Subject to the tyranny of dead men

As I've written elsewhere, I'm not particularly inclined to be tyrannized by the living, much less by dead men. But that's just me. If you are inclined that way, well, that it is your problem, not mine, and I'm not going to make it my problem. Which is to say that I won't be tyrannized by your proclivity to be tyrannized by a dead generation, period.

Certain of my commenters, both very recently and further back in time, have said to me in very dogmatic terms that certain policies and agreements now existing were created by folks no longer existing and way before I was ever thought of. This fact to these persons means that therefore I (and by extension most everyone now living) have nothing to say about it; that we the living are subject, without review or revision, to the laws of dead men. It is, whatever it is, written in stone from henceforth and for all time. End of story, say they.

What a slave mentality this is! I'm not sure I can put a finger on the exact cause of this mindless, slavish mentality seemingly prevalent among the masses, but the public education system in American, such as it is at this moment in time, can't be helping matters any. And it can't be helpful that we've opened the door wide to peoples and cultures and traditions which can have little knowledge or understanding of what freedom is and how to maintain it, and thus to pass it on to posterity.

It is in this vein that Dr. Yeagley (who I seem to recall once argued this very line with me here at Webster's. I'd have to go back and check the archives to be sure) has an interesting entry up over at BadEagle.com concerning certain internal governing characteristics of the Comanche Tribal Constitution and the term restrictions (term limits) it imposes on its Chief Executive Officer. Dr. Yeagley complains (and his complaint is warranted in my opinion, irrespective of who currently occupies the seat) that the Comanche constitution established by dead men contains a flaw that needs to be corrected by none other than the living. What a novel concept! Yeagley's complaint is not only leveled at the imposition on the Chief of the tribe himself, but the imposition on the Comanche people which denies them the right to select a given Chief as many times in succession as they themselves choose to select him. Yeagley goes further even, complaining that the very institution of elections is not a Comanche tradition; that [dead] White men imposed this institution on the Comanche people in 1934, though I don't get the impression he's arguing that the entirety of the Comanche constitution should be scrapped.

Dr. Yeagley writes:

Nick Tahchawwickah and I see precious value in our present leadership. We recently presented a proposal to the Comanche Business Committee about an amendment to our Comanche Constitution that would insure continuation of that leadership. When a true leader appears among the Comanche, we think the people have the right to maintiain his leadership as long as they want. Under our current Constitution, imposed by the Bureau of Indian Affiars in 1934, our chiefs can remain in office only for two consecutive terms. Then they must be out of office, at least one term, before they can run again. This is certainly foreign and contrary to the old Comanche ways. Leaders were [n't] 'elected' in the first place. They evolved into the position by natural selection. And they certainly were never "changed" regularly by scheduled elections. This is a bit bizarre for Comanches, actually. Tahchawwickah and I want an amendment which will allow unlimited terms. (The new, proposed Constitution, which hasn't come to a vote yet, does not even address the matter of terms or term limits.)

I personally find very interesting Yeagley's choice of terms in the foregoing paragraph. For instance where he invokes the language of Darwinian natural selection. But that's a side issue not necessarily related to this post. The main point is that Dr. Yeagley's complaint (again, a valid complaint in my opinion) is with the imposition of a dead generation of White men on a living generation of Comanches, the illegitimacy of which I've been arguing all along. Dr. Yeagley asserts that living Comanches have the right to adjust their Tribal Constitution to their own liking, or, as the Declaration of Independence puts it:

...that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the People to alter or abolish it, and to create new guards for their future security. ...organizing its powers in such form as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.

And I most certainly agree. This is just a no-brainer, one of those "self-evident truths" spoken of in the DoI -- that governments are instituted among men deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. The governed in the foregoing statement are minimally the living. They're more than just the living, of course, but that's what they are at a bare minimum. Beyond that bare minimum as applies to the Comanche People and their governing Constitution, they (living Comanches) have every right to determine for themselves what qualifications are requisite for their own citizenship, for their own leadership and so forth and so on. If the general sense of the Comanche People is that term limiting their Tribal Chief is bad for Comanches, then let them remove this imposition from their governing constitution.

