Jonah Goldberg thinks the Lakota Indians’ move to break away from the USA is sad. I, on the other hand, think it’s an early candidate for the best news of the year, if not decade:
The Lakota Indians, who gave the world legendary warriors Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse, have withdrawn from treaties with the United States, leaders said Wednesday.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.
It will be interesting to see how long it takes before someone in Washington is calling for an invasion of the Lakota nation, although this would seem difficult given our rationale for invading Iraq. It would tend to confirm world opinion, once and for all, that the USA really are the black hats. But considering that they don’t appear to have plans for an income tax, the Lakota could play Singapore to the USA’s People’s Republic of China.
UPDATE – Pity it’s a PR stunt, but ever since learning about the unique status of the Indian tribes in college, I’ve assumed that one day an Indian tribe is going to figure out that there are better ways to take advantage of that status than simply running a few casinos. You can’t tell me there aren’t more than a few Fortune 500 CEOs that wouldn’t leap at the chance to offshore internally.