Libertarian Commentary #16-15A, by Nathan Barton
I am working on various projects in “Indian Country” – that is the official FedGov term for the AmerInd reservations and “trust lands” which are found across the nation in virtually every state, if not everyone (yes, even Deleware and New Jersey have these places. A correspondent from the Rosebud (Margaret) shared some stories and made comments about the decline in society and morality, and what we expect of people (norms).
This is one of the stories, from Alaska: where first-grader girls have been accused of a plot to poison a classmate. KTLA and CNN reported that three first-graders in Alaska’s largest city plotted to kill a fellow student with silica gel packets that the girls believed was poison. The three have been suspended but not charged with any crime. (For crying out loud, even though they are only six or seven, little boys who try to kiss little girls are charged with sex crimes for doing it – conspiracy to murder is EXEMPT?) Parents of the 32 first-graders attending Winterberry Charter School in Anchorage got word of the plot in a March 22 email from the principal. The three female students acknowledged that they planned to poison a female classmate, school district officials said.” [Steve Trinward’s comment on the story is telling: “Okay … WTF? First-graders? Armageddon surely approacheth”] The problem is part the parents, but a charter school is STILL a government-run/tax-funded school. And I bet the parents let these girls watch network and cable television; even the Disney Channel and The Cartoon Network are filled with trash.
Margaret and several other people mentioned a bizarre series of incidents on the Rosebud and Pine Ridge (Lakota nations/reservations in SW South Dakota), none of which are reported in ANY news outlet but are definitely real. I won’t go into details, or even list all of them. But one involved the corpse of a teenage suicide. During the wake/funeral service for the boy, a group of other boys of similar age (apparently classmates) showed up and began beating the corpse in the casket with their fists, until family members could intervene and get the body moved to a new location. Even in Anglo-American culture, this is incredible: disrespectful and viewed as evil. In Lakota culture, it is even a worse act.
For 140 years, the Oglala Lakota of Pine Ridge and the Sicangu Lakota of the Rosebud have been living in the world’s oldest continuous Socialist-Communist “experiment” under the thumb of corrupt political appointees of the FedGov, viewed as a source of graft and fear by those around them. The morality essential to any society and civilization (and the Lakota and their brethren of the Seven Council Fires, which are commonly called the Great Sioux Nation, considered themselves civilized) disappeared even before the people were forced into the present reservations and put under the daily control of government agents; their own and the FedGov’s goons. Now, after seven generations, society has decayed and getting constantly worse. The cause is NOT drugs and alcohol. These are effects and results. As long as the causes, especially government and its education and influence are not addressed, the effects will get worse.
It is happening in the mainstream, larger society as well. Consider this story from the National Center for Political Analysis about a “Free Health Clinic” for Montana State Employees. Montana’s 11,000 state workers, retirees and their dependents now have a “free” employee health clinic. The state believes it can reduce costs because the facility doesn’t have a “markup”… The Lakota and other AmerInd nations have “enjoyed” government health care (the Indian Health Service and its predecessors, now part of the Public Health Service and DHHS (not to be confused with DHS), for 100+ years, and you will find nowhere in the First World a worse set of health and longevity statistics. Montana, enjoy your new status as a reservation that contains reservations. Watch your society’s decay speed up, your morality vanish, and all of the other benefits. (And don’t get me started on “free.”)
We see so much of this that we accept this kind of immorality, chaos and evil in society as the new norm. As we do the expansion of government. Montana has only about 1.2 million people: why do they need an incredible 11,000 employees (and that doesn’t count schools and counties and other local “governments” nor tribal nor federal)? We have become desensitized; calloused. Our consciences are seared.
No fuss made, for example, about this next trend. AASHTO Journal reports that State Departments of Transportation (DOT) across the nation are using drones to “improve safety, collect data, and cut costs.” And also, apparently to generate more revenue, by working with their local “State Police” or “State Patrol” or other jack-booted thug traffic control agency. That data can and does include speeds, license plates, and observations of vehicles that might be “unsafe” and carrying “contraband.” And no one sees this as anything but good? Yes, there are many good uses to which UAVs can be put, but when you let government have them, these rapidly are outnumbered by the bad things. We have indeed been inured to accept this kind of growth in power and ability to watch our every move.
Which brings me to a bit of fun. We too easily take things for granted, and accept bizarre things as everyday. Here are some “Dog bites man” stories, from CNS News this weekend. Read and weep.
