Slashdot Mirror


Court Blocks FCC's Attempt To Take a Broadband Subsidy Away From Tribal Areas (bleepingcomputer.com)

Jon Brodkin reports via Ars Technica: The FCC decision, originally slated to take effect later this year, would have made it difficult or impossible for Tribal residents to obtain a $25-per-month Lifeline subsidy that reduces the cost of Internet or phone service for poor people. But on Friday, a court stayed the FCC decision pending appeal, saying that Tribal organizations and small wireless carriers are likely to win their case against the commission. "Petitioners have demonstrated a likelihood of success on the merits of their arguments that the facilities-based and rural areas limitations contained in the Order are arbitrary and capricious," said the stay order issued by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. "In particular, petitioners contend that the Federal Communications Commission failed to account for a lack of alternative service providers for many tribal customers."

The tribes and small carriers that sued the FCC "have shown a substantial risk that tribal populations will suffer widespread loss of vital telecommunications services absent a stay," the court said. The FCC hasn't proven that its plan won't result in "mass disconnection," the court also said. The court ruling was welcomed by the Crow Creek Sioux Tribe and Oceti Sakowin Tribal Utility Authority, which are among the groups suing the FCC. Several small carriers and the non-profit National Lifeline Association are also plaintiffs in the lawsuit.

79 comments

  1. not enough by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    We no longer have a sense that we the people own or control things.

    We do not need to lose a court battle, we need ajit dragged out into the streets hog tied, beaten, stripped, then have a knife slid slowly across his neck. We need to feel like we are in control again, like we have some say in what is right or good for us.

    Death to ajit pai, we need his blood to function as a society with law and justice again

  2. Smallpox, Measles, Influenza, Wampum by PopeRatzo · · Score: 3, Insightful

    We took their country. They least we can do is pay for their fucking broadband.

    --
    You are welcome on my lawn.
    1. Re:Smallpox, Measles, Influenza, Wampum by 110010001000 · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Who did? No one I know of was around when that happened. Maybe you are really old though?

    2. Re:Smallpox, Measles, Influenza, Wampum by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No. The Jacksonian Democrats did it. Besides there are other millions of white descended that Europeans didn't come into the country until the early 20th century. Long after the those atrocities. Most of the Polish, Germans, Italians, and the Irish all came after. So you can't put a WE in the blame. The blame solely lies with the Jacksonian Democrats of that century.

    3. Re:Smallpox, Measles, Influenza, Wampum by PopeRatzo · · Score: 0, Troll

      Maybe you are really old though?

      Old enough to know the difference between right and wrong.

      --
      You are welcome on my lawn.
    4. Re:Smallpox, Measles, Influenza, Wampum by TheReaperD · · Score: 1, Troll

      If they want to become independent and successful, wonderful. I wish them the best of luck and we should do everything we can to make it happen. But, if they want to sit on their ass and do nothing on our dime, they fucking deserve it after what we did!

      --
      "Be particularly skeptical when presented with evidence confirming what you already believe." -
    5. Re:Smallpox, Measles, Influenza, Wampum by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Never change, PopeWhacko!

    6. Re:Smallpox, Measles, Influenza, Wampum by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      We took their country. They least we can do is pay for their fucking broadband.

      Who "we"? Don't pile me up with yourself and your ancestors. The shit you people pulled with Indians and blacks is completely on you and you alone. By getting them fucked, you have fucked us as well because it is coming out of our taxes. This is not a collective fucking responsibility however. At least try to be honest about that.

    7. Re:Smallpox, Measles, Influenza, Wampum by PopeRatzo · · Score: 0, Flamebait

      The shit you people pulled with Indians and blacks is completely on you and you alone.

      If you live in the US, you are enjoying the fruits or America's sins. You're complicit.

