawing a conclusion, and move on, my man. It’s OK, Willis – you aren’t a bad person because you made careless mistake – just a person, like all of us, who makes careless mistakes at times. Show a little humility.
I think there are arguments to be made for various criteria to be used in various circumstances for directed social services. In a perfect world, Willis, social services paid for by tax dollars would be carefully screened case-by-case on a basis of need. In the real world, Oprah doesn’t go to a drop in clinic funded by tax dollars to provide healthcare to a African American community so she could to get medicine to treat a chronic illness. Oprah’s children (if she has any) wouldn’t go to a school funded by agencies that build schools and pay teachers to service African American communities. In the real world, your Oprah example fails at the most basic of levels, Willis.
As imperfect as it is, tax money directed at Native American communities ends up supporting services that address the many problems that are endemic to the Native American community – such as alcoholism, or the many ramifications of a community that has experienced long-standing, multi-generational poverty.
Denying funding for social services for the Native American community – because in your perfect world criteria other than race or ethnicity should be used to determine where services would be delivered – will result in a real world denial of services for many people in need. Although there is a reality of inefficiencies and corruption in the practice of using race and/or ethnicity as a criterion for directing social services, there is also a real world efficiency in such a process that results in people who are in need getting the help they need..
When I focus on misdirected tax revenue, there are a lot of places in need of vetting that are much higher on my list, like billions spend on weapons for which there is no valid use, like trillions spend on wars based on ill-founded rationale, like corporate welfare directed towards entities that bring litter return on investment to the tax payer – and for Smokey’s benefit – like subsidization of industries based on bogus rationale.
Your example of Oprah rings similar to demagoging about “welfare queens” as a justification for cutting back on social services. If that’s the way you want to roll, have at it.If you think that revenues directed towards the Native American community in any way matches the negative returns of revenues directed at the targets I just mentioned (among many other targets that would go higher on my list), have at it, my man.
I just don’t roll that way.
Joshua is sounding more and more like one of those ivory tower know-it-alls who don’t have a job in the real world. He says: “When I focus on misdirected tax revenue, there are a lot of places in need of vetting that are much higher on my list, like billions spend (sic) on weapons for which there is no valid use…”
Deterrence is a valid use. And those of us who live in the real world know that there is no expenditure that benefits everyone more equally than defense spending. Shoveling tax money to special interest groups only benefits the recipients, and keeps them dependent on their government crutch. While I agree that corporate welfare is bad and should be eliminated, it does not have nearly the detrimental human effect of welfare. Unearned money has an extremely corrosive effect on the individual recipients.
Finally, no one is really poor in America, unless personal choice is involved. Drug use, gambling, alcohol, etc., can cost an individual everything. For the rest, “poor” means having a cell phone, refrigerator, color TV, A/C, car, etc. I don’t buy the excuses used to rationalize taxing me more in order to provide a government job to bureaucrats handing out the money to people who already have sufficient food, clothing and shelter. And from the sound of roller boy, I would bet a month’s pay that he’s either a government drone or an ivory tower parasite. They’re always the ones telling working folks to pony up more taxes for their next great idea.
Willis Eschenbach says (August 9, 2011 at 1:00 am): “I found out when one of my friends from the res refused to take a $20 bill and insisted on getting two $10 bills in change instead.”
Ah. And now I’m off on another tangent, wondering how popular the $5 bill is in Dixie. 🙂
So which ex-president is going to be on the US’s coming-soon $trillion bill? I have a suggestion…
I wonder if as a Welsh speaking Celt I’m really only an Indo-European immigrant who displaced the Bronze age peoples who were here before the iron age Celts? Maybe, but it would be a brave man to shout about Celts being immigrants in a Cardiff or Dublin bar eh!
From the “science is settled” department:
Dear NWF,
Who should cry and seek restitution for the megafuana?
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=comet-doubts
Joshua says (August 9, 2011 at 9:12 am): [snip]
Am I the only one who finds this argument between Joshua and Willis incredibly amusing? The really funny part, of course, is that their political views are–from my Satan-worshipping rabid right wing Exxon-loving Gaia-hating slave-owning etc. perspective–practically indistinguishable. Both want more tax money (especially from “the wealthy”) spent on “good” causes, the only apparent difference being that Willis wants it sent to “deserving” individuals, while Joshua is content to favor “deserving” groups. They might as well argue over which end of the egg to open.
Here’s the kicker: both want to send more money to “government”, yet neither is happy with the ways their tax money is spent, especially Joshua. Anyone else see the fundamental contradiction here? However we rant and rail or passionately promise to change “the system” or whoever is nominally in charge of it, the inescapable reality is that when we give our money to politicians, some of it is going to be spent according to other people’s priorities. Come on, folks, this is not rocket science.
May I offer a teeny weeny suggestion to both Willis and Joshua? If you want more of your money spent according to your priorities, why not send less of it to Washington (or Sacramento, or whatever) and spend more of it yourselves on your favorite ends of the egg? Of course if you insist on spending more of my money on your stuff, you’d better get used to seeing more of your hard-earned cash spent on my stuff. (Gosh, I sure could use a spiffy new aircraft carrier…)
Bummer, eh? 🙂
Joshua says:
August 9, 2011 at 9:12 am
……..As imperfect as it is, tax money directed at Native American communities ends up supporting services that address the many problems that are endemic to the Native American community – such as alcoholism, or the many ramifications of a community that has experienced long-standing, multi-generational poverty.
Denying funding for social services for the Native American community – because in your perfect world criteria other than race or ethnicity should be used to determine where services would be delivered – will result in a real world denial of services for many people in need…….
==========================================================
Joshua, there’s so much to say about your entire comment, but these are the most glaring……
The first paragraph of yours that I posted is correct. The only problem with the statement is that you failed to inform the reader that we’ve done so for generations. To believe we are actually providing help for such people is a bit of a stretch. There is a reason for alcoholism and long-standing, multi-generational poverty. And, I suspect that much of our alleged largess is part of the cause. I believe it would be beneficial, at the very least, to acknowledge that our efforts have failed many people for many years and it is past time to change the direction we’re heading. I don’t pretend to know all of the right answers, but I do know some of the wrong ones.
In your second paragraph you state that if we go on a case by case basis for discerning who should be beneficiaries and who should not be, you state we would end up denying services for people that need them. How so? And, wouldn’t more funds be available for the people in real need if the people not in need were weeded out? Of course, if cases were examined on a case by case basis, more, not less would receive the help they needed. And, more funds would be available for the ones in true need if the ones that weren’t in need were excluded from the largess. It’s silly to think otherwise.
Willis:
Amazing how so many people “add” things to what they read. You should definitely publish your post and the comments in some forum that investigates the ability (and lack thereof) of humans to COMPREHEND what they read.
Anyway, FWIW, I am doing my share in supporting the Early Immigrants by supporting the local casino.
and on the note of the government taxing more….so the government can spend more
Science Foundation Backs Climate-Change Play
The National Science Foundation has awarded a $700,000 grant to the Civilians, a New York theater company, to finance the production of a show about climate change. “The Great
Immensity,” with a book by Steven Cosson (“This Beautiful City”) and music and lyrics by Michael Friedman (“Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson”), tells the story of Polly, a photojournalist who disappears while working in the rain forests of Panama. The grant is a rare gift to an arts organization from the foundation, a federal agency that pays for science, engineering and mathematics research and education. The company says it plans to spend the money on the development and evaluation of the show, as well as on a tour and educational programs, including post-show panel discussions with experts in related scientific fields. No performance dates have been announced.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/04/theater/04arts-SCIENCEFOUND_BRF.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1312912809-b/BgnJB6h6uSsFncDf3aOA
Willis, come on, supporting Obama makes you somehow left-wing? I’m not going to identify any specific thing you said to justify my remarks. I’m talking about the tone of your remarks. You are attacking an entire people as being freeloaders (the giveaway is the use of the word ‘they’ repeatedly). You’re racist.
East Texas Red says:
August 9, 2011 at 3:10 pm
Willis, come on, supporting Obama makes you somehow left-wing? I’m not going to identify any specific thing you said to justify my remarks. I’m talking about the tone of your remarks. You are attacking an entire people as being freeloaders (the giveaway is the use of the word ‘they’ repeatedly). You’re racist.
=============================================================
Ridiculous assertion. East, you’re an idiot. Because Willis doesn’t prance around words in order to appease people that would repeal the first amendment doesn’t make him or anyone else a racist. You object to the word “they”? Is the English language that hard for you? How would you have had Willis refer to the people who signed onto this bit of inanity? And you really believe you can discern a tone from the typed word. You’re not going to identify any specific thing, because you can’t’. He didn’t attack an entire people as being freeloaders, just the ones that signed on to this obvious begging for money. East, you are just a small person intolerant of people with other thoughts. Now, I ask you. Do you think it is a good idea for those people to be compensated for the imaginary climate change by people such as Willis? Why is it unfathomable to you that people may be a bit irked at the thought? You know, I love free speech, it is necessary for this nation or any nation born of such lofty ideas to endure. But sometimes, and you serve as a fine example, it serves only to give our most base individuals a voice. I can’t believe this nation bore people such as you.
@bushbunny,
Evidently you aren’t aware that not all native American groups should be credited with arrival shortly after the ice age. There were a few different waves. The Aleuts, Navajo and Apache belong to the same language group and were the most recent to obtain significant penetration. The Navajo and Apache were migrating down opposite sides of the Rocky mountains and upon arriving in the US southwest, part of their life style was raiding pueblo and hopi tribes for their harvests. The Europeans didn’t dominate the native Americans just with guns and diseases, but with the help of other native Americans which did not have to be turned against each other, there we already hostile relations. It is racist to suggest that their interests lay more with other native Americans than with their new European allies.
I don’t know if there is a similarly rich diversity among Austrailian aborigines, but if there is I’d be curious to know more. The first Americans may have been more closely related to the Austrailian aborigines than the current native Americans. There are anecdotal reports of an aboriginal type remnant on the Baja surviving barely until European arrival. The inexorable loss of information to the laws of thermodynamics means some things about the past may never be known. The point is, if you are hoping to gain some advantage from spreading multi-generational guilt among the innocent, then no modern humans are innocent.
Even with president Obama, it wouldn’t be a surprise to find out that there were more recent slave owners and traders among his Kenyan ancestry that among his European. Most of American society these days, outside of black liberation theology church’s like Obamas are colorblind. The reason “social justice” has to be qualified, is because it isn’t justice.
I’ve always found this interesting….
….not many people are aware that American Indians also owned slaves
American Indians as Slave Owners
By 1860, the Cherokees had 4,600 slaves; the Choctaws, 2,344; the Creeks, 1,532; the Chickasaws, 975; and the Seminoles, 500. Some Indian slave owners were as harsh and cruel as any white slave master. Indians were often hired to catch runaway slaves; in fact, slave-catching was a lucrative way of life for some Indians, especially the Chickasaws.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/655380/posts
Willis, I agree with you. Great article.
One point that is not generally recognized. Among the tribes in North America, there are some that are just as much immigrants as the Europeans. The Athabaskan speaking Navajos and Apaches just beat the Spanish into the American Southwest by a couple of hundred years, yet are treated the same as if they have always been there. People move around. Get over it.
Joshua says:
August 9, 2011 at 9:12 am
OK, I agree with you, Joshua. It’s not deceptive at all to use “facts” that you know may not be facts at all, without making even the slightest attempt to check them. Clearly, in your world that is ethical action of the highest order. My bad.
Come back when you quote my words about Oprah, so people can be reminded of how you haven’t understood what I actually said.
Seems like you missed my point. I have absolutely no problem with tax dollars going to Native Americans. I do not, however, think that we should change the treaties and the laws surrounding them so that they can get more tax dollars. And I particularly don’t think that we should do so based on imaginary problems.
I say that changing the treaties and the laws surrounding them so that Native Americans can belly up to the government trough like the rest of us citizens only makes sense if they are to be treated in all respects like the rest of us citizens. I say that the Native Americans are playing with fire when they want to change the treaties and the laws … because if the treaties and the laws can be changed to favor the Native Americans, then they can also be changed to their grave detriment. I would very much like not to open that door, as the treaties are fragile enough as it is.