First, we have the usual weekend killings in the Ummah. A wave of suicide attacks across Mesopotamia killed at least 29 people. According to the United Nations figures, at least 1,119 Iraqis were killed and 1,561 were wounded in March, a sharp increase from the previous month that stood at 670 killed and 1,290 wounded. The figures include 575 civilians killed and another 1,196 wounded. No word yet on the weekly death toll in Nigeria or any of the other places. One young man in Texas (a Muslim) sought to use the fact that most victims of terrorism in the world are themselves Muslims as a “reason” that Muslims should not be blamed for terrorism. But it appears that these people are being killed because they are the “wrong kind” of Muslim, similar to the way that Protestants killed Catholics and vice-versa in the wars of the 1500s and 1600s in Europe, which (oddly enough) were and are clearly recognized as “religious wars” unlike modern wars in the Muslim world, the Ummah.
Meet The Press lets Clinton say it in her own words, and she even calls that thing in the womb a “child” and a “person” in her interview. She says that no rights for unborn children dictated by Roe v. Wade is “enshrined” in the Constitution. Todd: When, or if, does an unborn child have constitutional rights? Clinton: Well, under our laws, currently, that is not something that exists. The unborn person doesn’t have constitutional rights. In other words, that child has exactly the same status as someone attending a wedding in a part of the Muslim world that the FedGov has declared a killing zone: no rights, no matter how human they are. And she is not just “okay” with that, she is PROUD of that.
And on the other side of the aisle, Face the Nation asked Trump about his views on abortion, summarizing a week in which that has been the “fuss of the week” in the GOP race for Massa. Why should this surprise anyone? It is the same REAL answer that GOP leaders have given for decades: for more than 40 years. Yes, Trump believes that abortion is murder, but “the laws are set and I think we have to leave it that way.” It is, in other words, just like drone attacks on wedding parties in Mesopotamia and Yemen and Syria; government-sanctioned murder. And while he is a bit uncomfortable about it, he doesn’t scream out the hypocritical slogans of most GOP politicians, and he isn’t going to change it (or so he says).
Mama’s Note: I wouldn’t change it either. No government action or “law” will make any difference. “Laws” do not prevent bad things from happening, obviously, especially when they affect the most intimate parts of our life. The only remedy for abortion, and most of our other real problems, is individual liberty. When people in general actively own their lives, and are responsible for the consequences of their choices and actions… responsible in every way but outside interference by force… then these things can be resolved peacefully.
In the meantime, all the outrage and screaming does no good. Along with everything else, I’m afraid I have outrage fatigue. So I’ll do what I can to demonstrate and teach positive values, especially non-aggression.
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The Price of Liberty 
Morality, Society, Norms and Government
Libertarian Commentary #16-15A, by Nathan Barton
I am working on various projects in “Indian Country” – that is the official FedGov term for the AmerInd reservations and “trust lands” which are found across the nation in virtually every state, if not everyone (yes, even Deleware and New Jersey have these places. A correspondent from the Rosebud (Margaret) shared some stories and made comments about the decline in society and morality, and what we expect of people (norms).
This is one of the stories, from Alaska: where first-grader girls have been accused of a plot to poison a classmate. KTLA and CNN reported that three first-graders in Alaska’s largest city plotted to kill a fellow student with silica gel packets that the girls believed was poison. The three have been suspended but not charged with any crime. (For crying out loud, even though they are only six or seven, little boys who try to kiss little girls are charged with sex crimes for doing it – conspiracy to murder is EXEMPT?) Parents of the 32 first-graders attending Winterberry Charter School in Anchorage got word of the plot in a March 22 email from the principal. The three female students acknowledged that they planned to poison a female classmate, school district officials said.” [Steve Trinward’s comment on the story is telling: “Okay … WTF? First-graders? Armageddon surely approacheth”] The problem is part the parents, but a charter school is STILL a government-run/tax-funded school. And I bet the parents let these girls watch network and cable television; even the Disney Channel and The Cartoon Network are filled with trash.
Margaret and several other people mentioned a bizarre series of incidents on the Rosebud and Pine Ridge (Lakota nations/reservations in SW South Dakota), none of which are reported in ANY news outlet but are definitely real. I won’t go into details, or even list all of them. But one involved the corpse of a teenage suicide. During the wake/funeral service for the boy, a group of other boys of similar age (apparently classmates) showed up and began beating the corpse in the casket with their fists, until family members could intervene and get the body moved to a new location. Even in Anglo-American culture, this is incredible: disrespectful and viewed as evil. In Lakota culture, it is even a worse act.
For 140 years, the Oglala Lakota of Pine Ridge and the Sicangu Lakota of the Rosebud have been living in the world’s oldest continuous Socialist-Communist “experiment” under the thumb of corrupt political appointees of the FedGov, viewed as a source of graft and fear by those around them. The morality essential to any society and civilization (and the Lakota and their brethren of the Seven Council Fires, which are commonly called the Great Sioux Nation, considered themselves civilized) disappeared even before the people were forced into the present reservations and put under the daily control of government agents; their own and the FedGov’s goons. Now, after seven generations, society has decayed and getting constantly worse. The cause is NOT drugs and alcohol. These are effects and results. As long as the causes, especially government and its education and influence are not addressed, the effects will get worse.
