Steven Newcomb: Reject 'domestic dependent nation' myth

C. A. Bowers was one of my brilliant professors when I attended the University of Oregon. A prolific author, Bowers has made an excellent point. Paraphrasing him, “If you want to defeat your opponent, don’t apply your opponent’s arguments to yourself.” So, let’s say we have a political opponent who argues, “You’re not a real nation, you’re a ‘domestic dependent nation’ subject to our plenary power,” or “you’re not even a nation, you’re only a tribe, subject to our authority over you!”

Are we likely to defeat those arguments and terminology by applying them to ourselves? Of course we aren’t. And if we meekly agree with the idea that we are "domestic dependent nations" because our political adversary has said we are, then how will we ever move beyond a political identity seemingly imposed on us? By our failure to challenge and move beyond that political identity, our adversary will all the more easily continue to say, “You don’t have the right to do x because it’s inconsistent with your status.” Those who oppose us will never say honestly and forthrightly, “You don’t have the right do x because it’s inconsistent the status we have semantically imposed on you.”