Legislators Should Smoke A Peace-Pipe And Indians Should Keep Their Wampum by Doug Wrenn

Legislators Should Smoke A Peace-Pipe And Indians Should Keep Their Wampum

By Doug Wrenn

May 05, 2008

Disclaimer: Before any thin-skinned professional victim, on a life's crusade of seeking offense wherever it may or may not exist gives me any politically correct crap about calling them "Indians," don't even try going there with me. I was born here, too, so I am also a "Native-American," as are millions of other US citizens. Trust me, we are not an elite group by any means. As far as where some long since dead relatives of mine came from, I couldn't care less. After all, they're dead, and thus, it makes even less difference to me where somebody else's relatives came from. OK, granted, the folks I am speaking of did not come from India. I recognize that conspicuous fact as well, but until such time as somebody can come up with distinctions at least a tad more cerebral than "Indian" or "Native-American," I am doing the best I can with what I have to work with here, including these putrid and overused hyphens that I so otherwise detest.

To first lay some needed explanatory groundwork, my father (hardly the shrinking violet type, to put it mildly) is the personified illustration of Shakespeare's quotation, "Brevity is the soul of wit." As a youth, when I would (cautiously) dare question and rebel against his well laid down law, he would succinctly snuff out my whiny protests by replying, "My roof, my rules." Indeed. This was the era of the fleeting glorification of the wacky childrearing theories of Dr. Spock (which he, himself even later recanted, to his credit), but my old man proudly never read that trashy read. This was also the era in which men still really were men. Believe me when I tell you that life with the old man (and "under his roof") was a benevolent dictatorship. There was little to no room for dissent, let alone democracy, but then again, I don't ever recall missing a meal either, including when times were hard, despite the old man toiling away at an average 60-70 hour workweek of hard, physical labor. So at a relatively young age, my independent streak burst out of its shell. I struck out on my own. I worked full time, went to school fulltime, paid for my own college tuition (then, and also many years later), got myself an apartment and bought myself an award-winning lemon of a Chevy Monte Carlo that I could ill afford and that traditionally broke down and stranded me on Christmas Day, every year for four consecutive years. I had acquired total liberty. I also ate much less and with far less frequency. Suddenly, I both knew and appreciated what the old man said and meant.

A sound lesson was learned by this then still wet-behind-the-ears, know-it-all, nonetheless. Our nation's churches should take a lesson from my sage and plain speaking old man. The incessantly bastardized meaning of separation of church and state does not mean suppressing the right of free speech. As churches are made up of individuals, just like any other advocacy group, they also enjoy 1st Amendment rights. Yet, our nation's churches shut up, hide in the corner and whimper like whipped puppies, dare they speak of political matters, and lest the United Church of IRS seizes their all-too coveted tax-exempt status. As I have long advocated to churches, "The tax will set you free." Tell Uncle Sam to go take a powder, and then pay up, so that you no longer have to shut up. But as long as the churches submit to their pagan allegiance to the almighty dollar and the underlying tyranny of our "representative republic" (wink, nod), then they will have to continue to endure their passively accepted oppression. Uncle Sam's roof, Uncle Sam's rules, or put another way, he who controls the checkbook also controls the rules. You've heard it before: "Money talks and (as Rush Limbaugh would tactfully say,) 'bovine excrement' walks."

Thank you for your appreciated and soon-to-be rewarded patience and perseverance. And now, having paved the road to my aforementioned subject matter with the necessary analogous logic, onto those "Indians." (Still no new names yet, huh?)

"My roof, my rules." That principle equally applies to the old homestead, to churches in the US, and yes, to Connecticut's casinos. But the crux of that matter is the still daunting and yet unresolved question, "Are they really "Connecticut's" casinos?"

While there has been some dispute over the boundary lines of the Mashantucket Pequot reservation in Ledyard, I know of no such dispute regarding the Mohegan reservation in Uncasville. Thus, the boundary dispute, if even legitimate, is a moot issue with regard to the seemingly ongoing tug-of-war battle between the State of Connecticut and these two "sovereign lands." The issue needs to be decided, once and for all, if those lands are property of the respective tribes, or the respective towns in which they are located. Politically speaking (Attention, you so-called "moderates":) it is said that the only things found in the middle of the road are long, yellow streaks, and dead skunks. I have always doubted that theory. I don't see fence sitters as being necessarily cowardly, although perhaps conniving, for reasons of political expedience. I believe that a similar relationship currently exists between the state and these so-called sovereign nations within the state's boundaries.

