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How would Native Americans feel about a $50/pound pipe mixture taxation level?
Dear Fellow Pipefans:
Data's Calabash here - we've all heard the horror stories about "what's to come" over the effort — which has been dubiously championed in recent years by both one particular US Senator from Iowa who's supposedly retiring in 2015 — AND one particular US House representative from the smallest district in Tennessee, tucked away in its south-westernmost corner (just to name two of 'em) — to enact the long-anticipated US Federal "excise tax explosion" concerning our pipe mixtures, in trying to raise the rate from around $2.80/lb to a whopping $45.00 to $50.00/lb, something that seems to have no common sense or reason outside something that ONLY an extremist of any sort would ever understand.
In all the stories I've seen concerning this painful likelihood, from either side of the issue, I have NOT seen one shred, tidbit or sound byte of news about the substantial number among the 2.5 to 2.9 MILLION "people of indigenous ethnicity" in our nation, that are living east of the Rockies - in which regions, the tribal groups living in such a large area of the United States have a good chance of embracing some sort of tobacco-related cultural significance as part of their heritage — and what THEIR opinion of what such an explosively huge, twenty-fold-plus hike in the US Federal tax on pipe tobacco could cause for an important segment of their culture's future.
There is a chance that Federally-recognized tribal groups, among those observing tobacco-based ceremonies, could "get a pass" on such a ruinous taxation level from that status of recognition from Washington DC to avoid the appearance of illegal discrimination...but NOT all native tribal groups in the USA are Federally recognized, for varying reasons. Some are known to be recognized as a tribal group for legal and legislative purposes on the state level only, and yet others are not recognized at any level of government within the United States. If any solely state-recognized tribal groups of Native Americans, or unrecognized groups of said ethnicity aren't going to receive a "possible pass" on the ruinous excise taxation hike that the two aforementioned members of the Congress have been "championing", as mentioned in news items I've read a few times before over recent years...
...just WHAT are they supposed to think (along with the rest of us!) about the potential reality of having a critical part of their culture disrupted — possibly for eternity, going forward — "just for the health of the children" as its anti-tobacco "proponents" like to put it, by a twenty-fold-"plus" hike in taxes on pipe mixtures?
Most of us are quite aware about how badly Native Americans have been treated by European-ancestry immigrants to North America and their US citizen descendants, over a half-millenium-plus worth of history. A few have likened it to what occurred during WW II to anyone in Europe, who didn't fit the Third Reich's twisted ideas of what their preferred personal characteristics were, before the date of May 8, 1945. Some of what Native Americans faced for challenges to their continued existence at the start of European colonization of North America, was truthfully due to differences in biology versus ethnicity, as many indigenous Americans had no natural resistance to the sorts of endemic diseases that the European immigrants brought over. And add to that, much of what we learned in American history in our own public schools, especially in recent years, detailed how some American leaders of our shared past, like Andrew Jackson and others, placed indigenous Americans in mortally dangerous situations for no other reason than prejudice and hatred, and also contributed to the needless damage to indigenous Americans and their cultures that our history has all too often recorded.
Even in today's news, there's concern over further damage occurring to indigenous peoples' rights worldwide...surprisingly (or not?) a pair of progressive blogs on the 'Net are addressing such issues, with one targeting concerns about such rights being eroded by international corporate concerns, and another specifying that more significant issues for indigenous Americans need to be addressed RIGHT NOW, many more than the offensively troubling name of Washington DC's NFL pro football team.
One of these "significant issues" of concern for indigenous Americans COULD well be the long-plotted, and apparently "planned-for" by those who would want to micromanage our lives in more ways than can be imagined, "explosion" in pipe tobacco excise taxes. Humans are far from perfect, and the proposed hike OF that tax to upwards of $50.00/lb IS a sign of the imperfect mistake that COULD be about to happen, especially IF no one asks the indigenous Americans what their opinion is on the issue — or worse yet, if they are uninformed about it.
Yours Sincerely,
Data's Calabash
P.S. — perhaps that pair of Congress members I've alluded to SHOULD be convinced to read a particular page at THIS site, about HOW valuable a tradition they are targeting for potential extinction is to certain indigenous American tribal groups, before anything further is done on the issue.
