Posted by
Ed Lilly on Thursday, January 03, 2008 2:13:02 PM
Jonah Goldberg of National Review Online posted an excerpt from this online news story about the Lakota Indians withdrawing from various treaties with the U.S. The relevant bits:WASHINGTON (AFP) — The Lakota Indians, who gave the world legendary warriors Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse, have withdrawn from treaties with the United States, leaders said Wednesday.
"We are no longer citizens of the United States of America and all those who live in the five-state area that encompasses our country are free to join us," long-time Indian rights activist Russell Means told a handful of reporters and a delegation from the Bolivian embassy, gathered in a church in a run-down neighborhood of Washington for a news conference.
andLakota country includes parts of the states of Nebraska, South Dakota, North Dakota, Montana and Wyoming.
The new country would issue its own passports and driving licences, and living there would be tax-free -- provided residents renounce their US citizenship, Means said.
I'll leave it to the smarter lawyers like the guys from law review, as well as the folks who actually took the course in Native American Law in school, to debate the likelihood of the Lakota Country somehow becoming a truly free and independent country.
One thing that wouldn't surprise me, though, would be to find that in the coming months and years, if this issue continues to linger, people will start trying to claim citizenship in Lakota Country in order to avoid paying U.S. income taxes in much the same way as the geniuses who keep trying to tell us the entire income tax is unenforceable so you don't have to pay taxes.
While it may be a very interesting socio-political experiment if the Lakota were somehow able to become a separate, tax-free nation, my guess is they still have a very long hill to climb in order to get there.