      --
      You are welcome on my lawn.
    8. Re:Smallpox, Measles, Influenza, Wampum by dryeo · · Score: 2

      Well 20th century diseases such as radiation plus heavy metal poisoning. The early uranium mining on Navajo land was pretty gruesome, what without realizing how bad radiation was yet and the 50's technology.
      I know of tribes up here in Canada who's water is full of mercury (ex-pulp mill up stream) that most of the people have mercury poisoning.
      The natives have been treated like shit. The American Constitution puts Treaties as the second highest law in the land but the history is lots of broken treaties, right up to the last year or so. Many of those treaties included ongoing payments of some type or other for the land as well.

      --
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
    9. Re:Smallpox, Measles, Influenza, Wampum by DNS-and-BIND · · Score: 2, Informative

      The smallpox blankets thing was neither an act of terrorism nor an attempted genocide because it didn't happen. The entire story is a fraud, perpetrated by a former "ethnic studies" professor named Ward Churchill. http://quod.lib.umich.edu/p/plag/5240451.0001.009/--did-the-us-army-distribute-smallpox-blankets-to-indians?rgn=main&view=fulltext

      The High Plains Smallpox Epidemic of 1837 was caused by personal contact with infected passengers from the riverboat St. Peter's, owned by a fur trading company. The epidemic on the High Plains centered around Fort Clark which, despite the name, was not a military installation. It was a privately owned fur trading post. The boss of Fort Clark was Francis Chardon, a fur trader. His personal diary survived to this day, one of numerous eyewitness accounts preserved from the time.

      Not only were infected blankets not distributed, but correspondence from Joshua Pilcher, the Indian Bureau's sub-agent to the Sioux, Cheyenne, and Ponca at Fort Kiowa, just south of Fort Clark, to Mr. Chardon describes one particular problem interfering with attempts to contain the epidemic that is curiously relevant to today. A smallpox vaccine existed in 1837, but Mr. Pilcher noted "it is a verry delicate experiment among those wild Indians, because death from any other cause, while under the influence of Vaccination would be attributed to that + no other cause[.]"

      Sound familiar?

      In 2006, Ward Churchill was found guilty of seven counts of research misconduct https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... by the University of Colorado Ethics Committee. He was fired in 2007. He promptly filed suit, and won a jury trial for wrongful dismissal. The jury followed the instructions to the letter in coming to their conclusion, but recognized Churchill for the lying shitheel he was and awarded him precisely $1.00. (One juror denied any such motivation in a public interview.) A judge vacated the jury verdict on the grounds that the (state) university enjoys quasi-judicial immunity. The Colorado Court of Appeals upheld that decision. The Colorado Supreme Court agreed to hear an appeal and in 2013 agreed with both the first judge and the Court of Appeals that the university was immune to suit in these circumstances. The US Supreme Court declined to get involved.

      It took 19 years from when Churchill first published his fraudulent bullshit in 1994 to the time when the judicial system finished with the case. It could easily take four or five generations for his lie to finally exit the public consciousness. This despite the fact that humanity currently has the fastest, most ubiquitous communications systems in the history of the species.

      Ward Churchill: I've never really stopped to spell out why I was saying what I was saying, or to flesh out the annotation, partly because I mentioned them in the context of developing broader arguments, and partly because I considered what I was saying to be more or less self-evidently true. So, I glad-handed things a bit. Mea culpa. http://dissidentvoice.org/Sept05/Frank0919.htm

      --
      Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
    10. Re:Smallpox, Measles, Influenza, Wampum by alvinrod · · Score: 0, Flamebait

      If you were talking about compensating those who suffered the original injustice, you might have a better argument. However, keeping a broken system in place that continues to churn out people that are going to continue the cycle of suffering is horrible. The people who are sitting there now are a younger generation, who have suffered only the injustice of being kept in a terrible system perpetuated by the guilt of everyone who insists that they fucking deserve it without realizing the kind of hell we've trapped these people in.

