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NeoNote — Achievement

Pardon, but if you are going to drag "levels of achievement" into the picture, you should acknowledge that the Diné are an oppressed people whose culture was actively suppressed for generations and to this day can't legally borrow against their property and have had their mineral rights "mismanaged" (stolen!) by the US government.

As Hernando De Soto argues brilliantly in The Mystery of Capital, you can't borrow against your property without being able to show clear title. Being able to borrow is the key to capitalism. Without capitalism, nations are pretty much locked into poverty. And the FedGovs have deliberately kept "the Rez" Amerindians out of the American Dream.

None of which has anything to do with the validity or worth of their customs and traditions.



No, but being oppressed keeps one from achievement. And when it persists for generations, well, something is basically wrong.

Look, you've read enough of my stuff to know that I despise the politics of victimhood. I'm telling you that there is a problem here. Native Americans living on the Rez are legally barred from things that most Americans take for granted. The "right to vote" was handed out piecemeal until the Voting Rights Act of 1965. States conspired to keep Amerindians off the voting rolls. And that is just one example.



*shrug* Western Civilization is rooted in pluralism. That means that people are free to make their own choices and accept responsibility for those choices. Some are going to work, some won't. Some few will work better than anything else tried before.

You can't have cultural advances unless people can break the rules if they choose.



Subject nations.

Believe me, you really don't want to get into the treaties with the Amerindian tribes. It's a collection of American dishonor. It should shame you, it shames me.
NeoNotes are the selected comments that I made on other boards, in email, or in response to articles where I could not respond directly.
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