2 PARAGRAPHS 4 LIBERTY: #169 “ABOLISH THE BUREAU OF INDIAN AFFAIRS!”

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Even though Henry Ford is not my favorite person in the world socially because he was basically Anti-Semitic, he made a comment that should make an imprint upon everybody’s thoughts by saying “Anyone who feels they can thrive by relying on the Government should talk to the American Indian.”  Look what that reliance has done for Native Americans for more than 200 years: low productivity, health, education and employment.  In fact, Native Americans as a class are mostly at the bottom of the every social and economic ladder.  So how has that happened?  Their lives on the reservations have mostly been governed by the Bureau of Indian Affairs, or BIA – which many Native Americans refer to as “Bossing Indians Around.” 

                  And these results should have been easy to predict.  Treat people as victims and that is what many will become.  Depriving them of the ability to own their own homes has translated into “Why remodel or improve the property if I don’t own it?” or “How can I start a small business if I can’t mortgage my house for seed money?”  And on and on.  No, if society would treat Native Americans like adults, they will soon get adult-like results.  For example, even though the stereotype was that the Irish drank too much, we never had a Bureau of Irish Affairs.  How is this any different with Native Americans?  What we have done to them is demeaning, harmful, limiting and self-defeating.  So the BIA should be phased out and soon eliminated.  Give Native Americans Liberty in the form of the responsibility of meeting their own needs, and that is what will happen.  It worked with the Irish!

Judge Jim Gray (Ret.)

2012 Libertarian candidate for Vice President, 

along with Governor Gary Johnson as the candidate for President

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Quote of the Week: “The challenge is not one of effort but of outcome.”  Thomas Parham, Incoming President of California State University at Dominguez Hills

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