Sure, that makes sense. Go out and vet those. You vet your issues, I’ll vet mine, and we might get something done. Oh, you think I should vet your issues? Funny, I don’t think you should vet my issues, I think you should vet whatever issues you want to vet. Crazy, I know, but there it is.
You’re the one bringing up “welfare queens”, you’re the first one in this thread to use the term. You totally misunderstood my point about Oprah, and that would be clear if you QUOTED MY WORDS. Of course, if you quoted my words then people would see you are blowing smoke in their eyes, so I can understand why, despite numerous requests, you’d rather deal with your own fantasies than with what I actually said.
I see your point. You think that cleaning up big messes is really important, and cleaning up smaller messes is totally unimportant.
I just don’t roll that way. I work on things, not based on how big they are, but based on whether I think I can make a difference. Yes, at times this means that my efforts are directed at smaller things. But much more importantly, it greatly ups my odds of success, because I pick topics where I think I can make a difference.
So if you want to clean up big messes, go for it, Joshua … but don’t pretend that your choice of where to focus your efforts is what everyone should focus on, that’s just your ego at work. Each of us has to pick where to put our own efforts, it is intrusive to assert that we should just accept your estimate of what is worth working on as being valid for everyone else.
w.
Gary Hladik says:
August 9, 2011 at 11:39 am
I have asked before. I’ll ask again. QUOTE MY WORDS, FOOL! I never said I want to send more money to government, that’s your bizarre fantasy, so your entire post is nonsense. You find the discussion “amusing” because you totally misunderstand it …
w.
East Texas Red says:
August 9, 2011 at 3:10 pm
And you are nasty. You are unwilling to quote what I actually said, and instead you continue to spew your vitriol. QUOTE WHAT I SAID or go home, Red, your brand of ugliness, unsupported by cites, facts, or quotations, is unpleasant and unwanted. You fantasize I’m talking about “freeloaders” because I say “they” … yeah, that makes sense. Everyone who says something like “If people want to make a difference, they should vote” is talking about freeloaders, the word “they is a dead giveaway.
Do you realize how foolish you sound when you make that kind of claim, and then refuse to provide a single scrap of evidence for your bizarre fantasies?
w.
People have misunderstood my use of “Early Asian Immigrants” as being a term I use for something other than making a point about how “Native” Americans are nothing of the sort.
What do I call Native Americans in real life? Simple — I call them whatever they call themselves. The guys off the res who had a band that I played in during the sixties called themselves “Indians”, as did the older guys on the Apache res I lived next to for a while in the seventies. Other younger guys wanted to be called “Native Americans”, a term I find deceptive … but if they want to be called that, that’s what I call them. It’s only polite.
Here’s an example. I was in Paxton, Alaska earlier today. I asked a lovely young and obviously local woman where she was from. “I’m a concrete Indian”, she said, “I grew up in Fairbanks”.
Fair enough. Lots of the tribes no longer use the term “Indian”, and I’ve had guys go out of their way to inform me aggressively that “Indian” is an offensive word that should never be used to refer to them … but if that’s what she calls herself, who am I to complain?
Which is why I hate political correctness. Each term is supplanted by another, which is supposedly better and more politically correct, when all it is is another word for the same thing. I call people what they want to be called, and although people assure me is not PC to call them “Indians”, no one has informed the woman I talked to today.
w.
[I’ve added this to the head post to avoid misunderstanding.]
It is absolutely amazing how many morons and idiots here are posting without even reading what Willis wrote.To the idiots who post without reading and quoting what is said, go get a life and learn to read . Don’t parade your ignorance and lack of literacy.
Willis Eschenbach says (August 9, 2011 at 8:08 pm): “I have asked before. I’ll ask again. QUOTE MY WORDS, FOOL! I never said I want to send more money to government, that’s your bizarre fantasy, so your entire post is nonsense.”
Oops, sorry, forgot the rules. My bad.
I was thinking specifically of this response to sHx, August 8, 2011 at 8:20 pm: “PS – I hate to spoil another of your fantasies, but I’m as far from the “taxed-enough” crowd as a man can get. I think that US taxes should be raised across the board, and particularly on the wealthy…” [italic in the original]
So I’m genuinely curious as to which part of of the above I’ve misunderstood. Last I checked, “taxes” go to “government”, right?
Help me out here, Willis.
point goes to you, gary.
and you didn’t use any snarl words like ‘fool’ or suggest psychopathology (bizarre fantasy) or irrationality (nonsense). let’s see what kind of cartwheel he does next while spitting venom at you and waving his ad populum.
a troll is someone who makes deliberately provocative statements in order to bring about ‘drama’ for the lulz.
this is a troll thread by design and willis is getting off on it so much he’s oblivious and must not imagine anybody might notice him trying to pass off vituperation as wit. he’s trippin.
if he wants to make this blog as popular as joe romm’s, it’s a brilliant strategy.
Multi-generational poverty existed all over the globe prior to government provided social services. Why alcoholism is so high among Native Americans is an interesting question – a question for which I have yet to see a definitive answer.
This is a classic left/right issue. My belief is that as imperfect as welfare services are (certainly as they currently exist in this country), in the end, they are justified. Our efforts have not ended poverty, but from the long-term and comprehensive analyses I’ve seen, initiatives such as the Great Society have brought, in balance, positive returns on the dollars spent. Look at poverty rates when the Great Society began and compare them to poverty rates after the Great Society progressed. Look at poverty rates among the elderly before The New Deal and compare them to poverty rates among the elderly now. Calculate how many people those rates represent over decades. Considere numbers of people who trained in invaluable job skills, and the amount of food distributed, at the amount of vital infrastructure built through programs like the WPA. I don’t pretend to know all the right answers either, but I do know some of the wrong ones, and one of the wrong ones is a facile and categorical determination that social services make problems like poverty and alcoholism worse.
Yes – it would be better to weed people out, to evaluate the provision of services on a case-by-case basis. My points are that: (1) I doubt the logistical viability of providing services purely on a case-by-case basis, (2) in counter-balance to the inefficiencies or redundancies or misappropriation of services resulting from an approach that targets groups are the efficiencies that would result from targeting groups – such as building services that target alcoholism in Native American communities, and (3) if you simply deny funding to social services because of inefficiencies as compared to idealized administration of revenues you will simply reduce the number of people who receive services and wind up catching people who legitimately benefit from services in your net. To me, the inevitable inefficiencies that occur in how social services are currently provided are an unfortunate but worthwhile cost of providing services to those who are in need. This is especially true when you compare the costs involved to those associated with the kinds of mis-allocated tax revenues that are provided on another scale entirely to programs as I mentioned above (arms manufacturers, ill-founded military initiatives, etc.). The perfect can be the enemy of the good. There is no such thing as a perfectly administrated system when you’re dealing with so many people and such a complex problem. By all means, advocate for improved efficiencies – but to focus on kvetching about tax revenues going to a population as devastated by poverty as the Native American community makes little sense to me.
Perhaps Ancient American, Original American or something equivalent would have been a better designation as anyone born on this continent is technically a native American.
We sometimes use the word ‘native’ to designate those Stone Age, hunter-gatherer peoples that Indo-European language speaking farmers have been displacing for the past 7,000 years. This has continued to the point where now about half the people on Earth speak languages that were derived that of a single inland people thought to have originated near northern Iran.
Willis said:
What do I call Native Americans in real life? Simple — I call them whatever they call themselves
Gareth says:
Excellent point. Could you let us know which first nation groups/bands/nations call themselves early asian immigrants?
@ Joshua says: August 10, 2011 at 6:52 am “Look at poverty rates when the Great Society began and compare them to poverty rates after the Great Society progressed. Look at poverty rates among the elderly before The New Deal and compare them to poverty rates among the elderly now.”
And I suppose you’d say the ongoing in industrial and technological revolutions had nothing to do with increasing people’s personal wealth? Since the Great Society plan, how much has our currency been inflated? How much wealth has been lost because of government intervention and meddling?
gnomish says (August 10, 2011 at 6:29 am): “point goes to you, gary. [snip]”
Thanks, gnomish, but I think you’re being a bit harsh on Willis. The theme of his article is a certain political application (one of many) of climate “science”, the kind of topic commonly covered on this blog. As happens occasionally (hah!), peripheral points have come up in the discussion. I thank Anthony for leaving the thread open, as I’ve found the comments both educational and entertaining. Overheated rhetoric is just that, a curious “feature” of this Gore-ius forum we call the Internet.
“this is a troll thread”
Hang on. Let me (mmphh!) slip into (gasp! it’s sooo tight!) my leather speedo…Wait…OK. Ahem…
No. THIS! IS! WUWT!!!! 🙂
Gareth Phillips says:
August 10, 2011 at 8:11 am (Edit)
Willis said:
What do I call Native Americans in real life? Simple — I call them whatever they call themselves
Gareth says:
Excellent point. Could you let us know which first nation groups/bands/nations call themselves early asian immigrants?
Willis says … none, as far as I know. Not sure what you’re getting at. As I clearly stated, I referred to them in that way to make a point, that they are not native to the Americas any more than I am. When I meet them I call them by whatever name they choose.
However, calling oneself the “First Nation” doesn’t make you the first nation, any more than calling oneself “Native” makes you native to wherever you are. Tobacco is native to the Americas. Humans are not.
w.
Gary Hladik says:
August 10, 2011 at 12:57 am (Edit)
My bad, you are 100% correct. I had thought I’d been able to keep this discussion separate from that issue, but I forgot that post. Which is why I’ve said again and again to quote my words, it avoids miscommunication on both sides.
To make my position more clear, I am generally against increasing taxation. But we’re in a bind, because at present we’re borrowing about 40% of our annual budget. Republicans want to cut spending. Democrats want to increase taxes.
And although I don’t like to say it, I see no way out of this bind other than to do both, increase taxes and decrease spending. I’d love to do it purely by decreasing spending, but I see absolutely no way to do that.
Thanks for pointing out my error, and for the example of why quoting the words you are referring to is so important.
w.
Willis Eschenbach says:
August 10, 2011 at 12:16 pm
Gareth Phillips says:
August 10, 2011 at 8:11 am (Edit)
Willis said:
What do I call Native Americans in real life? Simple — I call them whatever they call themselves
Gareth says:
Excellent point. Could you let us know which first nation groups/bands/nations call themselves early asian immigrants?
Willis says … none, as far as I know. Not sure what you’re getting at. As I clearly stated, I referred to them in that way to make a point, that they are not native to the Americas any more than I am. When I meet them I call them by whatever name they choose.
However, calling oneself the “First Nation” doesn’t make you the first nation, any more than calling oneself “Native” makes you native to wherever you are. Tobacco is native to the Americas. Humans are not.
Garethman responds:
So by your reckoning Willias, Chinese people are not native to China, Australian aborigines are are not native to Australia and Black people are not native to South Africa ( Humans did not evolve in that area). Can you see the absurdity of your stance? I suppose horses are also not native to the Americas after having “emigrated” to Siberia a few thousand years ago leaving no descendants in that continent.
By the way, as I mentioned before ( possibly you missed it), first nations are called that because they were the first nations to move into the Americas. The clue is in the title. You may know of predecessors who may deserve that honour, but no-one else does at this time. Good to hear you have the common sense not to use your rule of “I call them what they call themselves” to start insulting first nations by calling them immigrants in face to face discussion. I suspect your argument in such cases is overtaken with a healthy sense of self preservation whereby you understand that no first nations refer to themselves in such an insulting way and your terminology is a product of your own bias.
Stick to climate science and you make a lot of sense, wander into commenting on other races and cultures and you start to sound like a very dodgy geezer with some very dodgy views.
Spector says:
August 10, 2011 at 8:01 am
Perhaps Ancient American, Original American or something equivalent would have been a better designation as anyone born on this continent is technically a native American.
I can see your point, but when these chaps arrived here there was no America, there was just this big empty continent, so they are not ancient Americans ( makes them sound old) or original Americans. They just happen to be in that continent first, so first nations seems to be a pretty good description. My own language is one of those ancient Indo European languages that has not changed much for thousands of years, but my wife would probably take issue with being called an ancient Indo-european!