The issue is again brought under both the spotlight and the microscope over the ever-resurrecting smoking issue. As cited in a May 3rd piece entitled, "Amann, Rell Oppose Casino Smoking Ban," on Courant.com, Governor Rell, Speaker of the House Amann, and Attorney General Blumenthal all oppose enacting a debated smoking ban upon the casinos, which, if passed, would take effect in 2009. They cite the supposedly complexly precarious issue of discerning state vs. sovereign nation, and rightfully fear the potential legal battle that could be staged in federal courts if the matter is pursued. Some members of the General Assembly, such as Senator Edith Prague (D-Columbia) favor the ban, and cite that as the state has such a smoking ban in effect, the casinos should be equally subject to the same ban. Prague, and the United Auto Workers' Union, which is supporting the casino workers, cites health concerns of the employees for their argument.

Some sidebar issues to this matter include the fact that through long-ago brokered deals, the state enjoys 25% of the yearly slot machine intake from the casinos. Peters reports that last year, the state's cut was a handsome $430 million. As for the employees, while there is still dispute over the legitimacy of the second hand smoke theory, even if there is a genuine health risk, employees who willingly seek and accept such a job, with its obvious embedded dangers, are as equally complicit to even passively accepting the potential risks as urban taxicab drivers and convenience store clerks on the late night shift, not to mention soldiers, police and corrections officers, firefighters, commercial fishermen, miners, etc.. None of these people were ever forced to take such jobs (barring drafted soldiers in time of war), thus they share a degree of culpability for their decisions and the potentially perilous, albeit unintended outcome of those decisions. And last but not least, there is the state/sovereign nation question, exacerbated by the brokered slot revenue deal. The roof and the rules are at odds with each other yet again! But why?

These reservations are in essence, self-governing. They even have their own police, fire, and health departments. Yet the State of Connecticut oversees the casinos' activities, such as by the presence of the Liquor Control Division and the State Police, which also give the state added fuel to the fire of its argument. What currently exists there now is a potpourri of conflicting, ambiguous and overlapping jurisdiction of government entities. By taking the easy way out, the casinos agreed to give the state its cut of shut up money, but the payoff, which is what it really is, in effect, hasn't worked. Like a mob shyster collecting this week's vig, the state keeps its foot in the door, a tactic well known to a successful and perseverant, but also now obsolete marketing species, once remembered as "door to door salesmen." As long as the casino pays fiscal and obedient homage to the extortionist, oops, I mean, the state, the state still gets to dictate at least some of the rules, and maybe, in its infinite grace, throw out a few perks to the casinos in return for some hopeful modicum of placation. And like the mob shyster, each visit becomes subtly, but nevertheless, increasingly more demanding and predatory in nature each time.

The devil in the details is the long range unintended consequences, a quintessential detail never considered by typically emotion-driven, knee-jerk, and profoundly myopic Democrats, such as Edith Prague, and the rest of the predominantly and unabashedly liberal, if not utterly socialist, "Big D" gang, currently ruling the roost under the big, tarnished dome.

As a friend of mine has cited to me, his independent business of installing and servicing draught lines for restaurants and bars has substantially decreased since the state enacted its totalitarian smoking ban in all restaurants and bars in 2003. Heaven forbid that some restaurants and bars already became non-smoking of their own accord, and others still retained the equitable smoking and non-smoking segregated sections within their establishments, and that consumers should have to actually exercise choice. And Heaven also forbid that we forget that these businesses are still the private property of their respective owners, who should be allowed to establish their own rules of commerce and decorum within their establishments, yes, in other words, ideally, their roofs, their rules. And Heaven forbid yet again, that we ever even consider allowing the market, in what's left of our endangered species of a capitalist economy, to actually and independently dictate the prosperity, demise or modification of a business without Draconian government intrusion. None of that was even remotely enough to satisfy the power-hungry socialists of Connecticut's Kremlin.

According to the Courant.com article, the Mohegan Sun casino projected that smokers, banned pretty much elsewhere from smoking publicly in Connecticut, as well as in some of our neighboring socialist satellites of the Nanny-State Northeast, flock to casinos in part, to be left alone to enjoy their personally chosen adult vice, and that a smoking ban could result in a drop in business, translating to an estimated 600-1,750 casino employees losing their jobs, and a 13% decrease in slot revenue. That's a handy little piece of information to consider, given the state's looming multi-million dollar deficit that was seemingly and mysteriously sprung overnight from a multi-million dollar surplus just a scant week or two ago.

