Maybe this thread should be on the Political page but here goes anyway...

In case you didn't hear the World Lacrosse Championships were held in Britain the past two weeks. Every four years the Iroquois Nation (composed of 7 different tribes) sends a team to the Worlds. This year the Iroquois were told (because of heightened security) they could not travel overseas without a US Passport. Apparently in the past there has been a Native American - Only visa these athletes could use. Some of them protested saying they do not recognize themselves as U.S. citizens, they consider themselves to be a separate nation and people. Bottomline is they were not permitted to participate in the games for the first time in 40 yrs.

I'm all for native Ameican rights, but these folks reap the benefits of living in the US...education, healthcare, police & fire protection, legal representation...etc, etc. I do not think it is unfair to require Native Americans to accept they are part of the USA and not a separate nation. What say you?

I'd say that the atrocities inflicted upon Native Americans by the US entitles them to claim whatever independence they still have left.

Quint;432544 wrote:I'd say that the atrocities inflicted upon Native Americans by the US entitles them to claim whatever independence they still have left.

I'm with this guy.

Well, since the United States government did not officially recognize the full citizenship of Native Americans until 1924 I would say that since they were here long before the first boatload of Pilgrims, the first boatload of slaves, in fact the first boatload of anyone other than the Indians themselves, that computes to only 86 total years of "reaping the benefits" of living in the US, (many times on desolate isolated Reservations where we first taught the Indians how to be better White folk), Health care???? that's hilarious, police and fire? Do you know where these Indians have been living until 86 years ago? Legal representation? My God, didn't I just say that they weren't even given the Constitutional rights that the former African American slaves began receiving on paper in the 1860's. The key words there of course would be on paper, but for America's Indian population it wasn't even close to being on paper. Here's what I say. I think the treatment of the Native Americans has been a travesty and although today it has gotten better, wouldn't you be a tad resentful at how your people had been treated for two plus centuries ? One of the most popular slogans during our frontier days was "The only good Indian is a dead Indian." Mr. common man, Andrew Jackson, ordered the infamous Trail of Tears March, and during the eight years of the Jackson Presidency, he broke over 90 treaties with the Indians. I'm surprised the Indians even wanted to talk to us about anything.

Today, the relationship between the Native Americans and the immigrant Americans has improved, but I don't really have a problem if the Indians want to cling to one thing from their pre settler past. The time when the White Man wasn't here and they were free to roam, to hunt, to live.

A "Passport" is just a piece of paper. It can't hurt anyone. It does no one any harm and why does it upset us ? Were they supposed to be grateful? For what?

I agree with everything you say Fox...but the question remains are they NOW U.S. citizens or not? Extremely shitty behavior on the Govt.'s part in the past IMO does not alleviate the fact that Native Americans are still Americans! (maybe the only true ones) and they still need a passport to travel to foreign countries. If not I could see terrorists using this loophole somehow for their advantage.

Native Americans have been on this continent hundreds of years before any white person even dreamed of there being a giant land mass out west. Some of them are not U.S. citizens, so I don't think that they should have to get a passport.

is it just me, or is every security measure backed up with statements like "OR THE TERRORISTS WILL GET IN!"
believe me, if a terrorist wants to make shit happen, they will.

Tiernan;432533 wrote:Maybe this thread should be on the Political page but here goes anyway...

In case you didn't hear the World Lacrosse Championships were held in Britain the past two weeks. Every four years the Iroquois Nation (composed of 7 different tribes) sends a team to the Worlds. This year the Iroquois were told (because of heightened security) they could not travel overseas without a US Passport. Apparently in the past there has been a Native American - Only visa these athletes could use. Some of them protested saying they do not recognize themselves as U.S. citizens, they consider themselves to be a separate nation and people. Bottomline is they were not permitted to participate in the games for the first time in 40 yrs.

I'm all for native Ameican rights, but these folks reap the benefits of living in the US...education, healthcare, police & fire protection, legal representation...etc, etc. I do not think it is unfair to require Native Americans to accept they are part of the USA and not a separate nation. What say you?