Joshua says (August 10, 2011 at 6:52 am): “Look at poverty rates when the Great Society began and compare them to poverty rates after the Great Society progressed.”
In his book Free to Choose, the late Nobel Laureate Milton Friedman commented on the myriad US “anti-poverty” programs, “If these funds were all going to the ‘poor’, there would be no poor left…” Much of the funding is of course sucked up by the elaborate self-perpetuating bureaucracies administering the overlapping programs. As an alternative, Dr. Friedman proposed a “negative income tax” a single program to replace all the others and get the funds directly to those in need.
http://www.amazon.com/Free-Choose-Statement-Milton-Friedman/dp/0156334607/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1313005044&sr=1-1#_
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/23/business/23scene.html
Willis Eschenbach says (August 10, 2011 at 12:21 pm): “To make my position more clear, I am generally against increasing taxation. But we’re in a bind, because at present we’re borrowing about 40% of our annual budget. Republicans want to cut spending. Democrats want to increase taxes.”
Ah, that explains it. I actually wondered if Willis might be referring to deficit reduction, but noticed that the terms “deficit” and “spending reduction” were conspicuously (and I assumed deliberately) omitted. And the bit about voting Democratic and supporting Obama didn’t help. (Yes, yes, I KNOW, gimme a second…My wife could take nagging lessons from Willis…Here we go:)
Willis Eschenbach says (August 8, 2011 at 4:30 pm): “I find no vitriol in my post, and I supported Obama, so if you are in bed with right-wing hate-mongers it’s not here, and it’s your business.”
Willis Eschenbach says (August 9, 2011 at 12:46 am): “Since I am someone who supported Obama and has never voted Republican, that’s a bizarre and other-worldly accusation.”
Willis Eschenbach says (August 8, 2011 at 8:20 pm): “sHx, I have never voted Republican in my life, always Democrat, so your ‘further to the right’ is just your attempt to shoehorn me into a box.”
I doubt that anyone on this forum would accuse Democrats as a group of wanting less money sent to government, and Obama, even as a candidate, was certainly in favor of government expansion.
Anyway, misunderstanding resolved. My comment poking fun at both Willis and Joshua (August 9, 2011 at 11:39 am) was only half right, so I withdraw the part about Willis.
No, I wouldn’t say that. I wouldn’t be foolish enough to think that anyone can isolate the cause and effect of singular variables in such a complex situation. Which is what people do when they state categorically that social programs like The Great Society are counterproductive.
But what is unarguable is that great progress was made in poverty rates concurrent with the Great Society, great progress was made in poverty rates among elderly concurrent with the advent of Social Security and Medicaid. Our country reached global economic preeminence concurrent with the New Deal.
Joshua says:
“…great progress was made in poverty rates concurrent with the Great Society, great progress was made in poverty rates among elderly concurrent with the advent of Social Security and Medicaid. Our country reached global economic preeminence concurrent with the New Deal.”
Those are all most likely false correlations. A better argument can be made that economic progress was made despite those wasteful programs, not because of them. And despite the trillions of [2011] dollars spent ‘fighting poverty’, the poverty line is about where it was during the implementation of President Johnson’s “Great Society” programs.
In other words, all that money taxed away from the private sector was essentially wasted, making the country that much poorer, while not helping “the poor” in the long run. At this point, that money just buys votes.
I’ll give Joshua a pass on his economic illiteracy, since he’s surely no graduate of the hard sciences. Positing a false correlation is a rhetorical tactic, like showing a strong correlation between the rise in temperature and U.S. postal rates. That is a false correlation, and so are Joshua’s examples.
Smokey says:
August 10, 2011 at 3:25 pm
Joshua says:
“…great progress was made in poverty rates concurrent with the Great Society, great progress was made in poverty rates among elderly concurrent with the advent of Social Security and Medicaid. Our country reached global economic preeminence concurrent with the New Deal.”
Those are all most likely false correlations. A better argument can be made that economic progress was made despite those wasteful programs, not because of them. And despite the trillions of [2011] dollars spent ‘fighting poverty’, the poverty line is about where it was during the implementation of President Johnson’s “Great Society” programs.
=============================================================
Damn, on another site talking to a pinhead about rioters………… Count on Smokey to beat me to the punch! I would add though, that while we did manage to throw a lot of money away, in the name of helping the poor, we also managed to bankrupt our nation. Soon, if things don’t change, we will lose the ability to help any poor, much less selected ones. And Josh, you are correct, it is a classic left/right discussion. Sadly, it is going beyond the abstract. All of us agree that the least of our society should not be left behind. I think it is incumbent upon us to ensure we maintain the ability to assist the needful. The people in want(not need) should have to fend for themselves.
Towards your ensuing response, allow me to be a bit preemptive. Wars…… I agree, we are in too many places much too often. I am an advocate of maintaining a strong defense, but I don’t have a clue as to why instead of reducing our presence in foreign lands we have increased them. I find this deplorable. We started Iraq, we need to finish the transition and call it. See it through. We went to Afghanistan to get UBL, we got him, we’re done! Let’s go home. Libya? Yemen? And now it seems we’re looking at Syria? I’ve much trepidation about all of this. It can’t possibly work to our benefit. It’s playing with fire unnecessarily.
Fire and government…..nothing is left to say but to quote Washington…..” Government is not reason, it is not eloquence — it is force! Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master. Never for a moment should it be left to irresponsible action.”
James
What is a “false correlation,” Smokey?
They are correlated. Proving causation would be difficult, but the fact is that the progress I described ran concurrent with the programs I described.
That’s a good one. If a better argument could be made, why didn’t you make it, instead of just informing us that one “could be made.?”
Really?
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_otfwl2zc6Qc/TJgxEwPv7RI/AAAAAAAAObs/AU8XbvZCSdo/s1600/poverty.jpg
Compare the % of people in poverty, comparatively, in the different years. Multiply that % difference times the US population in each intervening year, and them your results for each year together how many fewer people were in poverty in total (for one year) during that period of time.
Perhaps the hundreds of millions of fewer people living in poverty over those 45 years or so is not significant to you. Causality is hard to prove – but the fact of hundreds of millions fewer people living in poverty is of significance to me. That you’d so easily dismiss hundreds of millions fewer Americans living in poverty says a lot about you, Smokey.
Quite a lot.
Uhmm ……….Josh, that’s the silliest argument I’ve heard in some time. We’re paying more now than ever to combat poverty and we can’t get 3% lower than what we were in 1967? Worse, we can’t maintain it! And you believe we couldn’t do better than that? Josh, we could do better than that by daily filling up a truck full of money and shoveling it out as we drove down the road.
More, now that we’ve discussed correlation, have you correlated the periods of decrease in poverty with any national economic indicators? Your graph reinforces the posit Smokey made. Poverty goes down with economic growth, poverty goes up with economic recession………. govt spending? Poverty continues at the same rate, +/- 3% in spite of continuous increased spending. Conclusion? Poverty is best combated by encouraging economic activity and growth and isn’t dependent upon the largess of the government with other peoples money. The point of diminishing returns was likely exceeded in 1973. Thanks for the graph……..
James Sexton,
You are right, we’re in way too many wars. Our first President warned us about foreign entanglements, but the anti-war movement is nowhere to be found. Where’s Code Pink? Where are the campus demonstrations? Obama is heavily bombing Libya every day using NATO. Where in NATO’s remit does it say regime change is its mission?
…*crickets*…
As Josh makes clear, war and everything else is made into a Left/Right issue these days, mostly by the Left. And by “Right” I don’t mean as in Nazi Germany, which wasn’t right wing at all. It was as Leftist as Josh. The true right wing believes in the original Constitution and Bill of Rights [and some subsequent amendments, on a case by case basis]. The Left’s bloated government has brought us the current economic disaster. Their proposed solution? More deficit spending! QE-3, comin’ up.
Today’s pampered academics and overpaid government drones are no different than Stalin’s or Hitler’s leftists. They want ever bigger goverrnment. Actually, they crave dictatorship. The facts speak for themselves. And they cry the same crocodile tears over the “poor.” It’s simply a rhetorical tactic to make taxpayers feel guilty, and it says plenty about their lack of ethics. Truth be told, they don’t give a damn about the poor. Libs are notorious for their personal stinginess when it comes to charity.
Speaking of leftist agendas, I said I’d bet a month’s pay that Joshua is either a government drone or an academic. Offer’s still open. I’ve got these folks pegged.
Since my great great grandma was Paiute does this mean I can gamble with less taxation? Maybe a dna test is in order to figure out my take?
Damn, I almost forgot…… currently, we’ve about 300 million in this nation…..every man, woman, and child. Given the graph, 15% is more than the people in poverty(we all knew this, but graph illustrate it to the people that don’t get numbers)………or the people in poverty is less than 45 million. That’s a lot of people! If we were to give each one $40,000 …..every man, woman, and child…. that would come to…… figuring…….gusintas…..ciphering….calculating……bleep!! burp!!….thinking……… got it!!!! $1,800,000,000,000 For those of us that don’t like to deal in zeroes, that’s 1.8 trillion dollars. That is 1/4’s less than what we just unnecessarily raised our debt limit to. Given that we’re already paying over a $trillion/yr to combat poverty, we could give every man woman and child about $70,000 ….. or for a family of 4, they could receive almost $300,000 dollars. We could, if we chose, effectively end poverty in one fell swoop! And we could have done it for over the last 30 years any time we desired.
Josh, it never was about combating poverty. It was always about keeping people poor and the realization that there will always be the poor with us because some are incorrigibly poor. Why not buy them to do our bidding? Because the feds beat us to it. Heck! They encourage poverty!
Smokey says:
August 10, 2011 at 8:02 pm
Speaking of leftist agendas, I said I’d bet a month’s pay that Joshua is either a government drone or an academic. Offer’s still open. I’ve got these folks pegged.
=============================================================
I was kinda hoping he was just young and idealistic. Its getting to the point to where it bothers me that more and more are so far out there, that there’s no coming back for them……. I wonder what part of “it isn’t sustainable” that they don’t get?
Willis, please accept my apologies for getting the spelling wrong on your name. It’s a combination of typo and a lack of familiarity with non-english names.
However here is a selection of the terms you have used against others posters perfectly reasonable posts
.“I am quite tired of people like you” ( addressed to a Native Indian)
“You seem rabidly upset”
“Puerile”
There are many others, but you get the picture.
You insult and attack in a particularly nasty way many posters who have made perfectly reasonable comments, while pushing your own racist agenda to devalue the special role of an ancient American people ,and then you whine and complain because of a typo in your name.
I must confess your hypocrisy is truly breathtaking.
You’ll note, I have the insight to apologise, I know when I have committed an error. Do you also have that understanding? I do hope so. To be honest in my view you have probably done more damage to the reputation of this site than all the other warmist sites combined.
Pleased with yourself?
Jeff Alberts says:
August 9, 2011 at 7:59 am
springer: “Drugs are for people who can’t handle reality. Reality is for people who can’t handle drugs. ”
alberts: Or, Reality is for people who don’t see a need to alter it.
Or drugs are for people who don’t fear altered states of perception.
So may I presume you’ve never taken an aspirin to dull the reality of a headache? If you have then you’ve seen a need to alter your perceptions and used a drug to alter it.
I reminded of the old saw about the guy who asked a woman if she’d sleep with him for a million dollars and she said yes. Then he asks if she’d sleep with him for ten dollars and she replies, certainly not, I’m not a prostitute. Then he says, we’ve already established what you are, we are just negotiating the price.
I put to you, Mr. Albert, that you are already use drugs to alter your perceptions and we are merely arguing about the type and circumstance where it’s acceptable to use them. A lot of people get headaches from interacting with uptight authoritarian self-righteous asshats and instead of taking an aspirin they smoke a joint or pour a glass of wine. I don’t really care which they choose even though I recognize that aspirin and especially alcohol are far more dangerous when abused.
