The Natives Are Restless in North Dakota and New York

A reader from KHND Radio in Harvey, ND tipped me off to a story in his area in which the local Indian tribe has banned a person from entering the reservation because he was critical of the conditions there in an online blog post. Here's the story from the Grand Forks Herald:

The Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa has banished someone from its reservation for the second time since creating an "exclusion code" in 2006.

But the banished individual this time is not a suspected drug dealer, high-risk sex offender, or someone who has committed a serious crime. He's an Internet blogger.

Friday, the Turtle Mountain tribal council banished North Dakota political blogger Rob Port from the reservation after a column critical of the reservation appeared in a state political magazine.

The tribal resolution says Port's column was "injurious to the peace and seriously threatens the general welfare, health, safety, political security and prosperity of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa, its members, and other tribes in the state of North Dakota."

Port is under fire for a column that ran in the January issue of The Dakota Beacon, a political magazine published monthly in North Dakota. The column also appears on Port's blog.

Titled "The Appalling State of North Dakota Indian Reservations," the column stems from Port's daylong experience at the Turtle Mountain reservation, where he says he spent about 15 hours "going around neighborhoods and knocking on doors."

In his column, Port talks about the conditions of the homes he saw and the people he came into contact with while on the Turtle Mountain reservation.

He writes that living conditions on the reservation are "abhorrent" and continues with: "Most of us would probably consider living in a squalid apartment in a nasty housing complex a pretty serious consequence for not getting ahead in life, but it seems to me as though most of these Indians are perfectly content to live there. Probably because they don't know any better. They were likely raised in housing projects by their parents, who in turn were probably raised in housing projects themselves."

Port's column also calls for an end to reservations and "cradle-to-grave entitlements." "The safety net needs to be taken out from under Indians. The reservation system needs to end. . . . The time of tough love needs to begin, because that's the only way things are going to get better on these reservations."

Eight tribal council members voted to exclude Port from tribal lands. Tribal Chairman David "Doc" Brien signed the resolution into law Friday.

Rob Port has his incredulous reaction to the ban in this post at Say Anything. I'll bet if they had a casino at Turtle Mountain, like they do at every Indian reservation in California, those folks wouldn't be so anxious for this kind of bad publicity. Banning someone because of what they think may work for the Chippewa, but it's very unAmerican (though some Democrats are fond of doing that, too).

North Dakota isn't the only place where the natives are restless. New York's new governor, Eliot Spitzer, is having a battle of his own with the Seneca Indians of upstate New York. Spitzer wants the tribe to pay taxes on the gasoline and cigarettes the tribe sells tax-free to the public, which of course gives them a tremendous advantage over other retailers and takes millions out of the state's pocket (that part isn't so bad). In response, the Senecas are threatening to put up tollbooths on the New York State Thruway and charge every vehicle a fee for passing through the Seneca nation:

The Seneca Indian Nation said Thursday it will start charging the state a $1 toll for each vehicle that travels on the New York State Thruway in response to a proposal that would tax reservation sales of gasoline, cigarettes and other goods to non-Indian customers.

A stretch of the highway crosses the tribe's land in western New York.

"If New York state would just abide by their word and leave us alone, I think we'd get along much better," J.C. Seneca, co-chairman of the nation's Foreign Relations Committee, said Thursday.

The move is the latest in a series of Seneca reactions to Gov. Eliot Spitzer's plan, which is expected to bring $200 million into the state.

Motorists wouldn't have to directly pay the tax. The tribe plans to send the state a monthly bill for the tolls based on the state Thruway Authority's usage figures. Seneca leaders looked into buying a set of toll booths that are being removed from a Buffalo highway, but were told they were not for sale.

The state is not inclined to pay the tribe's tolls.

This is another example of how these reparations plans can come back to bite you. Trying to make up for centuries of bad behavior toward Native Americans, modern politicians have done some dumb things, and California is at the forefront.

At the risk of being banned myself, I've been critical of the California agreements which have allowed every tribe with a couple of acres to build massive casinos. The tribes are no dummies, either. They've used the initiative process in California to vote themselves all kinds of perks that aren't available to anybody else. I can't build a casino, but they can. I can't allow smoking in a public building that I own, but the casinos can. It's just a matter of time before tribes will be able to take their billions in gambling earnings and buy land anywhere they want, declare it a reservation, and build a new casino in your backyard. They can't do that yet, but it's coming.

It's time to take another look at all these compacts and agreements to see if what made sense in the 1800's still makes sense today.