      Maybe there are a lot of proposals (e.g. forced integration into larger society) that are awful for other reasons, but you can't look at the reservation systems and the Native American population and think that it's something that should continue on as it is. Look at the statistics for these communities. It's as bad as inner city ghettos or rustbelt towns that lost the factory and gained an opioid epidemic. At least nobody is cheerleading for those because we all recognize they're tragically broken.

    11. Re: Smallpox, Measles, Influenza, Wampum by argStyopa · · Score: 0

      It wasn't their country; it's pretty clear anthropologically that they took it from someone else.

      They were a stagnant, Stone age culture. Any other culture they'd have run into would have overrun them like a lawn mower. There is no moral or ethical mandate that they must be preserved for all time as some sort of sacred object. Dissolve the farce of extra-legal tribal territories, and sweep them into the melting pot with everyone else. It would be better for everyone in the longer run anyway.

      --
      -Styopa
    12. Re: Smallpox, Measles, Influenza, Wampum by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Counterpoint, WW2. If you live in Europe, Asia, Russia, Canada, or pretty much anywhere you're enjoying the fruits of the USA.

      And even ignoring that, the Europeans profited hugely from the slave trade, but I don't see any of them offering up reparations.

    13. Re: Smallpox, Measles, Influenza, Wampum by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Another poster who is ignorant of worldwide human history and the folly of traveling down Reparation Road.

    14. Re:Smallpox, Measles, Influenza, Wampum by jythie · · Score: 1

      Yeah, but it is just this kind of investment in infrastructure that help break the cycle. One of the big reasons that middle class people in suburban areas are not living in poverty is the massive amount of infrastructure they take for granted.

    15. Re: Smallpox, Measles, Influenza, Wampum by rickb928 · · Score: 1

      Don't ask Europe what they may or may not 'owe' the United States of America. Such questions raise issues better left unspoken, ignored, and buried underfoot.

      Truth is such a bitch.

      --
      deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
    16. Re:Smallpox, Measles, Influenza, Wampum by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      How would I go about absolving myself of this involuntary complicity? Move to Somalia or worse?

    17. Re:Smallpox, Measles, Influenza, Wampum by PopeRatzo · · Score: 1

      How would I go about absolving myself of this involuntary complicity? Move to Somalia or worse?

      Step One is admitting you enjoy the fruits of genocide.

      --
      You are welcome on my lawn.
    18. Re: Smallpox, Measles, Influenza, Wampum by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Counterpoint: Russia contributed far more to the defeat of the Axis than the US did, both in terms of lives (more than 20 million Soviets vs ~400K Americans) and strategic contributions (holding the eastern front, and destroying the portion of the Wehrmacht in that theater, which comprised a significant majority of Germany's military). Further counterpoint: You're an ignorant douche.

    19. Re:Smallpox, Measles, Influenza, Wampum by PopeRatzo · · Score: 1

      The smallpox blankets thing was neither an act of terrorism nor an attempted genocide because it didn't happen.

      Nobody mentioned blankets. Why are you refuting something that no one here is asserting?

      --
      You are welcome on my lawn.
    20. Re:Smallpox, Measles, Influenza, Wampum by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If they want to become independent and successful, wonderful.

      You mean, they were once, then the dirty europeans came and stole it all from them. At least get your story straight, and quit reading revisionist 'merkin history.

    21. Re:Smallpox, Measles, Influenza, Wampum by Mashiki · · Score: 1

      Not even true. You can look north to Canada, and see that your entire point is moot. Natives are paid large amounts of money via treaty, and most live in abject poverty. There's only a couple of bands where this hasn't happened because they decided to actually improve things, instead of the corrupt band council and leaders pocketing all the money.

      Guess what happened when the previous government passed a law requiring transparency and accounting of that money. The leftists screeched that it was racism. The band councils(except for those few) screeched it was racism. When Trudeau Jr., came to power they revoked the law. It's a misery of their own making, one that they could fix and don't care to.