James Sexton says:
August 10, 2011 at 9:30 pm
“or the people in poverty is less than 45 million. That’s a lot of people! If we were to give each one $40,000”
Please let me know before the checks go out in the mail. I’ll be wanting to adjust my investment portfolio to increase my holdings in companies that make cigarettes and mobile homes.
James Sexton says:
August 10, 2011 at 8:02 pm
“Uhmm ……….Josh, that’s the silliest argument I’ve heard in some time. We’re paying more now than ever to combat poverty and we can’t get 3% lower than what we were in 1967?”
“Poverty” isn’t the same. I know a woman who manages a surgical practice. Many of their patients are on Medicaid. She remarked to me the other day about how many of them drive up in late model luxury SUVs and wonders how they can afford them and still qualify for Medicaid.
The number in poverty hasn’t changed but what defines the conditions of poverty surely has.
Smokey – what took you so long to go Godwin?
James –
Multiply that 3% each year (for many of those years, of course, it was a much greater %), and you get hundreds of millions fewer people living in poverty for an extended period of time. That may seem insignificant to you – but I consider it quite significant.
In general, of course it does. I would never doubt that for one second. No doubt, there are a myriad of relevant causal variables. One might suppose, for example, that greater tax revenue during times of economic prosperity mean more money available for combating poverty (thus “causing” less poverty). But on a larger scale, the graph shows a dramatic drop in poverty rates concurrent with the largest expansion in social service spending in the history of the planet.
Compare the other chart to this chart of economic growth:
http://www.tradingeconomics.com/economics/ChartImg.axd?i=chart_a5b271658d8b40f998bb20e3f42702e9_43.png&g=1ee1e588a74c4a6798e65d62b1b6a439
When you can provide some actual evidence of a causal link between social service spending and an increase in poverty, as has been asserted numerous times on this thread, please do provide it. Without such evidence, all you have is a supposition of an inverse causal relationship that stands in direct opposite to easily observed correlations. The point is how much poverty rates would be different on top of the variations that take place in step with the state of the economy. Looking at the chart we can see that prior to a massive growth in safety net programs, poverty rates were much higher.
??? Can you explain this comment? The syntax has me confused.
A diminished rate of return does not mean a negative rate of return. Further, to assess the rate of return you need to do more calculation to match spending on poverty alleviation against inflation, population growth, etc. You’d also need to control for the amount that the poverty rate would have, arguably, been higher absent poverty prevention programs, as well as for the deeper level of hardship that would have, arguably, occurred absent poverty alleviation programs.
Arguably, if we hadn’t been spending the amount we currently spend on combating poverty, the number of people in poverty would be considerably higher – so you need to figure that into your calculations. You can’t simply divide the amount that we’re currently spending by the number currently living in poverty as an accurate critique of the amount that has been spent over previous decades. Further, those who are living in poverty would arguably be dying of hunger and disease at a much greater rate – which also needs to be figured into your calculations. In looking at the poverty rates, we are looking at just one of the relevant metrics. We would also need to look at the (arguably) greater debt we would incur (as a product of greater poverty and greater suffering among the poor) as a society that has determined that, for example, we won’t turn poor people away who turn up at a hospital in need of medical care.
Thanks for explaining, James. I always thought that the people I know that are engaged in providing services to the poor were intending to alleviate suffering due to poverty. Thanks to your post, I now realize that in reality, their intent was, in contrast, to increase suffering due to poverty.
Sorry – that link doesn’t work.
Plug the dates in yourself, here:
http://www.tradingeconomics.com/united-states/gdp-growth
Dave Springer says:
August 11, 2011 at 8:29 am
James Sexton says:
August 10, 2011 at 8:02 pm
“Uhmm ……….Josh, that’s the silliest argument I’ve heard in some time. We’re paying more now than ever to combat poverty and we can’t get 3% lower than what we were in 1967?”
……..
The number in poverty hasn’t changed but what defines the conditions of poverty surely has.
==================================================================
Agreed, I recall when one color TV in a household was representative of wealth. Today, one could have one in every room all having 4ft screens …. PCs, game consoles, Iphones and pads…. and still be considered below the poverty line. I believe we could alleviate some burden on the working class, by removing some of these from the rolls of our largess thereby ensuring money to be available to the ones in true need, and more money for the working class as to encourage economic growth……. I know….. its a radical thought. For some reason, people have allowed that type of thinking to be vilified and marginalized. Ones who make such a wild assertion are often labeled racist, or worse!——– Identified as a “gasp” TEA party person!! (Say it ain’t so, Joe!!)
It’s interesting how legitimate ideas can be framed to look like they’re bizarre or even evil.
Joshua says:
“Smokey – what took you so long to go Godwin?”
That’s a lame response. I was calling a spade a spade, and that’s all Joshua can think of?
In fact, all of Joshua’s “solutions” result in the conclusion that Big Government is the answer. But those arguments are circular, and assume that the mountains of tax money constantly shoveled to the “poor” [with legions of bureaucrats and other government bureaucrats taking their hefty cut] somehow hasn’t hobbled the productive sector of the economy. It has, enormously. And there is no proof whatever that the huge amount of wealth confiscated from society’s producers has benefitted “the poor” in the long run.
Again, it’s a circular argument, but the answer from the Left is always the same: bigger and bigger government, with more and more bureaucracy. Obviously Joshua likes it, being one of the drones who collects wealth instead of producing it [I’ll admit that I’m wrong if he states that he is neither in government, or part of the tax-supported education industry.]
Joshua is arguing for ever bigger government by crying crocodile tears for “the poor.” But where are those starving multitudes with distended bellies and broomstick arms and legs? Not in America – where over-feeding among “the poor” is endemic. Big government critters like Joshua won’t admit it, but they want to keep as many people on the dole as possible because it serves their purposes. The UK has a permanent underclass, spanning three or more generations on the dole, completely beholden to the government for their meager handouts. Most are able-bodied and could work. But it serves certain interests to keep them unemployed.
The best and most effective pro-growth solution for the economy is significantly less government. Government is a huge drain on productivity. It drains away wealth for little return. Certain government functions such as the military, the courts, law enforcement, and fair, across the board regulation ensuring fair competition and safety are fine. But that can easily be done with less than half the current bureaucracy.
Finally, in America the bottom economic quintile turns over in well under a decade. That means that if someone is “poor” today, it is very likely that they won’t be in the bottom quintile ten years from now. But the bigger the government, the more likely those in the bottom quintile will be kept there because it serves the purposes of some in the upper quintiles to keep a permanent underclass, deprived of opportunity. We can see it happening now, and it benefits the big government drones that benefit from a permanent poor underclass, dependent on Big Government for its meager handouts.
Hmm, I wonder how often you ever gave the Native Americans a thought before this Willis? Before they got themselves a casino and stopped having to be the stereotyped losers the winners has degraded them to..
Surely you don’t really begrudge them this after all they lost?
http://198.104.132.205/~blogmaps/2011/08/09/indian-removal-and-the-trail-of-tears/
Same old, same old:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4p2959.html
“Although the five Indian nations had made earlier attempts at resistance, many of their strategies were non-violent. One method was to adopt Anglo-American practices such as large-scale farming, Western education, and slave-holding. This earned the nations the designation of the “Five Civilized Tribes.” They adopted this policy of assimilation in an attempt to coexist with settlers and ward off hostility. But it only made whites jealous and resentful.”
But look what they gave you –
http://www.ratical.org/many_worlds/6Nations/
Pity you Americans couldn’t keep it – the US constituion is now the same junk the rest of us have. And, you were conned by Woodow Wilson and the Bwankers in 1913 in giving away control over the US money supply, and Willis – don’t all your taxes go to paying the interest on the money printed by these Bwankers, so what are you complaining about?
—-
Wil says:
August 8, 2011 at 8:41 pm
Native American tribes showed they were comprised of four distinct mtDNA haplogroups called A, B, C, and D. This means that the Native Americans are derived from four different lineages.These haplogroups were also found in native populations in Central and South America. Utter mtDNA research utilizing ancient remains recovered in the Americas validated these four haplogroups. Three of these haplogroups, A, C, and D are found primarily in Siberian Asia. The B haplogroup, however, is found only in aboriginal groups in Southeast Asia. China, Japan, Melanesia, and Polynesia confirming a South Pacific and Japanese Migration.
Are the Hopi in the B group? According to their own traditions,IIRC, they arrived in the bottom south west of the Americas, around 22/23 thousand years ago – and over the time moved north.
Hoser says:
August 8, 2011 at 12:57 pm
Here’s a pretty good conventional description of human migration. They leave out the sea route of migration, which could include aboriginals to South America perhaps 20,000 years ago, and Europeans to North America possibly 12,000 years
I think I recall the Hopi saying that they came by ‘stepping stones’, that is, island hopping.
And by the way Willis, they call the Native Americans the Red Man.
Here you are White man Willis – what the Red wants from you: http://www.aimovement.org/ggc/trailofbrokentreaties.html
Climate change according to the Hopi – http://www.ahastories.com/hopiprophecy.html
Gareth Phillips says:
August 10, 2011 at 12:44 pm
Thanks, Gareth. Most aboriginal cultures have a name for themselves. In many cases these names translate as “THE people”, or the “first people”, or the “first nation”, or “the real people”, or something of the sort. But it’s like the old joke about “How many legs does a cow have if you call a tail a leg?”
The answer, of course, is “Four … because calling a tail a leg doesn’t make it a leg.”
I’m sure you can see the relevance to the subject under discussion.
Although there is still a bit of scientific dispute about the question, most scientists agree that humans are native to Africa and nowhere else, and dispersed from there at various times. Are the Vikings native to Iceland? No, they emigrated there about 700 years ago. Are the Hawaiians native to Hawaii? No, they emigrated there five hundred years before that. Are the Maori native to New Zealand? Actually, they emigrated to New Zealand about the time the Vikings moved to Iceland …
My point is simple. The fact that the Maori moved to New Zealand about the time the Vikings moved to Iceland shows that the “First People” kind of claims are just a convenient historical fiction. I have no problem with the Treaty of Whangarei, it was a brilliant move on the part of the Maori, and like all treaties I think it should be honored in the letter and the spirit … but the Maori have no more claim to be called New Zealand “natives” than the Vikings have of being Iceland “natives”.
w.
Gareth Phillips says:
August 11, 2011 at 1:40 am
Apology accepted, although my name is an english name and that was not any kind of typo I’ve ever seen. In addition you had mis-spelled my name twice before, and you know the old line about “once is chance, twice is coincidence, third time is enemy action”. I said nothing the first time. I said nothing the second time. By the third time I was tired of what I saw as a puerile trick, and said so. If I was wrong, so be it … but when you do it three times, Gareth, you must know that people will suspect your motives.
Gareth, you did seem rabidly upset, and you wrote post after post without explaining what it was I had said that made you so upset. Now perhaps you weren’t upset at all, perhaps you were pretending to be. But that is how you seemed to me. So why should I not comment on that, and how is it hypocritical to do so?
My first statement you quote above was that I was tired of people claiming to be “native” Americans, when they are nothing of the sort. Now, I could have said I was overjoyed that he was another person in a long line making that claim … but then that would have been hypocritical, wouldn’t it.
And yes, I called your messing with my name a “puerile trick”. In your first posting you called what I wrote “nonsense” and “tosh”, without even inquiring whether you had badly misunderstood my point (and you had). You continued to do that for post after post, repeatedly mis-spelling my name along the way. I thought it was intentional. You say it was not, and I accept that.
You seem to be under the illusion that controversy is bad, or that I should be all sweetness and light and rub your tummy and blow in your ear to make this a good web site. I don’t do that, I never have, and it’s still a great web site. I’ve been skewering fools here since I wrote my first post and will continue to do so. People don’t seem to mind it, actually, because I’m honest about it. I don’t pretend to be someone I’m not, they know I’ll defend my views, they just grab some popcorn and a beer to watch the madness unfold.
Gareth, when you open up a discussion by calling someone’s work “nonsense” and “tosh”, without quoting what you object to and without any citation or backup for your claims, and you follow it by repeatedly mis-spelling my name and implying that I’m racist … do you really expect people to treat you like an adult member of the discussion?
w.