Way to go, Democrats! Yeah! Lay off those casino workers! "Out into the street, where you will be safe from harm, while wailing and gnashing your teeth, you great unwashed!" says the great, benevolent, all-knowing and omnipotent State of Chaos, um, I mean, Connecticut. That will save them all from themselves! Nothing cures heart disease and lung cancer better than unemployment, starving families and a further tanked economy. Hey, what the heck, personal accountability is overrated, anyway, right? Hmm, but now, what to do about that pesky deficit that you just increased, ay? Sure, you know the answer. Tax us all a little more, heck, even a lot more, and especially those newly unemployed casino workers. Show them whose boss in our "government of, by, and for the people." Unlike the many other people fleeing the state in droves, they're now too poor to go anywhere. Now you've got them right where you want them, both vulnerably ripe for the picking and simultaneously dependent on you and your infinite utopian fantasies, social programs and big-government entitlements that further cement your sinecures as you step on the backs of the very citizens and constituents who foolishly gave them to you in the first place as you defiantly and cavalierly laugh and sneer down your elitist noses at their plight from your plunder.

And let's face it, at the end of the day, that's what it's really all about with you and your ilk, isn't it?

The dead relatives of this "Native-American" (Gag!) supposedly all hailed from Ireland and Italy, so believe me when I tell you that I have no dog in this fight. But if I were one of the "Indians" (for lack of a better term that anyone has still yet to supply me), I would be applying the war paint to my face right about now. (Some might argue it could even be an improvement!)

This issue won't go away by itself. Only the surface appearance of it will change. If it's not smoking today, it will be something else tomorrow. The state and the respective reservations need to hammer out a final agreement as to defining what these lands are: part of the town, state and federal soil, or sovereign nations, and there cannot be any other deviation, muddling of the distinctions or vague "middle ground." An elephant cannot also be a hamster, and to suggest that it is a little of both is utter Tomfoolery, whatever the motive may be.

I don't see such an agreement realistically ever being hammered out any time soon, if ever at all, though. Personally, as someone who doesn't deal real well with too-often lame excuses of "gray area," I would much rather actually see a feisty court battle and a distinctive decision, one way or the other. That is the path the Indians should pursue, and judging from the bipartisan reluctance, if not outright fear of our highest elected officials, that seems to be exactly what they don't want, and for obvious and revealing reasons. This really is not rocket science. People usually know right from wrong. It's that darned denial thing, usually because of self-interests, that often gets in the way. In short, take the state's foot out of the door of the casinos, and it's hand out of the till, and this "complex" issue will suddenly get real clear in a big hurry. As much as I loathe political correctness, I also bristle at seeing anyone bullied. Fairness, equality, sovereignty and liberty should not be at all subject to geographical or ethnic boundaries. Such noble idealism is what rightly founded our nation, which is why this entire issue is as utterly hypocritical as it is both preposterous and deplorable. The questionable boundary issue in Ledyard aside for now, the Indians of both tribes should fight this matter in the federal courts to the very end if necessary, and hopefully then be rightfully allowed total sovereignty, and the State of Connecticut should be repelled, expelled out of their reservations, and dropped on its interventionist and tyrannical derriere ceremoniously, forthwith and zealously. For that matter, the state should not be exploiting gambling, and those who gamble, many of whom with gambling addiction problems. Neither should the Indians, but their roof, their rules. The state is doubly wrong for also exploiting the Indians, and denying their rules, under what clearly are their roofs. Let the ever bumbling and ethically bankrupt government of the State of Connecticut find some other innovative means to seek more revenue to waste and embezzle. In other words, fish or cut bait, or as my Dad might say in an even plainer and much more robust vernacular… um….oh, never mind. Anyway, I think you get the gist.

Senator John Kissel (R-Enfield), quoted in the article, summed it all best, when he said, "My concern is we are killing the goose that laid the golden egg." Oofah! You said a mouthful, there, Sparky. A cigar to the Senator who hails from the land of tobacco fields for his firm, definitive, resolved, and courageous stance against the smoking ban. Hey, wait a minute….

"My roof, my rules." Beautiful! Thanks, Dad. I finally get it now, and hopefully, now some other people do, too, both here, and "abroad."

Doug Wrenn