OPINION: Is federal government encouraging U.S. Indian-Mideastern interactions?

It has been reported that the town of Browning might have to disincorporate or declare bankruptcy over an ongoing dispute with the Blackfeet Tribe about water and utility service.

A similar fate once threatened the Village of Hobart, Wisconsin, and now threatens Shawnee, Oklahoma, and many other communities. So what is the problem with removing municipal government for tribal government jurisdiction? Tribal governments do not allow non-tribal residents any voice in their government, and have no duty to protect or serve them. Tribes just want to tax, govern or chase non-Indians away. Rightful government of American citizens on Indian reservations is gone when states, counties and towns spinelessly give up.

More serious is enormous escalation of tribal governance over non-tribal persons, businesses and properties resulting in the removal of state authority and responsibility for its citizens. Citizens are losing their government when they succumb to bullying, name-calling, frivolous litigation, appeasement, and acquiescence to every tribal demand. The price is the loss of government that serves and protects you —– the U.S. and state constitutions.

Indian reservations are co-located within states, multiple counties and numerous towns. Among the 566 federally recognized tribes, some 340 Indian reservations are located directly within or near urban areas as well. Only two or three Indian reservations are predominantly populated with Indians. The vast majority of reservations are home to a large non-Indian population. Congress intended and fully opened Indian reservations to encourage settling of the West, and citizenship for Indians. That is the reality that federal, state, local and tribal governments now find unacceptable.

Early Indian treaties executed by either the Department of War or the Department of the Interior served two people and two purposes: to provide land and protection for Indian tribes and to keep the settlers safe. Every Indian treaty has a clause requiring open public roads through reservations, and a clause requiring Indians to “cause no depredation” (harm) to settlers. The Bureau of Indian Affairs originally looked to the well-being of all folks in the West, not just Indians until 1934. The Indian Reorganization Act was a paradigm shift for the BIA, which from 1934 on focused only on Indians, hired only Indians and facilitated expansion of tribal governance to the exclusion of state authority and citizen protections on reservations.

The Obama administration poured accelerant into the expansion of tribalism with two recent, alarming policies:

1) President Obama decided that the nation’s public utilities, power and energy grid are good “economic development” for conversion to Indian tribal assets. Obama and Congress have funded billions of dollars out to tribes for transitioning major dams, energy corporations, and confiscation and control of water across the country.

2) Obama and Congress have determined that tribal government interactions with Middle Eastern countries is now a great idea for Indian “economic development,” too (the Hearth Act of 2012).

Domestic tribalism and Middle Eastern tribalism have shared cultural norms (communalism) and a common adversary: the United States. The White House views big Middle Eastern money (Turkey, Saudi Arabia, etc.) tucked away on private Indian tribal “trust” lands as good for Indians and America. Tribal trust land is off-limits to all state and local government eyes.

Am I kidding? No, we should be very concerned. For the doubtful, visit the www.aljazeera.com website to see how significantly America’s Indian tribes are being tracked and engaged. Just enter the search word “tribe.”

In my opinion, we will now have wealthy little sharia compounds on Indian reservations to add to the 190 cities designated to receive Syrian refugees. Obama is polka-dotting the entire country with sharia enclaves to enrich Indian tribes and reflect our generous heart for immigrants. Our blind, deaf and dormant Congress has held its nose and endorsed all of this.

Promises made by Congress to “Go West, Young Man” were just as valid and perpetual as any promise made to Indian tribes. It was Young Man who built the first schools, churches, small towns, farms and ranches, all on the faith that Congress provided in the Homestead Act and other legislation. Young Man built this country. For the past several decades, however, promises made to settlers and their descendants have been politically stained and reversed. We are told America should not have sent Young Man west. Indian tribes want their reservations and “aboriginal lands” restored to their natural habitat. Every non-Indian should be shamefully sorry forever, and gone soon. The lack of appreciation for Young Man and coddling of tribal governments is chilling.

This is what pockets of apartheid now bolstered with more of the same from Middle Eastern countries are doing to America. This is what unequal, hyphenated-Americans and “cultural diversity” has created. “Americans” is a wrong and ugly word in its own country. I practice daily free thought, free speech and due process, and am keenly aware of my rights under the federal and state constitutions. I absolutely refuse to tolerate that my own citizenship in this country is denounced as inferior to that of any other American citizen.

We have a growing national epidemic but the impacts first strike locally, in one zip code after another, one town after another, one county after another. It is coming to your front porch.

State, county and local governments within Indian reservations absolutely must stand tall no matter the severity of well-funded special tribal governments funded by you, to defeat you. States must act as fully separate constitutional sovereigns on equal footing with each other, and independent of the federal government beyond its enumerated rights.

Every single American, including tribal members living within or near an Indian reservation in 2016, must commit to “If you see something, say something.” We are either strong and equal citizens protecting ourselves and country, or the perfect storm is set to take us down sooner than we even know. 

Willman, of Ronan, is the author of “Going to Pieces,” a book about Indian reservations and federal corruption.