Willis, our names, our identity, and our heritage are precious to us. That is possibly why you are so upset at my misspelling your name. I accept your anger. My name is also commonly misspelled, I have learned to live with it, though I agree, it is always irritating. That unintended insult against one person is regrettable, for which I have apologised.
Can you imagine therefore how your same treatment of your fellow citizens has gone down? Or are they not entitled to the same respect? Is it OK for you to be angry at the depreciation of your name, but OK to to mischievously undermine the heritage and identity of the most ancient of your fellow citizens? Can you see the dissonance? Maybe not, but I live in hope.
We both agree that this is a great website. You think I am rabid, not adult, bear brained and a host of other odd descriptions (whatever that means) and, for my part I think you are subtly racist. (you tick all the boxes) However maybe we are going to have to agree to disagree with each other and focus on our areas of agreement, i.e. the subject of Climate change, and incidentally, in the interests of the wellbeing of our discussion group.
ps. To be adult enough to apologise is the mark of the adult. It would be good to hear you say it, it would indicate you understand the issue, it would make amends to many of your fellow citizens, but I won’t hold my breath. Your call Willis, do you have the emotional resources to step up to the line? or will you retreat to the bunker?
pps I lived in the UK all my life, and I have never met anyone called Willis and neither has anyone in the pub this evening. Apparently it is a Teutonic name which emigrated to the New World from Germany in the 1800s It seems to have passed us by in the UK, but sounds good for all of that.
Myrrh says:
August 11, 2011 at 12:28 pm (Edit)
I suspect point 14 might be a bit difficult … look, I agree that the people who were here when we got here were treated abysmally, shabbily, criminally, and often lethally … but then in many cases, they had treated the people they had defeated and driven out to give them what they call “ancestral lands” even more criminally, oftentimes driving them off of their lands without giving them treaties and reservations and the like. A good chunk of the time, “ancestral lands” seems to mean “my ancestors killed someone else’s ancestors to get it”.
I also agree that the treaties should all be respected both in the letter and the spirit. I used to get into big fights about this one when fishing commercially in the Pacific Northwest at the time the treaty terms on Salmon were re-instituted, giving the locals half the catch. All my commercial fishing friends thought it was a crime. I just said “We made a deal with them, and I don’t like it any more than you that we’re losing half the fish, but we have to keep the deal”. That’s my perspective on it, that we cannot right historical wrongs, but we can and should abide by our historical agreements.
However, my point is that despite your statement that that’s what the “Red” wants from me, it’s not all they want. They also want to change the historical agreements to give them some of my money to fight an imaginary menace. I’m not up for that at all.
Let’s see. “Cobwebs in the sky” means contrails. I suppose if they’d said “Cobwebs on the ground” you’d say they meant the road system. I find such allegories no more convincing than Nostradamus. Predictions of the “end times” are a dime a dozen, and (like the recent “end of the world” claims) seem to be always receding into the future.
w.
Myrrh says:
August 11, 2011 at 12:11 pm
Thanks, Myrrh. I’ve thought of them lots of times, they were my heroes growing up because I lived in the forest and they were kings of the forest lore. Since then, I’ve lived next to them, worked with them, played in a rock band comprised of four Indians (their term) and myself, and fished commercially with them over the last forty-five years or … so what’s your point?
w.
Gareth Phillips says:
August 11, 2011 at 2:53 pm
Thanks, Gareth. If telling the truth (e.g that the “Native” New Zealands Maori are no more native to New Zealand than the Viking are native to Iceland) is undermining the Maori’s “heritage and ancestry”, then it wasn’t really heritage and ancestry to start with, it was an illusion.
Are they entitled to respect as you ask? In my world, no one is “entitled” to respect, it is earned (and easily lost), so I’d have to say no.
I learned a while ago that while local customs are often foolishly venerated and respected by people such as you and I from outside the local culture, the folks that live in that culture may have other ideas. I learned it while working in the Solomon Islands, where I was involved in a project called in Pijin English “Kipim Kastom Blong Iu”, meaning “Keep the Customs that Belong to You”, or keep your ancestral customs strong. Who could argue with that?
One day on the street I was talking to a woman from Savo Island, and she read me the riot act about our program. Her point was simple—in their ancient customs, women were rated somewhere below pigs and above dogs. “We were just escaping from that on Savo, thanks to the white man’s influence, and now your damn ‘Kipim Kastom Blong Iu’ project is encouraging the men to treat us like their slaves again, because the white man says so … thanks a lot!” And I slunk away in shame.
So I fear I don’t have your automatic reverence and respect for the local customs and the people that practice them that you seem to have. I have learned through bitter experience that respect has to be earned by their actions, not accorded to them because the customs are ancient beyond words, nor because they are “native” to the local area. Neither is sufficient reason for respect.
w.
OK Willis, my point is that your piece came across as sour grapes. But as I said, your gripe that your taxes shouldn’t be going to them is that your taxes go to paying the Bwankers interest on the money they print for you, you’re missing a link in the chain of this. And, if you’re annoyed because you can’t set up a casino, well whose fault is that? You keep confirming that the ‘goverment’ has the right to dictate to you and then you complain.
The net in the sky was communications, telephone, did you miss that bit? There are a surprising amount of prophecies from centuries way before all this which saw it too. That page was a bit difficult to read will find another.
So they knew things would happen. Things would speed up a little bit. There would be a cobweb built around the earth, and people would talk across this cobweb. When this talking cobweb, the telephone, was built around the earth, a sign of life would appear in the east, but it would tilt and bring death. It would come with the sun. http://www.ausbcomp.com/redman/hopi_prophecy.htm
From which, since this is titled “climate and early asian immigrants”, ah, this doesn’t have all the info, and the link to the full page comes up empty. OK, here: http://www.seekeronline.org/journals/y2008/jun08.htm
Another Hopi prophecy warns that nothing should be brought back from the Moon — obviously anticipating the Apollo 11 mission that returned with samples of lunar basalt.
If this was done, the Hopi warned, the balance of natural and universal laws and forces would be disturbed, resulting in earthquakes, severe changes in weather patterns, and social unrest. All these things are happening today, though of course not necessarily because of Moon rocks.
The Hopi also predicted that when the “heart” of the Hopi land trust is dug up, great disturbances will develop in the balance of nature, for the Hopi holy land is the microcosmic image of the entire planet; any violations of nature in the Four Corners region will be reflected and amplified all over the Earth.
CO2 not to blame! It’s the pesky moon rocks that done it.
Willis – since you think treaties should be kept, what about the point 10 in what the Red man wants? How big a migration would take place if land treaties were honoured?
I don’t know if this treaty was ever broken by the White man, but an example of the kind made – http://digital.library.okstate.edu/kappler/Vol2/treaties/che0008.htm [from a list http://digital.library.okstate.edu/kappler/vol2/toc.htm ]
And a short background on the Bwankers takeover:
http://www.jimbernard.org/gpage16.html
Aha, ’twas Benjamin Franklin who gave the game away… http://www.planetization.org/prosperity.htm
I think I recall this more or less correctly, the taxation system on commerce goes back to maritime law and that is on directly middle men transactions which don’t have a step of added value – so someone buying goods and then selling them on at profit without any change in the goods is liable for tax, but not the man who buys flour and makes bread and then sells the bread, which is straight personal earnings for his labour. Although Wilson ‘introduced’ personal tax, it was a) unconstitutional, (confirmed by a previous ruling), and b) not ratified by the correct number of members (because it was rushed through when everyone off on hols or something and told that there wouldn’t be a vote on this until later, and then voting began when the majority had left).
I think the clincher is that you are requested to pay personal tax by the IRS, it is not a demand. A demand would be criminal..
But that’s an ongoing argument, here for the IRS cannot demand payment of personal taxes – http://thematrixhasyou.org/no-tax.html and here for the IRS claiming voluntary doesn’t mean voluntary – http://www.irs.gov/taxpros/article/0%2C%2Cid=159932%2C00.html
But, since the IRS is a private company, a collection arm of the private Federal Reserve, and you don’t have a contract with it directly it can only be voluntary, right? However, I think that once you mark the form in any way whatsover you are agreeing to a possible contract with them, not just by signing which is standard for agreement. So even if you mark the form ‘no contract’ and send it back, you are agreeing that they have a relationship with you but you are disputing it, which is then taken courtwards and you placed in the dock (dock from the maritime, impounding ship).
Hmm, tricky.
This should help Willis – http://www.irs.faithweb.com/
Might be easier to just open a casino in your spare room and argue discrimination, by nationality or location (why Las Vegas and not your back garden?)
Dave Springer August 11, 2011 at 8:10 am
Wow, Dave, you read an awful lot into what I didn’t say. Sounds like you were projecting a bit.
Obviously you know nothing about me, but presume to.
Are you really equating the use of aspirin to the recreational use of LSD, Crack, Heroin, etc? Wow. Just wow. Asshat indeed.
While you guys are going back and forth…..
…I can’t help but think of the Maldives
That are building 11 new airports…
…while trying to claim we owe them money because they are sinking
Well Willis, I imagine your argument reduces to two main points.
1) No culture is native to anywhere, there are no such things as native people.
2) No ancient peoples deserve respect unless, in your eyes they have earned it.
The first point in my opinion is patently wrong. The second puzzling, because what would they have to do to earn your respect? Who’s standards? yours or theirs?
A word you may be interested in is “indigenous”
First Nations people are indigenous to the Americas, late arrivals are not, they are immigrants in the true sense of the word having come from another country, as opposed to the indigenous people who did not.
There is a useful definition in Wikipaedia you may find helpful.
“Indigenous peoples, or Natives, are ethnic groups who are native to a land or region, especially before the arrival and intrusion of a foreign and possibly dominating culture. They are a group of people whose members share a cultural identity that has been shaped by their geographical region. A variety of names are used in various countries to identify such groups of people, but they generally are regarded as the “original inhabitants” of a territory or region. Their right to self-determination may be materially affected by the later-arriving ethnic groups”
.
If you move to claiming first nations peoples are not indigenous to the Americas our views are to far apart to debate.
Myrrh says:
August 11, 2011 at 4:12 pm
Bankers? I said nothing about bankers. My point is that we should not change the treaties so that the Tribes can be treated like States. Has nothing to do with bankers, nor did I say that taxes should not go to Indians. That’s all you. QUOTE MY WORDS, you’re off in fantasy.
I don’t understand that one at all.
Well … yeah, I did miss that bit, because it wasn’t in your citation. According to your cite, what the “prophecy” actually said about cobwebs in the skies was:
There was also supposed to be a cobweb around the earth, which the citation says was the telephone, although there was no prophecy about cell phones … but never mind, it gets better.
I didn’t realize the best part of your pseudo-prophecy until after I last wrote to you. When the white man first came into contact with the American Indians, one of the things that was immensely popular as a trade item was iron in any form. While a few Indian tribes used copper, the use of bronze was unknown in the Americas, and iron was a complete unknown. So iron knives, hatchets, and even nails were extremely valuable trade items, as the Indians didn’t have iron in any form..
The citation you gave said:
OK, cool, when the “final warnings” come we’ll know it’s time for the purification by fire. I’m readying the marshmallows now. According to your citation, the prophecy in question, handed down in the oral tradition from the ancient Hopi shamans, says:
I’m sure that you can see the logical flaw in the claim that the above is actually an ancient Hopi prophecy … you’ve been suckered, my friend, there is no ancient Hopi prophecy about iron horses, iron cows, or iron anything. That’s just some do-gooder’s fantasy, the ancient Hopi never heard of iron.
It is worth noting as well that (as is true in most cases) the land the Hopi live on was occupied before them by another group we call the “Anasazi” … so once again, the Hopi are not native to their “ancestral” lands. And naturally, even the word “Anasazi” is not politically correct, nor is it agreed to by the various tribes. No surprise, political correctness near as I can tell is completely unobtainable, since shortly after one term is deemed incorrect and replaced with another, the new term becomes politically incorrect in turn. See the unending sequence of words used to refer to the toilet for one of many examples.