Dear Fellow Pipefans:
Data's Calabash here - we've all heard the horror stories about "what's to come" over the effort — which has been dubiously championed in recent years by both one particular US Senator from Iowa who's supposedly retiring in 2015 — AND one particular US House representative from the smallest district in Tennessee, tucked away in its south-westernmost corner (just to name two of 'em) — to enact the long-anticipated US Federal "excise tax explosion" concerning our pipe mixtures, in trying to raise the rate from around $2.80/lb to a whopping $45.00 to $50.00/lb, something that seems to have no common sense or reason outside something that ONLY an extremist of any sort would ever understand.
In all the stories I've seen concerning this painful likelihood, from either side of the issue, I have NOT seen one shred, tidbit or sound byte of news about the substantial number among the 2.5 to 2.9 MILLION "people of indigenous ethnicity" in our nation, that are living east of the Rockies - in which regions, the tribal groups living in such a large area of the United States have a good chance of embracing some sort of tobacco-related cultural significance as part of their heritage — and what THEIR opinion of what such an explosively huge, twenty-fold-plus hike in the US Federal tax on pipe tobacco could cause for an important segment of their culture's future.
There is a chance that Federally-recognized tribal groups, among those observing tobacco-based ceremonies, could "get a pass" on such a ruinous taxation level from that status of recognition from Washington DC to avoid the appearance of illegal discrimination...but NOT all native tribal groups in the USA are Federally recognized, for varying reasons. Some are known to be recognized as a tribal group for legal and legislative purposes on the state level only, and yet others are not recognized at any level of government within the United States. If any solely state-recognized tribal groups of Native Americans, or unrecognized groups of said ethnicity aren't going to receive a "possible pass" on the ruinous excise taxation hike that the two aforementioned members of the Congress have been "championing", as mentioned in news items I've read a few times before over recent years...
...just WHAT are they supposed to think (along with the rest of us!) about the potential reality of having a critical part of their culture disrupted — possibly for eternity, going forward — "just for the health of the children" as its anti-tobacco "proponents" like to put it, by a twenty-fold-"plus" hike in taxes on pipe mixtures?
Most of us are quite aware about how badly Native Americans have been treated by European-ancestry immigrants to North America and their US citizen descendants, over a half-millenium-plus worth of history. A few have likened it to what occurred during WW II to anyone in Europe, who didn't fit the Third Reich's twisted ideas of what their preferred personal characteristics were, before the date of May 8, 1945. Some of what Native Americans faced for challenges to their continued existence at the start of European colonization of North America, was truthfully due to differences in biology versus ethnicity, as many indigenous Americans had no natural resistance to the sorts of endemic diseases that the European immigrants brought over. And add to that, much of what we learned in American history in our own public schools, especially in recent years, detailed how some American leaders of our shared past, like Andrew Jackson and others, placed indigenous Americans in mortally dangerous situations for no other reason than prejudice and hatred, and also contributed to the needless damage to indigenous Americans and their cultures that our history has all too often recorded.
Even in today's news, there's concern over further damage occurring to indigenous peoples' rights worldwide...surprisingly (or not?) a pair of progressive blogs on the 'Net are addressing such issues, with one targeting concerns about such rights being eroded by international corporate concerns, and another specifying that more significant issues for indigenous Americans need to be addressed RIGHT NOW, many more than the offensively troubling name of Washington DC's NFL pro football team.
One of these "significant issues" of concern for indigenous Americans COULD well be the long-plotted, and apparently "planned-for" by those who would want to micromanage our lives in more ways than can be imagined, "explosion" in pipe tobacco excise taxes. Humans are far from perfect, and the proposed hike OF that tax to upwards of $50.00/lb IS a sign of the imperfect mistake that COULD be about to happen, especially IF no one asks the indigenous Americans what their opinion is on the issue — or worse yet, if they are uninformed about it.
Yours Sincerely,
Data's Calabash
P.S. — perhaps that pair of Congress members I've alluded to SHOULD be convinced to read a particular page at THIS site, about HOW valuable a tradition they are targeting for potential extinction is to certain indigenous American tribal groups, before anything further is done on the issue.
A link to the Mouth of Sauron. "Oh, you enjoy that? HAHA, too bad. We know how to spend your money for you."
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