Indian Gaming > Opinion: Let tribes decide what's best for them

January 14, 2008

Opinion: Let tribes decide what's best for them

"I've got a problem with letting the U.S. government decide what's in the best interest for Indian tribes.

This, as opposed to letting the Indian tribes decide for themselves what's in THEIR best interest.

How's that for a novel approach?

I might have been snoozing in science and out of it in algebra, but I did pay enough attention in history to recall how the United States allowed the Indians' land to be taken from them and how treaties arranged by the United States were forever being broken.

History is a great reminder that things never really work out well for the Indians when the federal government decides what's best. Never.

Take a poll of non-Indians and you'll find that no one seems to benefit — except the government — when the government is calling the shots.

The latest example of this don't-worry-we-know-what's-good-for-you thinking came last week, when the federal government denied applications for two tribes to build off-reservation casinos in Sullivan County."

Get the Story:
Barry Lewis: Let the tribes decide what's best for them (The Middletown Times Herald-Record 1/13)