Finally, in an ironic twist of fate, the Anasazi seem to have succumbed to a long-term drought lasting hundreds of years, and thus were done in by climate change … good thing there were no climate scientists around then, or I’m sure that the Europeans would have gotten the blame.
Even more curiously, I am sure that the ancient Anasazi believed exactly what the modern AGW supporters believe, that the drought was the direct result of their own actions and thus it demanded sacrifices (literal or figurative) in order to stop or avert it … plus ça change, as they say, we’ve learned nothing since then.
w.
Myrrh, your supposed quotation from Benjamin Franklin is totally bogus … you really should not be so credulous. You have fake Benjamin Franklin quotes and ancient Indians talking about iron … not good for your credibility.
Paper scrip was used in the Colonies, but it was generally used in time of war. The Currency Acts of 1751 and 1764 greatly restricted their use. The average person of the time didn’t see much money at all, and only trusted in gold and silver. But the Benjamin Franklin scenario is pure fantasy.
What you need, mon frere, is a healthy dose of skepticism. Google is your friend.
w.
Gareth Phillips says:
August 12, 2011 at 12:51 am
I’m sure you do imagine that, but why should we care about the fevered products of your imagination? Come back when you want to discuss what I actually said, and not what you imagine my argument reduces to.
My points were nuanced and specific, and contained a host of subtleties that obviously escaped you. Your “reduction” of them is your own construction, a straw man that has nothing to do with what I said.
w.
Willis says:
@Garethman
Well Willis, I imagine your argument reduces to two main points.
1) No culture is native to anywhere, there are no such things as native people.
2) No ancient peoples deserve respect unless, in your eyes they have earned it.
I’m sure you do imagine that, but why should we care about the fevered products of your imagination? Come back when you want to discuss what I actually said, and not what you imagine my argument reduces to.
Garethmanresponds
Willis, I know you seem incapable of having a normal discussion without resorting to attacks on the person themselves, especially when you have no answer, but take a deep breath here. If you do not like my summary, and as I point out, it is my summary, my interpretation of your message, thats fine, I cannot speak for you, I cannot just copy and paste your posts to ensure I say exactly the same thing as you. I am trying to understand you here Willis, and have a reasonable but assertive debate. My points relate to what I think you are trying to say, I am not you. I have worked in psychiatry for many years and quickly learned that what we say is hardly ever interpreted in the way we would like it to be understood. That is why I am checking and clarifying what you are trying to say.
Now try and answer a simple question without throwing your dummy out of the pram.
Do you agree that first nations people/indians/aboriginals or whatever as inhabitants of North America are the indigenous people of that continent who moved there during the last ice age before Countries and Nation states came into being?
Obviously these airports are meant to allow the inhabitants to escape quickly once the waters inundate them, any day now, you just wait…
Myrrh says:
August 11, 2011 at 4:12 pm
More apocalyptic nonsense, supposedly from a people who couldn’t even foresee their own immediate demise.
See you in 2013…
Gareth Phillips says (August 11, 2011 at 2:53 pm): “My name is also commonly misspelled, I have learned to live with it, though I agree, it is always irritating. ”
I feel your pain. 🙂
As do I. I leave a trail of Ss everywhere I go…
Willis Eschenbach says:
August 12, 2011 at 1:46 am
Bankers? I said nothing about bankers.
I said something about bankers, I was referring to it.
My point is that we should not change the treaties so that the Tribes can be treated like States. Has nothing to do with bankers, nor did I say that taxes should not go to Indians. That’s all you.
You could try a laxative Willis, one only has to go to the top of the page to see you’re lying. Why so defensive? If that’s your view fine, just quit pretending that you are being so nuanced that no-one can understand you.. Maybe you should re-read what you’ve written.
My point is, I was trying to be helpful.., is that your tax money doesn’t go to anywhere but to pay off interest to the Bwankers who are in control of your money supply, so you’re missing a step in the process.
Re my: “And, if you’re annoyed because you can’t set up a casino, well whose fault is that? You keep confirming that the ‘goverment’ has the right to dictate to you and then you complain.”
“I don’t understand that one at all.”
Then certainly re-read what you’ve written..
You moan that you are restricted in the stuff the government allows you to do and accept it as an annoying fact of your life, I again was trying to be helpful.., rebel. The US constitution was set up to protect the freedom of the people from overbearing government…
Re my: “The net in the sky was communications, telephone, did you miss that bit? There are a surprising amount of prophecies from centuries way before all this which saw it too. That page was a bit difficult to read will find another.”
Well … yeah, I did miss that bit, because it wasn’t in your citation. According to your cite, what the “prophecy” actually said about cobwebs in the skies was:
THE WARNING: Cobwebs will crisscross the skies.THE FULFILLMENT: These are the contrails of planes and jets.
There was also supposed to be a cobweb around the earth, which the citation says was the telephone, although there was no prophecy about cell phones … but never mind, it gets better.
As I said, you must have missed it.. “There would be a cobweb built around the earth, and people would talk across this cobweb. When this talking cobweb, the telephone, was built around the earth,”
I did try and find you a page that didn’t have so much commentary, but you’re not really interested in what anyone else has to say, are you? Even in the last bit quoted from you, you have not taken in, it appears, that the telephone was what I was referring to. Are you having difficulties concentrating? I do appreciate that there must be enormous difficulty, not least constraints of time, to answer the many posts your pieces generate, especially when so many are critical. Being abusive to us instead of engaging with us is counterproductive. We’re all left frustrated that the communication between us hasn’t developed.
I didn’t realize the best part of your pseudo-prophecy until after I last wrote to you. When the white man first came into contact with the American Indians, one of the things that was immensely popular as a trade item was iron in any form. While a few Indian tribes used copper, the use of bronze was unknown in the Americas, and iron was a complete unknown. So iron knives, hatchets, and even nails were extremely valuable trade items, as the Indians didn’t have iron in any form..
Hmm, if they knew them to be valuable, how were they unknown? And if they traded them, how did not have iron in any form? I think you’re imagining a prehistoric Hopi.. 🙂 Prophecies are basically reading the signs of the times, think Jeremiah. Some get the picture earlier than others..
The citation you gave said:
The Hopi Native Americans of the American Southwest have an ancient prophecy that has long foreseen the destruction of our present world through a purification by fire. You will know the times for this purification are at hand when a series of prophecies known as the “final warnings” are fulfilled.
OK, cool, when the “final warnings” come we’ll know it’s time for the purification by fire. I’m readying the marshmallows now.
Now, this is an ancient prophecy, if I recall, it comes from around a thousand years ago when the Hopi moved to their present location. It’s from this time their ceremonials were established and their concept of themselves as a ‘spiritual vortex’ to pray for humanity and themselves as peaceful. Hey, I certainly prefer that people have such a concept about themselves than some others, the current popular one from the Eugenics stable is that billions surplus to their requirements should be annihilated and the Greens are busy, busy, busy spreading their message there are too many people..
According to your citation, the prophecy in question, handed down in the oral tradition from the ancient Hopi shamans, says:
THE WARNING: An iron horse will come to the land of the red man.THE FULFILLMENT: This is the train. It appeared in the 19th century
I’m sure that you can see the logical flaw in the claim that the above is actually an ancient Hopi prophecy … you’ve been suckered, my friend, there is no ancient Hopi prophecy about iron horses, iron cows, or iron anything. That’s just some do-gooder’s fantasy, the ancient Hopi never heard of iron.
Certainly before the time of iron trading, but interpretation later from the time of Spanish contact could have clarified – there are descriptions of such prophecies in Africa before the coming of the whites land grabbing, as a large black snakes crossing the land. I’m finding it difficult to believe you lack the imagination necessary for context.. Gourd as a description of the cloud from a nuclear blast fits, and it came in the US after the railroads became the method of ready transport across the continent. Maybe you should add a first aid kit, or are you just thinking of sitting back and watching the show?
It is worth noting as well that (as is true in most cases) the land the Hopi live on was occupied before them by another group we call the “Anasazi” … so once again, the Hopi are not native to their “ancestral” lands. And naturally, even the word “Anasazi” is not politically correct, nor is it agreed to by the various tribes. No surprise, political correctness near as I can tell is completely unobtainable, since shortly after one term is deemed incorrect and replaced with another, the new term becomes politically incorrect in turn. See the unending sequence of words used to refer to the toilet for one of many examples.
I think they’re the same people, they have the same ceremonial kivas. It was the Navajo who called them Anasazi, meaning “ancient peoples”, or, “ancient enemies”. The Navajos came into the area around a thousand years ago according to the Hopi who say they came from the north and and didn’t know how to make pots, the Hopi taught them. This is what p*ss*d the Hopi off later, that the Navajo began a violent land grab after they had been treated well by the Hopi.
There’s been some work done recently on analysing the food used over the period of the climate change that drove the Anasazi out of the canyon, from plentiful domesticated to scrabbling around for small mamals in the desert. I’ve just found something which says the Hopi are considered direct decendant of the Anasazi, so your diabtribe against them needs to have that crossed off the list. Unless you have some proof they are different people?
Will continue replying to your posts later,
Meanwhile Willis, google can also be your friend..
http://www.sangres.com/features/anasazi.htm
http://www.ehow.com/list_6862777_types-religious-ceremonies-anasazi-indians.html
The Hopi are considered direct descendants, so much so that the religion of the Anasazi can be inferred from the Hopi. The first link also gives some information on the migration patterns of the Hopi and other tribes as they spread northwards – the Hopi themselves have detailed memory of the stops they made on this journey, I do hope you’re not expecting to be shown a diary kept over those many centuries..
..which begins according to their keeping of their own memory in their own traditions, around 22/23,000 years ago.
From Myrrh on August 13, 2011 at 4:16 am:
Likewise it is inferred that the Romans were direct descendants of the Greeks, as the religion of the pre-Christian Greeks can be inferred from that of the pre-Christian Romans.
===
Ah Willis, I had read this post before but not the comments. I found it factual, was surprised at its brevity, did note a slight one-offish ranting tone. Come to think of it, it may have been the complete lack of any graphs whatsoever influencing my last two views. Most surprising indeed.
Then at a recent post someone was griping about the site while using your “ignorant comments” as an example of the depths this blog is sinking to. So I’ve come back and read the comments.
I see that, once again, you have stuck to the philosophy of science:
1. First comes the facts.
2. Then comes the analysis of the facts.
3. Then opinions are made and remade to reflect the facts and the results of the analysis of the facts.
By the bulk of the comments here, which strangely parallels what is found in Climate Science™, many people have problems following those steps in the proper sequential order.
Gareth Phillips says:
August 12, 2011 at 2:36 am
Gareth, I am sick and tired of trying to deal with your “interpretation” of what I say. I’m interested in what you and other people think of my ideas, but I don’t care in the slightest what you think about your interpretations of my ideas. I’m bored with your attacks, not on what I said, but on your imaginary ideas about what I said. I am uninterested in your fantasies about what I actually wrote on the page. If, as you say, you are unable to copy and paste the part of what I said that you are referring to, then learn how to do it. I am not interested in your straw men. Let me show how easy it is to cut and paste, I’m sure that you can figure out how to accomplish it given enough time. Here we go, hold on to your hat, it’s a wild and difficult ride, here comes the cut-n-paste …
See how tough it is? Now I can respond to exactly what you said, not confuse the issue with my “interpretation” or my “summary” of what you said, but discuss exactly what you said. Here it comes …
Well, it depends on what you call “first nations”. That construct is odd in itself, because it implies that the “first nations” on a continent are different and distinct from the “first people” on the continent. But from your words, it appears that you use “first nations” to mean “first people” … or not, it’s not entirely clear. I don’t see how the first nations could be the first people, that’s doing violence to the language. I don’t use or like the term myself for that reason. It seems like a vague boast rather than an actual distinction. Indeed, calling a small tribe a “Nation” is an egotistical claim on my planet, where we still use different words to mean different things and a “nation” is distinct from a “tribe”.
Let me give you an example of the problems with the “First Nation” claims. I just got back from Alaska, where I used to work as a sport fishing guide on the Kenai River. The local Indians (their own term) have lived on the Kenai far beyond anyone’s living memory, and consider themselves the “First Nation” of that area, to use your term.