      --
      Om, nomnomnom...
    22. Re:Smallpox, Measles, Influenza, Wampum by Mashiki · · Score: 1

      Sorry, I don't feel any pity or remorse for what the UK, Spain, or France did ~500 years ago. And considering there's archilogical evidence pointing that the "natives" genocided another group of people living here, well I'm sure they can start the rounds of apology first.

      --
      Om, nomnomnom...
    23. Re:Smallpox, Measles, Influenza, Wampum by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No, but I'll mention pillows. Like the kind that young people will be holding over the faces of the aging boomer leftists who fucked up their country for them.

    24. Re:Smallpox, Measles, Influenza, Wampum by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "Boomer leftists" is a contradiction in terms. Boomers were responsible for Reagan, for the move to the right that lead conservative Bill Clinton (who neutered Welfare and introduced "Three Strikes" on a national level, both extreme right wing policies) to lead the Democratic Party, for the election of Bush and Trump. The only time they didn't get their way was the election of Obama, who boomers overwhelmingly opposed.

      Boomers fucked up the US specifically because they are right wing "Everyone for themselves" shitheads who grew up thinking Ayn Rand was a philosopher, not a sociopathic crank.

    25. Re:Smallpox, Measles, Influenza, Wampum by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      your mom made a dickhead

    26. Re:Smallpox, Measles, Influenza, Wampum by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No. The Jacksonian Democrats did it. Besides there are other millions of white descended that Europeans didn't come into the country until the early 20th century. Long after the those atrocities. Most of the Polish, Germans, Italians, and the Irish all came after. So you can't put a WE in the blame. The blame solely lies with the Jacksonian Democrats of that century.

      Oh yeah, so "Democrats" now a human race huh? And where were Jacksonian came from? Were they not white people too? Were they brown? Stop trolling and/or blaming your opponent.

  3. Activist court by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Impeach every member of U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit NOW.

  4. Two ideologies at battle by rsilvergun · · Score: 4, Informative

    on the one hand the Republican party really wants to stick it to the poors, especially if they're also colored. Stuff like this is basically fodder for the far right of the base. On the other hand there's corporate subsidies at stake. It's funny to watch the two fight it out until you think about all the completely screwed over people caught in the middle (source: been on the Res, got India friends, and that Casino money hasn't made it all over. Lots of blasted out trailer parks held together by spit and glue).

    --
    Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
    1. Re:Two ideologies at battle by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Informative

      Fuck, don't you useless race peddling sacks of shit ever get tired of it? How oblivious are you to the fact that you're way more racist than the people you're constantly blaming because you lost the elections, due to your corrupt mega-cunt candidate?

  5. Starlink by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Bring on starlink - then none of this will really matter anymore because the infrastructure will be global.

  6. too much already by AndyKron · · Score: 1

    I'm pretty sure they're already paying more than $25/mo too much to begin with.

  7. What do you call... by drinkypoo · · Score: 3, Insightful

    What do you call the useless bit of skin at the base of the penis? Ajit Pai's feet.

    --
    "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    1. Re: What do you call... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      @drinkypoo's kooky cockapron?

  8. Re:Tribe's don't deserve subsidies by bill_mcgonigle · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I'm somewhat sympathetic to your argument, but the fact is that they're not treated as sovereign.

    Look, I think they should be able to have high-rise casinos with hookers and blow on tap if they want, but the reality is they can't.

    Free them economically *and* take away their subsidies, if they are to be sovereign. That's much better than repressing them and subsidizing them.

    But don't make the mistake of assuming that their sovereignty is being more than respected as a token effort. Or that DC actually wants to treat them as sovereign and not a conquered people.

    --
    My God, it's Full of Source!
    OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
  9. Mobsters from New Jersey... by jtara · · Score: 1

    ... already supply all the bandwidth needed... for those tribes that have casinos.

    Give the rest broadband at no cost.