We've had our own discussions (though I don't recall taking the issue up here at Webster's) about the illegitimacy of term limiting our governors under the United States, particularly the term limit imposed on the presidency by the 22nd amendment, U.S. Constitution, which serves as a good example for us to look to. It is one of those things that when you get into the depth of the subject you begin to realize how very detrimental to good politics term limits are, notwithstanding their popularity among the ignorant masses, as well as the "good intentions" of those who advocate for term limits. But beyond that, term limits can be nothing more and nothing less than depriving the People of a choice they may have otherwise made in exclusion of them. The best way to regulate the amount of damage a bad politician can inflict is to hold regular elections, and to make him subject to impeachment and prosecution according to law. If you have a policy in place which artificially regulates how long a given politician can serve in a given capacity, then you end up with that "lame duck" situation that generally attends the second terms of U.S. Presidents. In other words, I would argue, and have argued, with regard to this concept of term limits, that a good politician can be made bad and that a bad politician can be made worse by the very institution of (artificial) term limits itself.

But of course it is all written in stone now, so I have no say in the matter. I should therefore take my place as a slave to the policies and enactments of dead men.

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What's in a name?

Imagine that someone by the name of Hussein Abdullah Mohammed, or some such, were running for Choctaw Indian Chief. Imagine that this same Hussein Abdullah Mohammed (or some such) could not and/or would not provide proof of his degree of Indian blood when requested by a suspicious member of the Choctaw tribe. What would be the likely reaction from Choctaw Indian voters?

Racists!; Extremists!; Wackos!!!

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The Saga continues

Below is the latest in the ongoing saga between a dyed-in-the-wool irrational leftist coward and yours truly:

Jayrock writes:

I never said I didn't understand the constitution. Also I like how Terry, like many other ring wing extremists, with great hubris, insists that anyone that doesn't align themselves with his own narrow minded idea of what an American is, is a traitor and is plotting to ovethrow the government. This also apparently merely voting for Obama makes you an enemy, not of him, but of the COUNTRY.

TM writes:

Above is a prime example of leftist irrationality. Jayrock complains that I took his words concerning himself and followed them to the caboose. To the Jayrocks of the world one can state that he doesn't study the constitution, but if he doesn't say explicitly that he does not understand the constitution then all his statement means is that he doesn't study it; that he can and does understand it without studying it. The Jayrocks of the world believe that they can act in perfect accordance with the constitution without (admittedly) having studied it. If this is true it can be by none other, beyond the miraculous or divine intervention, than pure accident.

Beyond that, after vehemently complaining that I revealed the implied meaning of his explicit statements, calling me a head case for doing so, Jayrock engages the tack of reading into my statements about Jayrock that it is my (apparent) position that simply voting for Obama makes one an enemy of America bent on its destruction. Uh, Jayrock, where explicitly have I said that? A: I haven't, nor have I implied it.

The difference is that Jayrock's statement -I don't study the constitution- leads directly to the conclusion that he cannot understand the constitution (imagine Jayrock's reply to me if I claimed an understanding of his people and its heritage, yet admitted that I do not study the history of the Indian People). Whereas my statements about his support for Obama do not necessarily lead to his conclusion derived therefrom that I think simply voting for Hussein Obama means that you're an enemy of the United States, which simply does not follow from my statements.

Indeed, implicit in my statements about voting for Obama is the idea that one may ignorantly cast a vote for the man without being an enemy of America, avowed or otherwise. If it were my position that simply voting for Obama, or for McCain for that matter, or any other candidate, makes one an enemy of the United States, I wouldn't beat around the bush about it, I'd simply come out and say it.

But when you boil it all down, I'm very disappointed in Jayrock. I was working under the impression that Jayrock, unlike most leftists, had the guts to say what he really feels about America and to stand by those statements when confronted on them. At least that would be respectable. But it turns out that Jayrock is just another dyed-in-the-wool irrational leftist coward who lets his mouth overload his hind parts, then attempts to defend himself by casting aspersions at the feet of his opponents. Too bad.

The bottom line is this, if leftists do not want to be called on the carpet for their statements and the implied meaning of their statements, then they need to exercise a little self-discipline and avoid making statements which imply they are avowed enemies of the United States and its governing constitution. But that, of course, would be inconsistent with a leftist worldview; a worldview which teaches its blind adherents that they should be able to make any statement to the effect with absolute impunity. Jayrock is a good example of how modern society has failed America's youth.

A sad commentary, but that's the way it is.

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An extreme example of a self-evident truth

I've written before about the abject stupidity of giving people citizenship under the United States while allowing them to retain their citizenship status under another soveriegn nation (name one), and vice versa. This can result in but one outcome -- one of the two will be preferred over the other by the individual possessing dual citizenship, and he will exercise his citizenship priveleges in the less favored of the two in a way that he perceives is the advantage of the nation and people to which he commits his loyalties.