But archaeology shows that a couple thousand years ago the people now proudly claiming the exalted title of “First Nation” for that area actually killed and drove out the previous inhabitants, a tribe of Eskimos. In other words, they stole the land from the previous inhabitants, just like most tribes (and nations) on the planet have been doing forever. And it’s far from clear if the Eskimos were the first inhabitants of the area either.
So no, Gareth, to answer your question, in that case people claiming to be the “First Nation” in the area are NOT the original inhabitants, they’re just a bunch of land thieves like, oh, say the Europeans who came after them and stole the land from them in turn. It is the Indians’ “sacred ancestral land”, to be sure, but only because they stole it from someone else’s ancestors.
Which is why I dislike the term “first nations”. It is very frequently a very false claim. Also, it implies that “I was here first” actually means something, that there should be some respect accorded to the culture simply because it claims to be (not necessarily is, but claims to be) the first people in the area. The odds are great that they are not the first, and even if they are … so what? Antiquity doesn’t buy respect in my world, there’s plenty of ancient customs and ancient cultures whose beliefs and actions aren’t worth a bucket of warm spit.
I note that you didn’t reply to my example of the woman from Savo Island, and her scathing indictment of the idea that a culture deserves respect because of its antiquity, an idea deeply embodied in your blind “First Nation” hero-worship.
w.
PS–You see how easy it is to copy and paste exactly those of your words I am talking about? That way I don’t have to make any kind of “summary” or “boil down” your argument or question. I just respond to exactly what you said. Novel idea, huh? It’s not tough, you should try it. I know you’re a psychologist, but that shouldn’t be any barrier to cutting and pasting.
Myrrh says:
August 13, 2011 at 4:16 am
From your citation:
My point exactly, the Hopi cannot be the first people, since the Anasazi came before them. And according to your citation, there was another society in the area before the Anasazi, and the Anasazi were a part of the Archaic people, so the Anasazi can’t be the first people either.
Thank you for making it easy for folks to demostrate just how stupid these claims of “First Nation” and “native people” really are. At best, the successors of the Anasazi might deserve the term “Third People” … but of course, that wouldn’t do, it has the distinct disadvantage of being somewhat historically accurate.
(However, the idea that we can “infer” the religion of the Anasazi from that of the Hopis is a stretch. The cite says only that “The exact nature of their religion is unknown, but it may have been similar to the religion the Hopi …”, and you’ve converted that “may have been” to “can be inferred.” You’d do better to quote, rather than to exaggerate, their claims.)
w.
Myrrh, thanks for quoting what you object to, it makes everything much more clear on both sides.
Myrrh says:
August 13, 2011 at 2:44 am
OK, we agree it’s an ancient prophecy, a thousand years old, from well before the time of first contact with Europeans. I went on to say:
Spanish contact 1500s 1600s
Railroads 1800s
You appear to believe that slavery and the large scale trading of slaves are inventions of the melanin-challenged like myself … consult any history of slavery in Africa. Lines of black slaves being moved across the face of Africa are as ancient as the land itself. They far predate white involvement in the slave trade.
It’s easy to take any combination of poetic images (iron horses, gourds, and all the rest) and fit it to the past. It’s fitting it to the future that’s hard. “The beast dying in the East”? Oh, that’s the breakup of the Russian Empire. “The five Lords agree”? That’s the original NATO alliance. Everything is always explained, and the somehow, the same message is always decoded:
I place no more credence in Hopi prophecies than I do in Nostradamus. The actual Hopi stories are a fascinating look at the beliefs of an ancient, very complex, and successful society. Their “prophecies” as reported on some uncited page on the web? Not so much. I always listen closely to what my Indian friends say, often there’s wisdom there in unexpected places … so which modern Hopi said that some Hopi commentator from the time of the Spanish contact interpreted an unknown earlier Hopi shaman as saying iron horses would whatever? …
I’m sure you can see the problem with that.
Let me clarify my objection. I don’t like to see claims made in the name of some anonymous Hopi “prophecy”. I am a shamanist myself, as are the Hopi, and there are many similarities and much overlap between my beliefs and theirs. The Hopi culture is rich and deep, and I have studied it at some depth. I am a shamanist of another lineage, and so as you might imagine similar beliefs are fascinating to me, I get to explore the similarities and differences. I have said before that as a kid, Indians were my heroes. As an adult, I have found that among the various Indian world views that I have studied, the Hopi ideas and beliefs are the closest to my own. Haven’t had the good fortune to meet a member of the Tribe, but I may get lucky yet. In any case, be clear that I have the greatest respect for the Hopi Nation and what it believes and what it has accomplished. How could I not, when the Hopi beliefs are not dissimilar to my own?
So your use of claimed ancient Hopi prophecies to make some gringo argument doesn’t sit right with me. If the best supporting argument you can come up is an anonymous recent interpretation of an underlying unknown prophecy, you really should look for something else to buttress your claims.
w.
Hi Willis, apologies for the delay in responding, been a busy week, By the way I am not a psychologist, I work with mentally ill patients, not in theoretical psychological processes. Not sure where you got the idea, interpretation perhaps? Try hard not to make any more assumptions about me. QUOTE MY WORDS WILLIS, QUOTE MY WORDS. ( annoying eh !) DON’T LEAVE THE BITS YOU CANNOT ANSWER OUT WILLIS ! ( we really must stop shouting at each other )
OK, joking aside,
Here is a quote by you I would like to challenge (I will refrain from using my own words)
“So no, Gareth, to answer your question, in that case people claiming to be the “First Nation” in the area are NOT the original inhabitants, they’re just a bunch of land thieves like, oh, say the Europeans who came after them and stole the land from them in turn. It is the Indians’ “sacred ancestral land”, to be sure, but only because they stole it from someone else’s ancestors.”
That is true for some peoples, they may have come earlier, they may have come later. They attacked each other and stole each others lands. They were remarkably like us in that respect they were human beings. But here is the critical point . None of these people came from another country as immigrants. They all had ancestors who were hunter gatherers who moved into the American continent many thousands of years ago.
Thats why they are called First Nations, note the plural, some may have arrived later than others etc, but they all have that ancestry in common. They did not arrive here from other countries. They did not move to another country. As a result, they cannot be immigrants in the accepted meaning of the word.
Due to arriving before the advent of recorded history they are seen as Indigenous to that area. Without archeology we would have no idea of where they came from and neither would they.
Judging by past responses you will skate over this fact and tell me you are sick and tired of me interpreting your ideas. But just try this once to answer the question below without getting angry. Remember, all interaction is about interpretation of what people say to each other, we are not tape recorders.
So Willis, this is the question. Are your fellow first nations citizens indigenous to America or not?
Remember, they can’t all have stolen it from each other, and they all have one common ancestral characteristic as described above.
With reference to your example from Alaska I’m not sure what you want me to say, apart from yes, anyone can call themselves what they want, but the subject here is a major group of peoples who lived in the American continent before the arrival of people from the old world and your description of them as immigrants.
Hopefully you are not one of these odd people who believe that First nations and Celts are descendants of the lost tribes of Israel, so what is your answer?
Gareth Phillips says:
August 14, 2011 at 3:08 pm (Edit)
You seem to think that the fact that they were Early Asian Immigrants means something, as though somehow early immigrants are worthier or better than late immigrants or something. Or perhaps you think that since there weren’t countries then, that immigrating to North America from Asia was impossible … yet here they are, and there they were. What makes early immigrants better than late immigrants?
And what do you have against immigrants, anyhow? What is all of this anti-immigrant sentiment you’re putting out? How politically correct is that?
I can buy that they are called First Nations because they stole the land first. That makes sense to me.
First you say they are descended from “hunter gatherers who moved into the area”. Now you say they didn’t arrive from other countries, when you know they came not from another country but from an entirely different continent.
I haven’t a clue, I don’t much use that word. I said they weren’t native to America. They’re not, humans are native to Africa. That’s why I objected to calling them “Native Americans”. I’m willing to call them “First Nations” as you suggest on the basis that they stole the land first.
But “indigenous”? I don’t know. You said before:
Well, no, I wasn’t interested in it at all … but you seem to be. I don’t know what you mean by “indigenous”. Are humans “indigenous” to North America? I don’t think so, although you may. Let me look it up, I don’t use it much.
Dictionary says:
Did the so-called “First Nations” originate in the Americas as the dictionary definition requires? No, they did not. They arrived with their culture and their ideas from Asia, they didn’t originate in Canada at all.
So I guess I’d have to say no, based on the dictionary, the First Nations aren’t indigenous to the Americas. Humans, as the dictionary definition points out, are indeed indigenous to Africa …
Mostly, though, I don’t understand your point. What difference does it make? What counts are who they are, not whether they are indigenous to Canada (they aren’t). I’ve known Indians (their term) that I thought were among the most amazing folks I’ve ever met, and I’ve known Indians I wouldn’t cross the street to say hi to. I find them to be like everyone else, some sinners and some saints.
What I don’t get is your insistence on venerating them simply because they stole their land a long time ago. I pointed out that the “First Nation” of New Zealand, the Maori, took it over about the time the Vikings took over Iceland. I asked if that makes the Vikings the “First Nation” of Iceland … but you declined to answer.
I said above I was just on the Kenai river in Alaska. There, you’re in a real pickle. Should you venerate the local Indian tribe as a “First Nation” of the frozen north … or should you ask those same local Indians to pay reparations and set up reservations for the poor Eskimos that they killed and drove off the land?
There is no nobility that accrues with the passage of time. Killing people and taking their land does not become right because it happened long ago. Antiquity is not innately deserving of respect. Learn the lesson of the woman from Savo—some ancient historical beliefs are anti-human ugliness, and deserve no respect for that at all. I’m waiting for the neo-Aztecs to claim a religious exemption for cutting out people’s hearts … some historical ancient cultures suck.
I don’t know if you’re old enough to remember the fight over the Panama Canal, returned by the US to Panamanian control over strong domestic objections. My favorite line from that time, which seems to sum up your position, was the statement by Senator Hayakawa:
The First Nations stole the land from the Firster Nations, who in turn had taken it from the Firstest Nations … but they deserve respect, because they stole it fair and square.
Again, let me attempt to clarify my position. Each Indian tribe and its heritage is unique. Some tribes were farmers, some were fishers, some were fighters, some were fools, that’s the way of the world. I have lived and worked among many of the world’s people, and Indians obey the 80/20 rule like anywhere else I’ve ever been. Eighty percent of the Indians are decent, honest, hardworking folks, and twenty percent, not so much … just like with us melanin-challenged white folk. It’s been true everywhere I’ve been around the planet, the 80/20 rule holds.
But I can’t right past wrongs, no matter how wrong. All I can do is insist that the treaties be honored, both in the letter and in the spirit. I think that changing the treaties to allow the tribes to be treated as States is a huge mistake that could end up costing the Indians immensely. I don’t want to open that door of changing the treaties even a crack, I want them to retain their special status.
Thanks,
w.
Willis, in reading up on this subject I found another “early immigrant” which apparently is not native or indigenous to North America. The Bison. It arrived from the Asian continent at about the same time as human beings. It displaced the earlier Steppes Bison. It interesting that by your standard you would not consider this to be a native or indigenous animal to the Americas. Some people would challenge that. It may also be worth reading up on the centres of diversification of the Bald Eagle.
By the way, the Oxford English dictionary defines and immigrant as :
a person who comes to live permanently in a foreign country.
And Websters dictionary states:
The act of immigrating; the passing or coming into a country for the purpose of permanent residence.
And the legal definition is:
Immigration:
The term immigration is a noun used to describe the process by which a person moves into a country for the purpose of establishing residency. In such a case, the individual is not a native of the country which he immigrates to.
Emigration:
The term emigration refers to the process by which a person leaves his place or country of residency, to relocate elsewhere. In this case, the individual moving is referred to as an emigrant.