  10. Dude I'm a Bernie Bro by rsilvergun · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I've got policy coming out my ears. Medicare for All, College for All, Ending the Wars, New New Deal, etc, etc, etc. I don't want or need race to win elections. Polls show my policy is overwhelmingly popular. Like, 70-80% popular.

    What I need is to get those folks who voted for Trump because of crap like this and folks who wrongly blame the jews for the raw deal the 1%ers handed them to realize who's really pulling the strings and stop voting against their own interests. It's damn hard to do since the 1%ers own the mass media (mega corps bought everything up, re: Sinclair Media).

    Ignoring the impact of racism on American politics isn't naive or foolish, it's deceitful. The Republicans do it so they can dog whistle. There's corportists Dems who do it so they can run on something besides economics since they're basically Republicans when it comes to money. You need to call both groups out because they're doing the same damn thing: Using race to distract from a bad economy. Bernie understands that. So does Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. That's why they never takes the bait. You shouldn't either. Even when you're trolling on /. If you've got to troll, troll for the good guys.

    --
    Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
    1. Re:Dude I'm a Bernie Bro by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      ... folks who wrongly blame the jews ...

      Sigh: It's all "I'm OK, they're arseholes" mentality. They're the same as the people who voted for Trump (given the far-right ideology of most Nazis, they probably voted for Trump too) They just blame someone else, namely an entire religion; which is treated as a race.

    2. Re:Dude I'm a Bernie Bro by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Instead of hating on all the people who voted for Trump, maybe you should take a step back and look at your "popular policies". Maybe you should talk to people outside of your limited world. You might find your policies aren't as popular as you think they are.

      I certainly am no fan on your policies and hope they never come about. Socialism is the beginning on the end. Just look at all of history.

    3. Re:Dude I'm a Bernie Bro by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Incorrect, unless you wish to pretend ethnic Jews don't exist.
      Or is this a part of the lefts 'lol race doesn't exist' hogwash?

    4. Re:Dude I'm a Bernie Bro by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I make in the low end 6 figures. Before ACA, which I supported, I was saving adequately for retirement, had just started saving for my children's college, and I never worried about being wiped out financially by a simple doctor's visit. Upon passage of ACA, I had to stop contributing to retirement for two years and stop contributing anything to my children's education. A doctor's visit with the wrong results can now wipe out 10% of my annual income in the blink of an eye. I've heard no end of it isn't our fault, we didn't get everything we wanted, etc. I'm above median income, so I'm the target for paying for all these programs and I've got to say it scare the crap out of my born and bred Democratic side that we took the education from my children's generation for tiny health care expansion today that still doesn't do what Democrats want to do. Then we are supposed to trust that Democrats will take money from some magic font to pay for my kids who start college in 7 years to educate them. At least they'll have a chance to eat which may be more than I can say for me at retirement age, since the Democrats haven't come up with a workable plan to fund our existing social support structures. But my voice doesn't count, because anyone who speaks against the Democrats is a racist and I believe we can all agree racists don't deserve to be heard...

    5. Re:Dude I'm a Bernie Bro by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      But my voice doesn't count, because anyone who speaks against the Democrats is a racist and I believe we can all agree racists don't deserve to be heard...

      If you speak out against "The Democrats" then you're painting them all with the same brush, and they're not all the same. That's really no different from speaking out against "Congress".

      If you speak out against specific actions of specific Democrats, you might do a lot better.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  11. Smallpox, Measles, Influenza, Wampum-history by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I imagine there's no historian around to point out that the Indians much like the blacks played a role in their situation. In the case of Indians fighting among themselves, as well as fighting alongside the white man. In the case of blacks, there were blacks that sold other blacks in their native country. In other words history isn't as clean-cut as us vs them implies.

    1. Re:Smallpox, Measles, Influenza, Wampum-history by PopeRatzo · · Score: 0

      I imagine there's no historian around to point out that the Indians much like the blacks played a role in their situation

      No, there's no historian around, so you're free to make the idiotic assertions that you made.