Wow just wow. We have done enough to these people. They taught us how to live on this continent then we took it away from them and put them on reservations in the deserts. For this to bug you this much you must not know much about their history. They should have more rights then any of us due to they owned these lands way before any of our forefathers. They were more mistreated then slaves were.

Are there any 500 year old "native Americans"?? The current decendents are as American as the rest of us. Nobody currently alive had anything to do with what transpired back then. It is this kind of thing that keeps this country so divided.

ManO'War;432607 wrote:Are there any 500 year old "native Americans"?? The current decendents are as American as the rest of us. Nobody currently alive had anything to do with what transpired back then. It is this kind of thing that keeps this country so divided.

It has everything with how they live today. "We killed your ancestors? Quit being so sensitive and get over it".


Jesus, you're a blithering idiot.

How far back are you going to carry that nonsense?? People have been the conquerers and conquered throughout history. And from all your posts you should be the last person to call someone an idiot.

BTW, "we" didn't kill anyone. My ancestors came here at the turn of the century and faced their own discrimination.

I believe several of the Indian tribes are recognized as sovereign by the US government. In that respect, yes, they are a separate nation with separate sovereignty and citizenship. Think of it like "dual citizenship" or something like that.

I'm going to go with ManO'War on this issue. Many of you would have a different view of the Indians if you had lived on the Ohio-Pennsylvania frontier. Some of my ancestors were killed and captured. Federal law supercedes all, so get the passports.

If they were real Americans they'd be playing a real sport like Football!

Lacrosse players at the college level are some of the best conditioned athletes on the planet. And the greatest RB in history - Jim Brown - still claims lacrosse as his favorite sport to play.

My understanding of the situation here (from Twitter reports from Inside Lacrosse magazine) was the country which hosted the tournament didn't recognize their passports as being valid thus not allowing them to enter Europe. The delay caused them to miss their opening two games if I recall correctly.

America did the Natives dirty, I do know that much.

^^^
They never left the US because US authorities told them they would not be able to re-enter the country if they did somehow leave w/o a current US citizen's passport (and) US authorities asked British authorities to support them on the decision.

Tiernan;432771 wrote:^^^
They never left the US because US authorities told them they would not be able to re-enter the country if they did somehow leave w/o a current US citizen's passport (and) US authorities asked British authorities to support them on the decision.

just another way to keep the redman down.

Throw these guys a bone! Haven't they endured enough after selling us Manhattan island for a bag of wompum?

Now wait a minute.

Didn't some tribes(can't remember which ones) secede from the Union, peacefully, a few years back?
Give them the damn passports and be done with it, I say!

It was terrible the way the Native Americans were treated. However, no one is alive today that did that treatment or received that treatment. I am sure most of us have ancestors that were persecuted by some other group of people if you go back far enough.

One the funniest things I ever saw on the Simpsons was during a Springfield parade there was a Native American float and the announcer comments that the float is made "entirely out of broken treaties with the white man."

Let these people be.

Without a doubt Native-Americans are a separate nation and their passports should have been respected but.... it was the host nation that wouldn't not accept the passports and the U.S. said they would issue passports so the team could play. The Iroquois team declined the offer because they do not identify themselves as U.S. citizens.

Ah, interesting topic. Quick question for you; were the Indians (Native Americans) living in peace and tranquility with each other before the first white man stepped on the continent?
If you answered yes, you receive an "F" in history.
If you answered no, congrats, you paid attention in history class.
So, if the Indians were slaughtering each other over this land for hundreds of years before the white man got here what exactly are they pissed at? Is it that the white man was just better at killing than they were? Seriously, read accounts at how incredibly brutal the Indians were to each other long before "whitey" stepped on this soil.
By the way, I absolutely believe that our government treated them inhumanely and "cheated" them out of much of their own land. I just want you to think about how many of the Indian tribes treated each other.