The Shame of Sooners

Andrew Jackson worked for more than twenty years to force the Indians of the Southeast (the names in the history books are Creek, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Seminole, and Cherokee) off their lands. He fought three wars with the Seminoles, fought the Creeks, and made many fraudulent treaties with them all. He wanted all the Indians east of the Mississippi relocated to the western side. He didn’t manage all that but he did get the Five Civilized Tribes evicted from their lands. They were called the Five Civilized Tribes because, in their efforts to survive and preserve some of their culture, they adopted many of the ways of the white people and used the courts to fight for their rights.

Thomas Jefferson supported the idea of an Indian Territory in order to obviate friction between the Euroamericans and Indians. At that time no one knew exactly what lay beyond the Mississippi River but whatever it was, it would be adequate for Indians. All the Indians. As the continent was explored and better understood, it was determined that the Great American Desert, that vast grassland later known as the Great Plains, was uninhabitable. Since white Americans could use much of the rest of the Trans-Mississippi West, the Indians could have the Great American Desert.

Then it was discovered that it wasn’t a desert at all, it was fertile farmland that didn’t even have to be cleared before it could be plowed. That caused the Indian Territory to shrink from what is now Oklahoma, Nebraska, Kansas, and part of Iowa, to only Oklahoma.

Over a period of more than thirty years, dozens of tribes from all over the east moved west. Some went resignedly, knowing it was inevitable, and some went only under force of arms. But nearly all of the people of the Five Civilized Tribes went. The Cherokees carried their fight to the Supreme Court and won; Jackson defied the court and said that the justices had made their decision, now they could enforce it. But there was never any real question as to who held the power. The Army supported the president rather than the law and moved the Cherokees on the Trail of Tears.

You might think the Indians had undergone enough at this point. No, not yet. After the Civil War, white Americans took another look at the Indian Territory and discovered that they could use it. It was huge. Although the Plains tribes were being added to the residents, white men felt that the Indians didn’t need all of it. President Benjamin Harrison agreed. He signed the law that opened the Indian Territory to white settlement. On an appointed day, April 22, 1889, anyone who wanted (except Indians, of course), could stake out a claim for 160 acres. Thousands did. Most of them filed legally, obeying the few rules. Many opted to anticipate the appointed day and sneaked in and staked out their claims sooner.

For years afterwards, sooners were held in contempt by the law-abiding land grabbers. That changed when an element of the populace decided that sooner was a synonym for progressive. Progressive people do not tamely wait for fortune to smile on them, they go out and make things happen. Robust, vigorous, progressive people take charge of their own destinies. The University of Oklahoma adopted “Sooner” as the nickname of their athletic teams. According to their website, the name evokes history, tradition and championships.

In my opinion it evokes treachery, theft, and shame.

Governance by Blackmail

Originally, the Founding Fathers intended that the president would have no legislative agenda and would serve to advise congress, having the power then to either approve their action or veto it. President Washington kept very strictly to that model but afterwards the presidents began to see themselves more and more as initiators of legislation. This developed from piecemeal legislative issues to whole packages of related issues, such as Franklin Roosevelt’s “New Deal,” Lyndon Johnson’s “War on Poverty,” and now “Obamacare.”

In the beginning, the intent was that Congress would be composed of amateurs. Knowing the dangers inherent in relying on professional politicians, the Founding Fathers decreed that Congress would meet only a few weeks each year. This allowed the congressmen to absent themselves briefly from their work so they did not depend on the government stipend for their living. It also gave them the incentive to do the business of the nation efficiently and to keep to necessities. This model also meant that congressmen were living and working in the same world as their constituents. They were affected by the legislation they passed just the same as the rest of the people.

Politics has always been a dirty profession with a few men and women of integrity dotted through history to show what it might be if enough honest citizens could be persuaded to undertake political careers. Many elected officials begin honestly, sincerely wishing to serve their constituencies and even to curb abuses and corruption. Few are able to withstand the various pressures against their integrity.

First is ego. It is ego that prompts one to want to enter politics in the first place. Few motives are not mixed and the desire to better conditions for one’s fellows may quite well exist along with the egotistical desire to be the one who creates the better conditions and who is seen to be the one who creates them.

Second is power. Power is dangerous, not only to the governed but to the governing. We have all heard Lord Acton’s dictum that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. This is not an automatic process but it requires constant vigilance in order to stand against it.

Third is peer pressure. Few would argue against the principle that a senator ought not to vote for anything his or her conscience will not condone. For instance, the military wants to close a base in another state. The base is no longer militarily useful but it is important to the surrounding area, furnishing jobs and a military payroll so the soldiers can contribute to the local economy. Clearly, it is to the national interest to close the base. However, if the senator doesn’t vote to keep it open, the senator from the state it’s in will not vote for his legislation.

Fourth are blackmail and extortion. If an elected official has anything in his or her past that would be detrimental if it became known, others (elected or not) may use the threat of exposure to obtain the vote, favor, or preference that they want. If there is nothing detrimental in the official’s past, extortion can be very useful. The threat can be made, toward the end of the campaign for office, that an announcement will be made that the candidate is or stands for something the electorate abhors, for instance, soft on crime or pro-abortion. It is too late for the candidate to refute the accusation and the election will be lost unless the candidate complies with the extortionist’s demands.

Or the threat can be made that, unless one stops criticizing the president, one’s spouse will be exposed as an operative of the CIA. This is such a vile, traitorous act that it is hard to take the threat seriously. But, in order to keep others who are vocal but vulnerable quiet, the threat can be carried out; the CIA operative can be publicly named and exposed to the danger of assassination or capture and torture, and the president’s critics will see that it’s dangerous to take the constitutional guarantee of free speech too seriously.

There are all sorts of ways to use blackmail and extortion in the political arena. Pressure can be brought to bear through the myriad federal bureaus to foreclose on home mortgages, force businesses into bankruptcy, deny various licenses, require so much documentation that projects are halted. The media can be used to start rumors and manufacture sex scandals, false reports of mental instability, false reports of misconduct in military service. Jobs and contracts can be pulled, official reports falsified, data corrupted.

These are all methods that have been used throughout our history by government officials in order to get the results they deem necessary. Sometimes they believe that the result justifies the means. Sometimes they are indifferent to the ethics and care only about the result. Sometimes they don’t even care much about the result, they enjoy the process of enforcing their will through these methods.

If we are not to become a nation ruled primarily by blackmail and extortion, we must not tolerate them when we see them at work. We must let our elected and appointed officials know that our government is of the people, for the people, and by the people and the people will be led by men and women of ethics and principles, not ruled by intellectual thuggery. It’s been said that people get the government they deserve – let us take the actions that will result in the people of the United States deserving an honorable government.