Published: September 22, 2009 07:23 pm      

9-23 Letters: your views

Citizen: Trust lands, money should go back to owners

Kingfisher — Citizen: Trust lands, money should go back to owners

To the Editor:

American taxpayers cannot afford to pay for more government agencies to be created, especially when the programs already in place are not working. The government does not provide adequate health care for our veterans and troops today. So the government should not offer health care for everyone.

Here are a few basics about ending the Bureau of Indian Affairs Trust responsibility of the 562 federally recognized tribes. We are American citizens; the Constitution must protect us equally regardless of the color of our skin. “Separate but equal” ended in 1954. Segregation did not work for blacks and it has never worked for the American Indians. People living in these areas must be allowed to vote and incorporate.

President Abraham Lincoln knew that slavery could not be determined by a vote of the people or Congress; the same is true to end the trust responsibility by an Emancipation Proclamation because we are American citizens and personal property should not be held in trust by the Bureau of Indian Affairs and Department of the Interior.

Please call and send a note to Freedom Works and Dick Armey and ask them to interview me about America’s 150-year example of what happens to people when the federal government takes away your guns and expects you to be dependent on the government. The U.S. government told our ancestors where they would live, what type of food they would be allowed to eat and what type of medical care they would receive. Then, at Wounded Knee, the Indians were forced to surrender their guns to Custer’s troops. They were not citizens of the United States and did not have the protection of the 2nd Amendment.

America has the best all-volunteer professional military, reserves and National Guard in the world. The BIA must be returned to the Department of Defense that created it in 1824. Today, our military needs the best exclusive medical care we can offer our veterans and troops.

President Obama must issue an Executive Order to end the trust and release the land and money to the individual owners; there are 53 million acres and more than 29 billion that are sitting in the trust. The 1887 Dawes Allotment Act and the 1906 Burke Act confirms that the trust was supposed to end 25 years after the lands were allotted to each individual male Indian. In 1893 President Cleveland tried to allow these men to own land so they could vote, but they still were not citizens until they had served in World War I or when citizenship was granted to all in 1924.

Please read my comments and ask friends to also read my reference information posted at freedomworks.org, then scroll down the left side and click on “Other Projects.”

I hope this will help every citizen realize the power of individual economic freedom and want to make a phone call for freedom across America to the White House and to call their state and federal senators and representatives so our Congress can tell President Obama that their offices are receiving 5,000 to 10,000 phone calls letters each month to free the 562 tribes from the BIA and help our veterans and troops. Help me to tell America’s history.



Lee Ann Ragains

Kingfisher