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.
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?
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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.
@ur momisugly sHx says: August 8, 2011 at 1:42 pm
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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………..
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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.
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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.