The Price of Liberty

Imagine if the governor of every State in the union were banned from entering more than a tenth of the State by local governments? Good or bad? Nice or not-so-nice?

You don’t have to: look at South Dakota and see it today. According to Indian Country Today, an AmerInd (private) newspaper, South Dakota’s ninth AmerInd nation, the Flandreau Sioux Tribe, has banned South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem from entering their reservation.

South Dakota has nine tribal nations: Cheyenne River, Crow Creek, Flandreau, Lower Brule, Rosebud, Pine Ridge, Sisseton-Wahpeton, Standing Rock, and Yankton. All of them are members of the Seven Council Fires, usually known as the Great Sioux Nation. SD has more than 800,000 people: today only 8.5% are enrolled, but they have (as tribes) 12% of SD land. (Not counting any land they privately own.)

Why have they banned her? No, it isn’t because she killed a family dog. And it isn’t because she is (was) seeking to be The Donald’s running mate in November.

It is worse: she said the same thing that several Tribal Chairman in her State said about drug and crime problems on the various reservations: in particular Pine Ridge. (Home of the Oglala Lakota.) She said the various cartels (particularly the Mexican ones) had a presence in South Dakota and especially in the nine nations. And that crime – violent crime – was endemic on the homelands. Several of the Tribes have officially stated the same thing, and at least OST has sued the FedGov for failing to provide adequate police protection, which they claim is a treaty violation.

But because Noem is an “Anglo” and a “settler” (in Lakota, a wašíču: a non-AmerInd), she isn’t allowed to say that. So she must be humiliated: punished. Especially since she is a Republican, and therefore bears the blood guilt of all GOP types for Honest Abe Lincoln allowing 38 Dakota to be hanged in Minnesota for crimes in starting and waging the Minnesota or Dakota War or uprising. To listen to many, Honest Abe (in the middle of the War between the States) made a special trip to Mankato to pull the levers on the gallows himself. We suppose that is a good enough reason to hate Republicans as any. (We don’t hate Republicans – not even RINOs – here at TPOL: as with Democrats, we pity them, we sometimes fear their stupid actions, but especially we try to convert them to liberty.)

As may be, the mainstream media has enjoyed constantly trumpeting her ban or prohibition as tribe after tribe hopped on the bandwagon over the past few weeks. Of course, because she is (a) GOP, (b) favored by The Donald, (c) conservative (NOT libertarian), and (d) doesn’t play ball regarding such things as the Pandemic Panic and Open Borders.

Now, we have no idea (haven’t talked to her lately) whether (a) she is bothered by these bans, or (b) will abide by their wishes. And she certainly has her share of burdens right now: her book with the story of killing her family dog, the stories about playing favorites in various dealings, and other such things. We point out that as South Dakota governors go (Dem and GOP), she seems to be a bit more honest and clean than the average, if not as open.

Back in the heights of the Beer Flu and the Pandemic Panic (which she refused to go along with – thanks to listening to the legislators who warned her not to), several of the Lakota tribes actually banned people from even traveling through their reservations on state and federal highways. Bans to the extent of putting up roadblocks and checkpoints with armed guards to turn them around. Noem didn’t push it, but let the attorneys and common sense deal with the stupidity. (So stupid, a friend of ours here at TPOL, not an enrolled tribal member but married to one and with enrolled children, was told that if he left the reservation and went to any of the major cities in South Dakota, he wouldn’t be allowed back in unless he quarantined himself for a month in a motel (at his expense, of course. We smuggled supplies into him.)

This does remind us of the Occupy Movement and even the recent occupation of academic buildings on colleges to protest against Israel: but with a big difference. These tribal governments are (supposedly) elected democratically to represent their people: they are “legitimate” governments and not political groups.

So our question is, how likely is this to happen in other States – in the Fifty as a whole? If tribes in New Mexico suddenly decide they don’t like her Imperial Highness (Michelle Luhan Gresham), will they suddenly ban her? Keep her from going from Santa Fe to Albuquerque? (The only roads are through Pueblo reservations.) Or will black “homelands” in Mississippi or Alabama do the same to their States’ governors? Or will Muslims in the Detroit area do the same to that other tyrannical governor? Will this revive the “free zones” in Seattle or Portland?

As people attempt to and encourage factionalism, does this not seem likely?

We here at TPOL encourage rebellion against government – even under conditions like this. IF it is more than just a publicity stunt. And if there is not offensive action (and there does not seem to be in South Dakota’s case). We urge and support the efforts of all nine AmerInd nations in South Dakota to secede. Give up being dependents of the FedGov and skimming off the other taxpayers in SD for highways and unemployment and all the rest of the largesse of State government.

Even while we deplore the aggressive and even more ridiculous efforts of the LandBack movement, the bloodthirsty actions of the American Indian Movement, and the violent crime wave on reservations. There are ways to deal with those things, but the typical tactics of tribal councils and special interest groups are not the way to do so.