It is happening in the mainstream, larger society as well. Consider this story from the National Center for Political Analysis about a “Free Health Clinic” for Montana State Employees. Montana’s 11,000 state workers, retirees and their dependents now have a “free” employee health clinic. The state believes it can reduce costs because the facility doesn’t have a “markup”… The Lakota and other AmerInd nations have “enjoyed” government health care (the Indian Health Service and its predecessors, now part of the Public Health Service and DHHS (not to be confused with DHS), for 100+ years, and you will find nowhere in the First World a worse set of health and longevity statistics. Montana, enjoy your new status as a reservation that contains reservations. Watch your society’s decay speed up, your morality vanish, and all of the other benefits. (And don’t get me started on “free.”)
We see so much of this that we accept this kind of immorality, chaos and evil in society as the new norm. As we do the expansion of government. Montana has only about 1.2 million people: why do they need an incredible 11,000 employees (and that doesn’t count schools and counties and other local “governments” nor tribal nor federal)? We have become desensitized; calloused. Our consciences are seared.
No fuss made, for example, about this next trend. AASHTO Journal reports that State Departments of Transportation (DOT) across the nation are using drones to “improve safety, collect data, and cut costs.” And also, apparently to generate more revenue, by working with their local “State Police” or “State Patrol” or other jack-booted thug traffic control agency. That data can and does include speeds, license plates, and observations of vehicles that might be “unsafe” and carrying “contraband.” And no one sees this as anything but good? Yes, there are many good uses to which UAVs can be put, but when you let government have them, these rapidly are outnumbered by the bad things. We have indeed been inured to accept this kind of growth in power and ability to watch our every move.
Which brings me to a bit of fun. We too easily take things for granted, and accept bizarre things as everyday. Here are some “Dog bites man” stories, from CNS News this weekend. Read and weep.
First, we have the usual weekend killings in the Ummah. A wave of suicide attacks across Mesopotamia killed at least 29 people. According to the United Nations figures, at least 1,119 Iraqis were killed and 1,561 were wounded in March, a sharp increase from the previous month that stood at 670 killed and 1,290 wounded. The figures include 575 civilians killed and another 1,196 wounded. No word yet on the weekly death toll in Nigeria or any of the other places. One young man in Texas (a Muslim) sought to use the fact that most victims of terrorism in the world are themselves Muslims as a “reason” that Muslims should not be blamed for terrorism. But it appears that these people are being killed because they are the “wrong kind” of Muslim, similar to the way that Protestants killed Catholics and vice-versa in the wars of the 1500s and 1600s in Europe, which (oddly enough) were and are clearly recognized as “religious wars” unlike modern wars in the Muslim world, the Ummah.
Meet The Press lets Clinton say it in her own words, and she even calls that thing in the womb a “child” and a “person” in her interview. She says that no rights for unborn children dictated by Roe v. Wade is “enshrined” in the Constitution. Todd: When, or if, does an unborn child have constitutional rights? Clinton: Well, under our laws, currently, that is not something that exists. The unborn person doesn’t have constitutional rights. In other words, that child has exactly the same status as someone attending a wedding in a part of the Muslim world that the FedGov has declared a killing zone: no rights, no matter how human they are. And she is not just “okay” with that, she is PROUD of that.
And on the other side of the aisle, Face the Nation asked Trump about his views on abortion, summarizing a week in which that has been the “fuss of the week” in the GOP race for Massa. Why should this surprise anyone? It is the same REAL answer that GOP leaders have given for decades: for more than 40 years. Yes, Trump believes that abortion is murder, but “the laws are set and I think we have to leave it that way.” It is, in other words, just like drone attacks on wedding parties in Mesopotamia and Yemen and Syria; government-sanctioned murder. And while he is a bit uncomfortable about it, he doesn’t scream out the hypocritical slogans of most GOP politicians, and he isn’t going to change it (or so he says).
Mama’s Note: I wouldn’t change it either. No government action or “law” will make any difference. “Laws” do not prevent bad things from happening, obviously, especially when they affect the most intimate parts of our life. The only remedy for abortion, and most of our other real problems, is individual liberty. When people in general actively own their lives, and are responsible for the consequences of their choices and actions… responsible in every way but outside interference by force… then these things can be resolved peacefully.
In the meantime, all the outrage and screaming does no good. Along with everything else, I’m afraid I have outrage fatigue. So I’ll do what I can to demonstrate and teach positive values, especially non-aggression.
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About TPOL Nathan
Follower of Christ Jesus (a christian), Pahasapan (resident of the Black Hills), Westerner, Lover of Liberty, Free-Market Anarchist, Engineer, Army Officer, Husband, Father, Historian, Writer, Evangelist. Successor to Lady Susan (Mama Liberty) at TPOL.