And the lesson you’ve learned is that conflicts between ethnic groups are solved with partition? As opposed to strengthening civil society? Can you give a couple examples of where partition worked particularly well, because that’s just not coming to me.
On the other hand, I can think of a ton of examples where political and economic reforms have worked quite well; and I would include even places like Northern Ireland in that list.
From the Salt Lake City Tribune article linked upthread:
(Lyman is the former county commissioner and now state legislator who is pushing the split.)
While residents on the reservation do not pay property taxes on their homes, residential property taxes are not the most significant source of funding for the county anyway. Over half of the county’s property tax revenue comes from oil and gas properties and equipment, much of it on the reservation; a quarter of the county’s budget comes from federal grants and other intergovernmental transfers, with the reservation being a major reason for these.
You are correct in your suspicion that no property taxes are paid on reservation lands. But Slash2k pointed out where the tax money comes from.
My point remains that if secession is successful, there are a lot of things that will need to be duplicated. And that will cost a lot of money. Which is certainly one of the reasons that the Navajo are opposed to it.
Would have been a moot problem if self-rule in place.
You’ll have to ask them.
Nevertheless, the problem is obviously one of government.
Do you know what the characteristics of segregation were? I’m not sure you should be discussing the topic if you are not clued in. Black history month is in full swing at your local elementary school. I suggest you sit in on a lecture. Bring a growed-up chair.
Warning for insults, Will. Do not insult other posters.
It kinda sounds to me like you’re saying the Navajo aren’t real Americans,so the cultural conflict arises from lumping them together with “real” Americans.
That’s not at all what I’m saying. You’ll notice I haven’t used the word “real” in that fashion even once in this thread.
For the record, I don’t think his views are about real vs. fake Americans. I do find it really bizarre to refer to two groups of Americans as people who just cannot be asked or expected to find political accommodation and so separating them so they have less to do with each other is his recommended solution. I very strongly disagree with that kind of thinking, especially since there doesn’t seem to have been very much effort to solve whatever underlying problems there are.
Plus I can’t quite figure out what he thinks are the underlying problems: he claims the county is strongly Republican, and then seems to argue that any election that doesn’t come up with Republican winners is tainted or fixed. I think all of this is incorrect, as the analysis I linked to earlier seems to indicate a polarized community.
It also seems to me that the fundamental issue is an economic one, where one side of the community doesn’t think the other side should get a high school or ambulance if it will cost them anything. I think these issues are generally quite fixable if people work together, and would probably have long-term benefits to both sides.
That’s why I didn’t say “Said” I said “Sounds like”. Every single community in America is a mix of higher income and lower income people. But you focus on this one community and suggest that the (white, higher income) group should be allowed to secede from a (Native American, lower-income) community, the impetus for which is the fact that one group (Native American, lower-income) managed to get proportional political representation for the first time.
And to the point that the natives are “takers”- the entire region used to be native land. The whites took most of it, then turn around and accuse the natives of paying insufficient property tax, blissfully unaware, apparently, of where the property came from.
Greed makes people daft. Easier to suggest that, because they “all” vote for Democrats, therefore they are All “liberals”, and you know what that means. Far easier than grappling with the real issues, as usual.
HurricaneDikta, I fully admit that I could just be misreading you. Do you happen to have a link of you elsewhere supporting a community seceding from a larger (same-race!) community? If so I’ll admit that I got your motivations wrong.
That’s an interesting challenge. I don’t know if I’ve ever posted on such a specific topic. Would you count these?
Also, you might find this post interesting given the discussion around the tax base:
You might be interested to know that Bluff, Utah was founded in 1880 (by white Mormons) and the southern portion of San Juan County wasn’t added to the Navajo reservation until four years later.
I’m not sure what you are trying to say here, so could you elucidate?
The government has a hand in EMS/ambulance service across most of rural America because it’s not an economically viable proposition otherwise. Even my own county, which hosts the state capitol, subsidizes a private provider to the tune of $300K/year, and we are large enough to have multiple full-time ambulance crews rather than relying on volunteers and part-timers as so many smaller communities do (and EMS services here are mostly the responsibility of the fire departments, which are primarily taxpayer-funded).
That settles that. White mormons were there first. :rolleyes:
And this is relevant to the argument how?
The Navajo were already present in what became the southern part of the state of Utah some centuries before Joseph Smith started having visions of the golden plates.
Yeah, I would. I withdraw my criticism–you have a principled position (that I happen to disagree with).
Thanks 
That doesn’t exactly jibe with the study done in '97 quoted on the first page:
But regardless, istm that a split actually makes sense in some logistical and jurisdictional ways. First of all, some duplication of services is already required. The ambulance wait times seems ample proof of that. A quarter of the county is tribal lands that the county sheriffs and courts have no jurisdiction over with another quarter being “private Indian trust fund” held.
People are being a little too blase comparing this to some other ethnic divides. In my mind to say “that tribe should have its own county” is very very different from saying “the African Americans should have their own county”.
Im saying that the government ambulatory service is inadequate.
