Every time the left gets caught supporting failed socialist movements, they respond by doubling down. At this point, the mainstream left is so radical that it’s genuinely dangerous to engage with them. People in red hats are being attacked in the streets, even when there’s no MAGA logo. It’s completely out of control.
Arguably the worst part of this new-wave socialism is that it’s easy to debunk. We don’t have to look at Venezuela or Stalin’s USSR. We’ve tried socialism right here in the U.S., and it went just as poorly as every other attempt.
Have you ever spent time on an Indian reservation? It’s not a pretty picture. You’re about to learn how socialism is the true reason for bad conditions on reservations.
As you read these facts, remember a few things. The statistics apply specifically to Natives who live on the reservations and not the Native American population in general. Also remember that these were not the conditions reservations faced until after 1924. That’s when big government got involved.
The Failed Safety Net
It’s often said that Native Americans get free housing and subsidized living. The truth of these statements is well beyond most people’s assumptions. Let’s break it down piece by piece. The federal budget for Native housing assistance is $2.4 billion. That translates to about $5,000 per home per year. That already covers half the cost of median housing for the year, but that’s not the end of the story.
The majority of Natives receiving this assistance are in subsidized housing that already costs less. Natives, especially on reservations, are not paying heavily out of pocket for housing.
As for schooling, it’s a pretty mixed bag. On some reservations, the school systems are federally funded. Others receive vouchers of a sort that allow them to attend public schools off the reservation.
When it comes to college, roughly half of all Native Americans (who go to college) get full funding. The government pays tuition, housing and everything else they need. The other half get at least part of their tuition covered by tax dollars.
There’s also the subject of direct handouts. This again varies pretty heavily by tribe. Some members receive direct checks. Others are on SNAP-style programs. One thing to note is that all single mothers are granted monthly stipends.
It’s difficult to fully tally all of these government handouts, but they are much better funded than the federal assistance programs that exist off of reservations, and the total spending per capita is about triple. In short, no Native on a reservation is given the chance to go hungry, uneducated or homeless unless they blatantly refuse assistance.
How it Fairs
In all, we’re spending billions a year on a population that numbers 1.1 million people. With so much assistance, life on the reservation should be pretty amazing, right?
This is the hard proof that even partial socialism fails. Reservations have the worst life expectancy in the United States. In fact, one reservation has the lowest life expectancy in the western hemisphere. There, the life expectancy for men is 48! If you average all of the reservations, life expectancy is around 65. That’s 10 years less than the rest of the country.
Besides literally killing people, the socialism of reservations has also destroyed economies. Jobless rates range from 35 to 85 percent. Read that again. Just a few years ago we were in a massive recession where unemployment levels reached as high as 10 percent. Some reservations only have 15 percent employment. It’s a complete disaster.
Paired with poor health and no economy, reservations have the highest federal crime rates in the country. This includes violent crimes, property crimes and the rest. Keep in mind that most reservations are not subject to state laws, or else there’s a chance we would see record levels for all crimes.
Let’s run the tally. There is more government assistance on native lands than anywhere else in the country by a long shot. The results of all of that “help” is overwhelming unemployment, extraordinary crime and a life expectancy straight from the Middle Ages. This failure could not be more complete, and it perfectly mirrors the same things we see in every other socialist experiment throughout history.
A Loss of Freedom
Keep in mind that all of this is paired with an extraordinary loss of freedom. In order to qualify for the majority of these assistance programs, Native Americans have to live on the reservation. You can see why four out of every five don’t.
Living on a reservation means giving up a large number of freedoms that are available to the rest of Americans. You lose access to the free markets (only authorized vendors, etc., can conduct trade on or with a reservation). You become subject to the laws of the tribe, and those can range from fairly lax to outright oppressive. Most importantly, resigning to live on a reservation subjects you to the influence of excessive government intervention.
The final nail in the coffin of this disaster is comparing Natives who live off of the reservation. Their life expectancy, employment rates and general success and happiness measures fall right in line with the rest of the country. The problem here isn’t the people. It isn’t the culture. It isn’t the history. It is unequivocally the system that is currently in place.
The system of governmental dependence fosters exactly what we would expect, and the result is hurting more than a million Americans. It’s why a large number of Natives who leave the reservation end up returning. These are not conditions that empower people, promote agency, solve problems or lead to successful and happy lives.
If the government can’t provide for a very small subgroup of Americans (only 1.1 million live on reservations), how can we expect them to provide for almost 350 million people? The obvious, short answer is that they can’t. The ambitious programs that have destroyed Native culture and turned reservations into some of the worst places in our country are completely un-fundable at a national level. That might be a good thing, because if we could find the money, the evidence clearly shows that the entire country would go the way of a reservation.
Despite the overwhelming obviousness of all of this, the mainstream leaders in the Democratic Party are pushing all of these policies. They want universal housing, schooling and basic income. When we’ve tried it in our own country, it led to absolute disaster. An 85-percent unemployment rate is unfathomable, but it’s exactly what socialism produces.
This isn’t game theory. We have socialism within our borders, and the direct harm it is causing cannot be overstated. Anyone who tolerates the socialist agenda in this country is an enemy to her people.