      --
      You are welcome on my lawn.
    2. Re: Smallpox, Measles, Influenza, Wampum-history by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Of course blacks played a role. It was called "slave"

    3. Re:Smallpox, Measles, Influenza, Wampum-history by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Just because you're lazy doesn't mean the rest of the planet is.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_Africa

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Indian_Wars

    4. Re:Smallpox, Measles, Influenza, Wampum-history by rickb928 · · Score: 1

      I accept that America was settled by Europeans/etc., and the native population was nearly obliterated. I don't accept that it was right or just, but it happened. We can't undo that.

      But claims that various native populations struggle with poverty, disease, and failure are heard alongside the very similar reports from various big cities, who have no excuse of endemic oppression and a history of being conquered, massacred, and humiliated. Unless you consider Democrat government to be such, and the results may speak volumes to that premise.

      I think the FCC is misguided here unless they hang this on Native American sovereignty, and I think this is an argument we need not have.

      --
      deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
    5. Re:Smallpox, Measles, Influenza, Wampum-history by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      >_ Just because you're lazy doesn't mean the rest of the planet is.
      >_ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_Africa

      If I buy an Indian woman from his father to release her into a better situation -- like enabling her to migrate to a more fair country -- I'm doing the right thing. If OTOH I keep her as my slave, I'm as guilty as her father.

      Same thing with African slaves: you don't go there, buy some, go home and say "Hey, look what I bought!"; you get them and free them -- and since you bought them, you want to make sure they stay free, so you'd better free them in America... with proper education, that is.

      If you went there, got them and kept them as slaves, your 100% guilty -- it's exactly like you enslaved them yourself.

      Stop playing with words and pretending you fooled anyone. You're the only one to believe in such absurdities.

      Actually, if you were honest and said, "Look, I got me some slaves, I neverwanted to pay for them to be complete citizens", it would be bad, too, but you would be at least sincere.

      But doing wrong things and wanting to get away as a good guy -- you just end up looking like scum.

  12. Re:Tribe's don't deserve subsidies by Waffle+Iron · · Score: 1, Insightful

    It seems like a discount on their ISP bill is the least we can do in exchange for pinching about $25 Trillion worth of their land.

  13. Re:Tribe's don't deserve subsidies by SmaryJerry · · Score: 1

    "Pinching." Really? This was hundreds of years ago. I guess everyone should just feel bad for what people 10 generations ago did right? Despite the fact tribes now live in the richest country in the world, are free of war, and don't even pay for the price to do so. Instead they distribute their money to their people. But apparently free money doesn't exactly make people work very hard so they are stuck in a rut. America used to belong to British also, maybe we should just give it back to the British because we "pinched" it from them when it belonged to them.

  14. Re:Tribe's don't deserve subsidies by dryeo · · Score: 1

    You signed treaties for the land you're living on. The American Constitution puts treaties as the second highest law in the land and here you are wanting to renege.

    --
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
  15. Re:Tribe's don't deserve subsidies by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    If you pinched their land perhaps you should volunteer yourself at the nearest police station and pay for your crimes in a court of law?

  16. Re:Tribe's don't deserve subsidies by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Despite the fact tribes now live in the richest country in the world,

    This year's list of the world's 10 most liveable cities just came out. Not a single US city made that list.

    are free of war,

    More or less, now.

    and don't even pay for the price to do so.

    You have got to be fucking kidding me. They paid for it with their lives, livelihood, and culture.

  17. Re:Tribe's don't deserve subsidies by Waffle+Iron · · Score: 0

    Yes, it was pinched hundreds of years ago. You're enjoying trillions of dollars of booty because of it, so there's no need to be such a petty little bitch about a little ISP discount.