Below is a good example of what I'm talking about, albeit an extreme and an unusually open one. Nonetheless, apply the principle (which is irrefutable) to others who enjoy and utilize the same benefits as the commenter below, yet are more stealthy in their subversive activities. This comprises the domestic enemy that we really need to be worried about:

Jayrock writes to me:

Terry quite the contrary I don't have a loyalty to YOUR people or what they stand for. I am American Indian. I'm not a Republican on a witch hunt, sorry, or I take that back...I'm not.

In other words, Jayrock has no loyalty to white-devil America or its government, past, present or future, but he enjoys the benefit of having dual citizenship under the U.S. and his particular Indian tribe to which all his loyalties are devoted, or so he thinks. And he intends to use his U.S. citizenship priveleges as part of a subversive scheme to destroy MY people and everything that WE stand for. And how is Jayrock going to do this? He's going to vote for Obama change, of course. Even someone as brain-dead as Jayrock knows that Obama represents the antithesis of what America has historically stood for, and this is the reason he supports him. It's not that Jayrock gives a hoot about Obama per se, it is that, to Jayrock's way of thinking, Obama is a useful pawn for achieving his (Jayrock's) ultimate end of destroying White America for its sins against his people. A once in a lifetime opportunity to punish Whitey has come Jayrock's way, and he isn't about to miss the taking advantage of it. He doesn't seem to realize that if his ends are achieved Native Americans will fall with us.

Update: My Indian opponent, Jayrock, has pulled an arrow from his quiver and launched it with his thirty pound Native American bow.

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Anti-Americanism

I've been meaning to post an entry dealing with the image you see to the left for several weeks now. I first saw the image while visiting Dad's little shop in my hometown several months back. Dad had, prominently displayed on a wall of his shop, a T-shirt with this image on it. Does this image elicit in you the same level of anti-anti-American sentiment that it does me? And why?

BTW, my dad is one of the most "American" people I know. Indeed, it would take a book's worth of illustrations to account for all the pro-American principles I was taught as a child. So the question is, why would Dad display such an image proudly as he does? (Dad: you're free to answer the question yourself.)

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My Indian opponent finally comes clean

Jason A., a.k.a. jdogg, finally comes clean with me about his attitude concerning his Indianness and how it trumps his Americanness, among other things.

Jason's revelations, of course, are no surprise to me. I've been stating repeatedly in our discussion in this thread that this is the case; that anyone (not just Indians, but certainly Indians too) having dual citizenship must, by virtue of that dual citizenship, divide his loyalties between the two competing entities. And anytime this happens, one of the two is going to take precedence over the other. For Jason, he's an Indian first, and an American ... somewhere down the line.

Jason writes:

You are American, I am Native first, then American. What you argue for makes you basically my enemy. It's against the best interests of my people.

If I had it my way a statement like that would automatically disqualify such person making the statement from being a U.S. citizen. But we ain't there yet.

Well, Jason thinks that what I'm advocating is against the best interests of his people. But as I've been pointing out all along, in that thread and elsewhere, it can never be in the best interest of his people nor in the best interest of my people for his people or my people, or any people for that matter, to have dual citizenship in two distinctive political entities with two distinctive sets of interests. This is clearly and simply an impossibility. And what more evidence of the fact do we need than Jason's own hostile admission?

Another of my positions that Jason complains about is my perfectly reasonable position that dead men should have no power to rule over the living, whether they be dead Indians or dead whites, or in this particular case both. (I brought this out with Yeagley earlier in the discussion, at which point he abandoned the conversation. But can you blame him? I mean, think about it, what would it mean either way he answered the question?)

In other words, there is no law or treaty or constitution, nor any contract negotiated between men that can ever have the oppressive force of being sacredly and inviolably binding on future generations who do not willingly give their consent to it. Indeed, as the Declaration of Independence states "...that to secure these rights governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed." There is no truth more evident to my mind (no truth more self-evident) than that "the governed" of which Mr. Jefferson speaks are in fact "the living."

Most of you are also aware (though I wonder about Jason) that the DoI also states "...that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the People to alter or abolish it." Again, we're talking about the living here, which means, people alive at this particular moment in history; me and you. For how can dead men alter or abolish anything in the here and now? But let us turn our attentions to the word "alter" in the foregoing statement for just a moment.