And so Willis, you can debate all you like, but if you do not leave and country and move to a country, you are not an immigrant. However, I can agree that hunter-gatheres in the upper and lower Palaeolithic were like many other humans and animals, migratory peoples. So it is perfectly acceptable to say they migrated to your continent, which is where the confusion may lie, but they could not have immigrated or emigrated, because that is a particular legal definition which could not have occurred because there were no countries. Your own settlers emigrated to the West in the 1800s. They could only be said to be emigrating because of the claim that the land was owned by another country ( Spain, then Mexico) If it had not been owned, they would have migrated. Our house Swallows and swifts do not emigrate to Africa each year because they do not live in countries. They migrate. You see the difference?
One quick last point, when we say “I imagine” it is like you saying “I guess” You are not really guessing any more than I am imagining. It is a grammatical foil meaning “this is my understanding of what you are saying”
ps When working with native peoples I sometimes got annoyed with them when they wanted to fish salmon as a traditional right, and used modern trawlers, and hunt Whales as a custom, from powerful boats to sell on to Japaneses and Norwegians. As Little Moustache said, “If they really want to gather traditional food, why don’t they come with me to pick berries?
Hi Willis, I missed one of your questions
What I don’t get is your insistence on venerating them simply because they stole their land a long time ago. I pointed out that the “First Nation” of New Zealand, the Maori, took it over about the time the Vikings took over Iceland. I asked if that makes the Vikings the “First Nation” of Iceland … but you declined to answer.
Firstly I don’t venerate them I just recognise them for what they are. They did not steal their land a long time ago, any more than the Bison stole the land from the steppes Bison. Maori could be described as first nations of New Zealand, but their arrival in New Zealand is nowhere near as ancient as North American first nations. The Vikings were not the first nations of iceland, they were preceded by Celtic monks. But if they had been, they would have been first nation. However they were first nation in Greenland having got there before Inuit peoples who are now the inhabitants. But Vikings did not emigrate to Greenland, they migrated. Hope that helps.
Gareth Phillips says (emphasis mine):
Umm … well … since the Bison came fully formed to the Americas from Asia, yes, I’d say it’s not an American native. That’s what “native” means, like in the sentence “no matter when they arrived there, boa constrictors are not native to Hawaii”. Nor are Bison native to North America, no matter when they arrived here.
August 15, 2011 at 11:12 am (Edit)
So I think I understand your position. Vikings are the First Nation of Greenland, Celtic Monks are the First Nation of Iceland, and the Kenai River Indian First Nation didn’t kill the Kenai River Eskimo Firster Nation and drive them off their land, they “displaced” them just like the Bison displaced the Steppes Bison. And the Bison, which did not originate here and arrived fully formed from another continent, are none-the-less native to the Americas.
Got it. You say “hope that helps” and it did, only perhaps not in the way you imagine.
w.
kadaka (KD Knoebel) says:
August 13, 2011 at 12:16 pm
From Myrrh on August 13, 2011 at 4:16 am:
“The Hopi are considered direct descendants, so much so that the religion of the Anasazi can be inferred from the Hopi.”
Likewise it is inferred that the Romans were direct descendants of the Greeks, as the religion of the pre-Christian Greeks can be inferred from that of the pre-Christian Romans.
===
Context is your friend.
Willis Eschenbach says:
August 13, 2011 at 1:04 pm
Myrrh says:
August 13, 2011 at 4:16 am
Meanwhile Willis, google can also be your friend..
http://www.sangres.com/features/anasazi.htm
http://www.ehow.com/list_6862777_types-religious-ceremonies-anasazi-indians.html
The Hopi are considered direct descendants, so much so that the religion of the Anasazi can be inferred from the Hopi.
From your citation:
At the end of the last Ice Age, the Southwest was being vacated by the big game hunters as they followed the retreat of the glaciers northward. After the hunters moved north, a society of hunter-gatherers moved in from the south. This ancient group of foragers (about 6000 BC to the first century CE) were highly mobile, carrying only lightweight tool kits and “atlatls,” sticks to extend their spear-throwing range. They traveled in small family groups of from 3 to 8 and were almost continually on the move, stopping just long enough to build crude huts and sleeping circles. What we know of them is found mostly among the stone chips left from their tool-making. Scholars call these people the Archaic or Desert Culture.
It is thought that the Anasazi were either a northern branch of the Archaic people or they may have been northern settlers of the Mogollon Culture, which was located more in southern New Mexico. Somewhere in the first or second century CE the first signs of a distinct Anasazi culture began to emerge.”
My point exactly, the Hopi cannot be the first people, since the Anasazi came before them. And according to your citation, there was another society in the area before the Anasazi, and the Anasazi were a part of the Archaic people, so the Anasazi can’t be the first people either.
Thank you for making it easy for folks to demostrate just how stupid these claims of “First Nation” and “native people” really are. At best, the successors of the Anasazi might deserve the term “Third People” … but of course, that wouldn’t do, it has the distinct disadvantage of being somewhat historically accurate.
(However, the idea that we can “infer” the religion of the Anasazi from that of the Hopis is a stretch. The cite says only that “The exact nature of their religion is unknown, but it may have been similar to the religion the Hopi …”, and you’ve converted that “may have been” to “can be inferred.” You’d do better to quote, rather than to exaggerate, their claims.)
It also said, began with, “Anasazi” is a Navajo word that, depending on pronunciation, can mean “enemy ancestors” or “ancient people who are not us.” The Anasazi were the forebears of the Hopi, the Zuni and the Rio Grande Puebloan Indian tribes of the Southwest. They built a great civilization in some pretty barren landscape.”
So, you’re mis-reading from your prejudices into this…
However, not that I had any interest in discussing the Hopi particularly, the fact remains that by their own traditions they came into the Americas by the south-west corner about 22/23 thousand years ago, so they would be the original hunters who travelled north following the big game at the retreat of the ice, which would be some 20 thousand years ago. It seems to me, that if the Anasazi were the later arrivals from 6,000 BC, the family groups, they could have assimilated with the original Hopi so that now, the present Hopi are considered descendants of the Anasazi. Who themselves, according to this article, could be the 6,000 BC arrival of the hunter gatherers from the south, or the mongolian connection which came in from the north around the beginning of the Holocene. But Hopi tradition includes the stories of such hunter gatherer ancestors and their trek up north and nothing about any orgins from the north. It could be that the Anasazi had already assimilated with any such who came in from the north on their own way Chaco canyon times.
It is a fascinating mix, much has been discovered from extensive archeology over the Americas and associated research into language and culture. But, what I see here is the equally extensive traditions of the Hopis has not been taken into account. It has only recently become p.c. enough to even say that there were any inhabitants before 10,000 years ago and the influx from the north…
If you look at these traditions re time, the Hopi ages, or worlds, fit in well with our now known history of the ice age we are in.
The second world as the beginning of our last glacial some 100,000 years ago, destroyed by cold and ice. Followed by the destruction of the third world by floods – the beginning our present glacial with warming beginning about 18,000 to 10,000 years ago, a coupe of very dramatic sea level rises and these all over the world, varying with local conditions – the ubiquitous flood stories. So now in the fourth world after the floods and in the ‘benign’ temps of the Holocene – again to be destroyed. (Although for the Hopi stuck now in desert conditions this is not as benign as the general world piciture..) Well, that it will again be destroyed we know is true, our Holocene is due to end etc.
In the Hopi tradition they say their ancestors came and settled in the area and the signs written in Chaco canyon are from part of that journey:
If following the Hopi clues from their own traditions isn’t enough for you, I don’t know what would be. The earliest memory is of changes that fit in with thousands of years before any others came to the empty Americas – they didn’t displace anyone.
Willis Eschenbach says:
August 12, 2011 at 1:56 am
Myrrh, your supposed quotation from Benjamin Franklin is totally bogus … you really should not be so credulous. You have fake Benjamin Franklin quotes and ancient Indians talking about iron … not good for your credibility.
Paper scrip was used in the Colonies, but it was generally used in time of war. The Currency Acts of 1751 and 1764 greatly restricted their use. The average person of the time didn’t see much money at all, and only trusted in gold and silver. But the Benjamin Franklin scenario is pure fantasy.
What you need, mon frere, is a healthy dose of skepticism. Google is your friend.
You could try making google your friend too – this was the big bone of contention at the time, Hansard, the Times, all discussing it. I suggest you do a bit of research of how banking came into existence to understand the power struggle at play here and the reasoning behind the US constitution and emphasis on your rights not to be controlled by government or banking interests in the hands of a few. This is what you lost in the Woodrow Wilson on an ego high influenced, brainwashed, by the banking cartel which had it origins in England.. You’ve lost the revolution 🙂
And Here: a potted history of banking, Benjamin Franklin was in England for 18 years, http://iamthewitness.com/DarylBradfordSmith_Bankers.htm
Recently by the way, Gordon Brown was instructed to sell of most of Britains gold, instructed by the Rothchilds, sold to, the Rothchilds. Banking is a scam.
Your interest payments to them for supplying your money is directly paid by your taxes, the Federal Reserve is a private company, it is not part of the government of the US, the IRS is the Feds collection arm heavies. None of that money goes to anywhere you think your tax maoney goes. You’ve been done.
From: http://www.xat.org/xat/moneyhistory.html
Money for nothing and everything for free. This is what the war of independence was fought over.
From: http://www.xat.org/xat/usury.html
It’s the banking cartel which creates the booms and busts, your tax money goes to keep them in luxurious power and control over the masses. and see my posts above, it’s not legal, it’s against your constitution. Whinge about something worth whingeing about, we still have heroes, in every nation.
http://www.godlikeproductions.com/forum1/message616868/pg1
“In 1832 Andrew Jackson, the newly elected president said: You are a den of vipers and thieves. I intend to rout you out, and by the eternal God, I will rout you out.”
He said this in response to a Congress who was getting ready to pass into law, the 2nd Bank Act of the United States of America. Because of Jackson, the bill was defeated and it was later during his administration that the national debt of the USA was zero. In fact, it was the only time in the entire history of the USA that we owed nothing to nobody.
Four years after the signing of the U.S. Constitution in 1791 president George Washington was coerced into signing the 1st Bank Act of the USA. This returned the banking authority into the hands of the “Bank of England”. George Washington was a brilliant military commander, but as a president he was an idiot. America’s first real traitor was not Benedict Arnold, it was a banker by the name of Alexander Hamilton. It was Hamilton who convinced Washington the Bank Act was needed.
What goes around comes around. Years later Hamilton was gunned down in a pistol duel by Aaron Burr, who had served as VP under Jefferson’s administration. Jefferson argued relentlessly against Hamilton and the need for a centralized bank.
All of this can be verified on the web or in your local library… enjoy.”
http://abolishthefederalreserve.org/
Thanks Willis for your understanding. We got there at last!
Now hopefully you understand the major difference between “Migration” and “Imigration”
I admit, they sound similar, but as we have seen, they have very different meanings. Hopefully your swallows will never emigrate!
By the way, your excellent Smithsonian museum categorises Bison as being a North American native species http://www.mnh.si.edu/mna/main.cfm
as does wikipaedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_bison
and Yahoo http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20090927104947AAMWCfH
even this one http://www.educationalimages.com/it110014.htm
Except you Willis, and you are entitled to your opinion,
I wonder if someone has an opinion that no mammal can be native to any place because they displaced what was left of the poor old dinosaurs. But on the other hand, is there not evidence they displaced the amphibians? and so on. One thing we can agree on. I bet the Mastodons did not run Casinos and had very little influence in major climate change.
The original human inhabitants, and the bands of their descendants, are properly referred to as Indigenous Peoples. Those in the United States are referred to as American Indians.
This is from a prominent American Indian, Professor of Law at UCLA, and Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of an American Indian Nation, the Citizen Potawatomi Nation of Oklahoma, Angela Riley. I know Professor Riley, and was a student of hers in another law school. Because this terminology is what Professor Riley uses professionally and on the internet, it is good enough for me. It should be good enough for all.
Roger Sowell says:
August 17, 2011 at 10:55 pm
Unfortunately, it’s not good enough for all, as evidenced by the number of people who decided that “American Indian” was henceforth non-PC anathema, and that the people formerly known as “American Indians” should now be known as “Native Americans” …
w.
Alas, the great suffering of the children, for whom “Cowboys and Indians” must now be “Newcomers versus Natives.”