Boone Cole: “Well, [Native Americans are] not Americans, first.”
Jerry Laskody: “Well they are the first Americans, right?”
Boone Cole: [audible groan], group laughter [Wayne Blevins, Ted Hein, Jerry Laskody, Boone Cole].
Ted Hein: “They were granted citizenship in 1924. That’s interesting in itself.”
Jerry Laskody: “ Well that’s the thing, they have dual citizenship. They have all the benefits of living here—and all the—.I mean they don’t pay for roads in the county, they don’t —.they’re not really a government, though.”
10 comments
But they were here when you came from Britain, right?
That means you took land that was being used for public purposes.
And now you're denying that the people who were using that land were Americans.
I give you an F-.
You failed constitutional law forever.
1° They were granted citizenship in 1924 after Indian conscripts fought in WWI and to better include them to the general society ("That’s interesting in itself”), but were there since 80,000 years, apart if you still believe in Manifest Destiny.
2° Indian governments are considered as "domestic dependent nations" directly depending of the Congress and upon whom the States have reduced powers - so much a specific law was needed to make the Bill of Rights apliable in the reservations -; however, Indians are subject to U.S. law and pay Federal taxes, just not the State taxes.
Oh, boy. Tea Partiers showing off their humanitarianism again. Lovely bunch of people.
Pretty sure Native Americans do pay taxes. But the tea party darlings have no business scolding people for not paying taxes. Because everybody knows how they feel about everyone paying their fair share.
1) This was their land first. We bargained at first for shared hunting and occupation rights (which was a murky business and the different concepts of ownership between the two cultures was abused routinely) but soon took it by force when the spallpox epidemic the pilgrims brought with them killed the vast majority of Natives and the influx of rifles and regular supply lines made it look like a fight we could win. Moved in as renters, stole the entire house and locked the original owners in the basement, then gave them the guest room with conditions. Yeah. "Interesting" describes it as well as any word can in polite company.
2) Reservations don't have the benefits of American society and depending on location and levels of prejudice are often the equivilant of trailer parks. This may come as a surprise, but most bands don't own a casino. Native Americans are not exempt from paying income taxes barring rare treaties that must be properly applied for and documented, but dodging the IRS is extremely popular among the wealthiest of Americans despite them already paying less proportionally than the average working stiff.
3) The structure of the American government was specifically based on the Iroquios Confederacy after the war of Independence. If you're denouncing their legitimacy based on structure, you've just denounced your own government. If you denounce them based on how seriously they're taken by others you just shot yourselves in the foot.
4) I'm a high school dropout from a foreign country, what's your excuse for being so ignorant of American history, politics, and culture?
Confused?
So were we! You can find all of this, and more, on Fundies Say the Darndest Things!
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