Functional American Tribal Education

A couple of weeks ago there was a Wall Street Journal article about how bad some American Indian Tribal schools are in the US.  I thought the picture was one sided.  There are examples of functional tribes that believe in education and have prospered because of it.  The Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes of Western Montana have an excellent education system with an accredited 4 year college.   It didn't just happen.  The tribal council worked very hard for it because it was important to them.  They lobbied the state legislature to get laws that facilitated first their 2 year and then their 4 year college.

I know about this because my family owned a ranch on the Flathead Reservation from 1957 to 1963.  I was interested so I followed events there.  In about 1996, I was on a tour in Monument Valley, Utah.  The Navajo guide was chatting with my wife and me.  When I told her where I grew up, she said she went to college there.  It turns out that Salish Kootenai College is probably the top Native American College in the US. 

The tribe has a large timber operation, owns some hotels and casinos and even runs an electronics factory.  Their annual report, available on line, looks like a conglomerate with a nonprofit subsidiary.  In 1994, I stayed at their hotel in Polson, MT.  It was right on Flathead Lake, very well run and had no casino then.  I think the casinos were afterthoughts.  The nearest big town, Missoula, is about 40 miles away and only has about 45,000 people.  Usually, casinos have to be near large urban areas to make big money.

Original article

http://www.wsj.com/articles/changing-an-nfl-teams-name-wont-fix-indian-schools-1463783175

Take Government Back to First Principles

It's time for government to go back to first principles.  Government exists by the consent of the governed.  Government's purpose is to protect the life, liberty and property of the governed.  When John Locke explained these ideas in 1687, they were new.  When the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution were written, everybody knew them and both documents included the principles.  Today, both these ideas are either unknown or actively ignored.

It seems clear from the world wide frequency of government dysfunction, bankruptcy and collapse, that government is trying to do too much.

The first step in any analysis is problem identification.  In a governmental context that should mean consulting with the voters to see if they agree there is a problem.   It should not mean a slick presentation of an expensive solution to a problem the voters don't think they have.

The reason voters are angry is that they aren't being consulted while their taxes are being wasted on boondoggles.

Original article (subscription may be required):

http://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-sanders-and-the-populist-anti-policy-surge-1463700199

How Liberals Win Taints the Outcome

The issue is not who wins or loses. The issue is whether we preserve the rule of law or not. When the Supreme Court struck down the Defense of Marriage Act, there were not many complaints from conservatives. They didn't like the outcome, but they loved the reasoning. The Court said marriage was a state, and not a federal, issue.

The problem with liberals is that they don't care how they win. If they have the Supreme Revolutionary Council, formerly known as the Supreme Court, rule that the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment mandates Gay Marriage, they're fine with that. Conservatives, like me, see that as a serious problem, not because of the outcome, but because of how it was reached. The 14th Amendment was drafted and ratified by Republicans in 1868, when homosexual acts were illegal in every state. It was intended to keep state courts in the former Confederacy from mistreating free blacks, especially freed slaves. The only bearing it had on marriage was mixed race marriages were made legal. It did not mention same sex marriage. It would never have been ratified if it did mention same sex marriage. The consent of the governed was given only to the 14th Amendment's meaning at the time it was passed. Reinterpreting it with a new meaning now is tyranny. Changing the Constitution was supposed to require an Article V ratification process. It was not supposed to be some far-fetched argument in a court case that even the judges writing the opinion don't really believe was the intent of the Constitutional wording or Amendment in question.

It was also unnecessary to get the same sex marriage outcome. Under the full faith and credit clause, it could easily have been held that a legal marriage performed in one state had to be recognized by all states. This would have left marriage a state decision.