Jason seems to believe that if we decide to alter any point in any treaty made between dead whites and dead Indians, to his peoples' perceived disadvantage, then whites have once again broken the terms of an agreement that he believes is written in stone for all eternity. Meanwhile, Jason, in what he perceives to be the interests of his people the Indians, is going to do all he can to build upon, to add to what was originally agreed to in the treaties made between Indians and whites. I don't know about you, but I'm not inclined to be a slave to anyone, living or dead. But I'm telling you folks, I know a lot of Indians of one degree or another, and this is the general attitude among those that I know. I'm not saying all Indians share this view, I'm simply saying that this is the general attitude among Indians I know personally.

But Jason's attitude makes me wonder whether the main point of contention between Indians and whites, which is now commonly understood to be the fault of whites because they/we broke the terms of the bargain, is in fact this very point of a difference in governmental philosophy? For is it not so that a Paternal attitude toward the government of men is in direct conflict with that form of government which our founding fathers established on this continent? We know that our founding fathers borrowed much from Mr. Locke who, in his treatise on Government thoroughly dispenses with the idea of Paternal authority as a ruling principle among free men.

Anyway, I don't want to delve into it in this particular post, but I think it can be shown that the fourteenth amendment, the establishment of a U.S. citizenship, and all the things we've discussed before which derive therefrom, relates very closely to this whole issue of dual citizenship. Perhaps I'll take that up in a future entry. Stay tuned.

(Incidentally, the image I've posted above is titled, of all things, Founding Fathers. Am I seeing a problem or six here?)

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Bad Eagle.com on Indian Gaming

For anyone interested in the discussion Dr. Yeagley and I have been having here at Webster's, Dr. Yeagley has taken the issue up over at his website Bad Eagle.com in this entry where he writes:

If white people want to gamble away their money at Indian casinos, Indians have every right to accept.

Then in the next paragraph he states the following:

It is most unbecoming for a Christian to decry ill-gotten gain of Indian casinos on the basis of apparent business advantage. That's practically irrelevant. Let the Christian denounce the evil profits on the basis of the immorality of gambling.

Dr. Yeagley seems to want to have it both ways. While he agrees with me that gambling is morally wrong; that the money Indians make from their casinos is "ill-gotten," somehow he justifies Indian gaming on the basis that Whites are stupid enough to gamble away their money at Indian casinos. It's on the order of saying something like "I think stealing is immoral, but if the teller at the bank is stupid enough to be distracted by my antics and gives me $500. for a $400. check, that's her mistake, she should have been more attentive to her business."

Now, I realize that that's not a completely accurate analogy, but they never are. The point, however, is this, gambling casinos use all kinds of enticements to get people to literally throw their money away. What it boils down to is taking advantage of peoples' weaknesses in order to rob them of their substance. But as an advocate of the Indian people who believes that gambling is morally wrong and therefore gaming is an illegitimate business, you'd think that Dr. Yeagley would be concerned about preserving and improving upon the morality of his own people, which is to say that you'd think he'd denounce Indian involvement in the corrupt business of gaming. But all Dr. Yeagley can do is justify the immorality of Indian involvement in the gaming industry by saying that Whites have it coming because they're stupid enough to gamble, and Indians are well justified in preying on White stupidity. You know, payback.

As I've said so many times before, people can quite literally justify anything irrespective of how immoral or self-destructive it is.

Update:

The discussion continues over at Dr. Yeagley's place, but I seem to be having some difficulty getting past Dr. Yeagley's firewall again.

I'm really just seeking the answer to a couple of questions. (1) Does Dr. Yeagley support Indian involvement in the corrupt gaming industry or not? He's never answered that question directly. And (2) on what basis does he say that white Christians have no right to condemn Indian casinos politically? I assert that I have every right to oppose casinos both morally and politically, whether they're run by Indians or not.

Also, there's another issue that I think I mentioned in my comments that haven't gotten through. Dr. Yeagley seems to be giving the Indian Nations a free pass on gambling in his reply to me when he says that Indians don't see gambling as a sin. Ok, I think I can make a pretty strong case that the vast majority of whites involved in gaming, whether they be financiers or simple everyday gamblers or whatever, don't see anything morally wrong with gambling either. Does this mean that I'm to give them a free pass as well? Does this mean that I can only oppose white gambling morally, but not politically?...

