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.
=============================================================
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
=============================================================
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.
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.