  18. Re:Tribe's don't deserve subsidies by SmaryJerry · · Score: 1

    I wish I had trillions of dollars but my pockets don't feel that full. Besides my family is not even from America. Get off your high horse and realize the past had war, now even has war, but right now it's run by the most just nation who happen to have the strongest weapons. If the U.S. was not a forgiving and merciful nation then wars would still result taking their land after winning.

  19. Cultural appropriation by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The Internet is by and for white people. It is part of white culture. It is a white "thang". It is part of the history and culture of whiteness. Indians using the internet is racist cultural appropriation. The internet was invented and built buy white people. Non-whites are not entitled to appropriate our culture.

    1. Re: Cultural appropriation by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Oh yeah, ASCII only, forever!! That'll keep 'em out!

  20. don't know why they need this by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    What's wrong with damn smoke signals "...send more firewater"

    1. Re:don't know why they need this by nnet · · Score: 1

      my smoke signals are UTF8.

  21. Re: Tribe's don't deserve subsidies by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I was not party to any treaty signing. Making promises on behalf of people who do not yet exist is immoral.

  22. broadband by cascadingstylesheet · · Score: 1

    Politics aside, I'd like that $25 broadband please ...

  23. Re: Tribe's don't deserve subsidies by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    blame your parents for birthing/bringing you in/to 'merka. if being uh 'merkin makes you think you're absolved of 'merkin atrocities, your as fucking dumb as the rest of you 'merkins, welcome to 'merka, dumbass. trump loves you.

  24. Re:Tribe's don't deserve subsidies by Waffle+Iron · · Score: 1

    I wish I had trillions of dollars but my pockets don't feel that full. Besides my family is not even from America.

    Nevertheless, your family presumably felt that leaving whatever shithole they came from to take advantage of all the loot available here was a win.

  25. Re:Tribe's don't deserve subsidies by SmaryJerry · · Score: 1

    Are you saying you are anti immigrant, even legally? How is it that my family, not even having had lived here before, is doing just fine but those who spent their whole life in America are unable to enjoy the same benefits I supposedly have over them? Oh right, because they are willfully not a member of the US government, unless it suits them and they can receive things for free.

  26. Re:Tribe's don't deserve subsidies by Waffle+Iron · · Score: 1

    Irrelevant. Your logic is like a schoolyard bully swiping your lunchbox then saying: "I can hold onto this lunchbox better than you, so you don't deserve it."

    Then he gives it to his buddy, who says "*I* didn't take this lunchbox from anybody, so it's 100% mine! By the way, you owe me rent on the lunch."

  27. Re:Tribe's don't deserve subsidies by SmaryJerry · · Score: 1

    Nah your trying to make a moral argument for people who fought and died 300 years ago before a light bulb had ever been switched on. Who was right or wrong isn't relevant anymore. And last time I checked the Puritans came to America in droves to escape their own persecution, what bastards. I think you've watched one to many sad Columbus movies and now you think you actually understand everything that happened back then. They were lucky they were taken over and given some land to govern at all to screw up with because if their land wasn't taken from them Germany would have taken over and kill them all for not being Aryan. Thank god the U.S. was made or they would be instinct! See I can make up bullshit moral arguments too!

  28. Re:Tribe's don't deserve subsidies by Waffle+Iron · · Score: 1

    You were the one who started a "moral argument" by claiming that these people were freeloading off your tax dollars, when in fact you should be paying them rent.

  29. Re:Tribe's don't deserve subsidies by SmaryJerry · · Score: 1

    It's only logical regardless of morality. I'm saying they don't contribute to the US government therefore they should not receive even more of the free benefits they already receive. You go to the tribal land and ask for the free cash they distribute to their tribe members from their taxes and see how that goes for you.

  30. Re:Tribe's don't deserve subsidies by SmaryJerry · · Score: 1

    Tribes are free of war. It's the American's who die in the war protecting their land. Sure some tribe members are also Americans and enlist as well. And no I'm not kidding you. They pay zero dollars or lives if they don't want to and haven't for a long time.