Additionally, there's some confusion over the issue of Indian sovereignty. Yeagley seems to believe that Indian sovereignty and dual citizenship for Indians are like a matching set; you don't get the one without the other. I strongly disagree with this view. Indeed, I'm more apt to believe that the Indian Nations cannot truly ever be "sovereign" political entities so long as their people have dual citizenship both in the U.S. and their respective Indian Nations. Where am I going wrong?

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Oklahoma Indians, here's your man

Attention uninformed conservative Okies: The advertisement you see to the left is merely a temporary thing. You needn't worry with it any more.

Here's Dr. David Yeagley endorsing Republican Jason Nelson for District 87 House. Now, I don't live in Dr. Yeagley's district so I have no say in who's elected to that seat. And I haven't read anything on our candidate outside Dr. Yeagley's endorsement. What concerns me are the grounds on which Yeagley endorses our Indian-friendly candidate, Mr. Nelson:

If you're an Indian, and you live in District 87 (central Oklahoma City), you must vote for Jason Nelson for your state representative. I ran into Jason yesterday evening, while walking through my neighborhood. He was campaigning, house to house. I spoke a good while with him. I'm convinced, he's the best man for Indians.

No, he doesn't say a word about Indians in any of his campaign material or on his web site. But, I'm telling you, I spoke with him personally, at length. I know what he believes, feels, and thinks about Oklahoma Indians. He's our man! (Also told me his wife was part Chickasaw!)

Now, Dr. Yeagley, how many otherwise white-looking folks in Oklahoma have a bit of Chickasaw or Choctaw or Cherokee running through their veins? This fact Mr. Nelson reveals about his wife surprises you and delights you? I don't get it.

Well, I could go on and on and on about why Dr. Yeagley's encounter with Mr. Nelson on the streets of his neighborhood in OKC cannot possibly have been enough to convince him of all that ... unless he's an utter fool. One single (lengthy) encounter with a candidate selling his candidacy (to an Indian) in his neighborhood and Dr. Yeagley's ready to grab up his megaphone and announce to the world "I know all there is to know about him Indian-wise, he's our man!"? C'mon!

But it does get worse, believe it or not...

As I said, he's not campaigning on this. He also knows the prejudice and fears of many uninformed conservatives toward the subject of Indian casinos. But he knows this casino binge is a temporary thing. Wise Indian leaders, like Chickasaw Governor Bill Anoatubby for instance, know that the tribes must diversify. They cannot afford to put all their eggs in one basket. They must invest in other businesses besides the entertainment business.

The "prejudice and fears of many uninformed conservatives" toward the subject of Indian Casinos? Well now, that's about all this prejudiced, fearful, uninformed conservative needs to know right there.

But because this "casino binge" is a "temporary thing," Nelson understands that Indians have to diversify. In other words, this casino thing is not a temporary thing at all, it is, quite to the contrary, and if "wise" Indian leaders have anything to do with it, a long term business venture which the Indian nations have no plans to abandon, only to build upon. Mr. Nelson has secretly confided to Dr. Yeagley (but doesn't say anything about his plans on his campaign website) that he believes Oklahoma has to work with the Indian nations on diversifying in get-rich-quick money making schemes -- you know, cut backdoor deals with them (reduced taxes and whatnot). Look out Oklahoma, if this Republican is elected Pyramid schemes may, for the first time in Oklahoma's history, become legal (Indian) means for making money. And of course it's essential to our State's economic growth that Oklahoma's government work with the Indian nations to make these business schemes legal, at least for Indians.

One last word about "Indian money." I've written about this before, but when I was in Alaska in the early 1990s, there was a push for "homosexual rights" in the state, and more locally in Anchorage. One of the things that homosexuals (and their advocates) engaged in at the time was to attempt to show what a great economic contribution homosexuals were making to the local economy. One way in which they did this was to deface any money that came into their possession by whatever means with a stamp that read "gay money." Indeed, for a time it seemed that virtually all paper currency circulating in the Anchorage area was "gay money," if you were to take what was stamped on it at "face value." That in itself should be enough to illustrate the stupidity of using the term "Indian money." But perhaps Dr. Yeagley would like to start a similar campaign with his Indian brethren and their casino money?

Sorry dad. The more Indians speak, the more I dislike them, notwithstanding all that Chickasaw, Choctaw and Cherokee blood that runs through these veins. I know, I know, my Indian ancestors bought and paid for all this ... stuff. Right.

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