Horses, Apaches, and exclusionary sovereignty
America’s premier
welfare State
Pick ‘em, choose ‘em, and destroy ‘em!
A Canadian
free market think tank, the Fraser Institute, released its annual “Economic
Freedom of North America” report for 2013. Leaving Mexico out of the survey to deal
with its corruption and drug war debacles, the report chronicles the best and
worst places in North America to conduct
business. The survey condenses the data and computes a value for economic
freedom. The data is arranged into ten components. That array emphasizes size
of government, takings and discriminatory taxation, and labor market freedom.
New Mexico, O’ Fair New Mexico, ranks dead
last in economic freedom. What a distinction that is. Aside from the
computed results of the study, three current examples add to the substance of
the findings. The examples can be termed ‘pick ‘em’, ‘choose ‘em’, and ‘destroy
‘em’. To those who face the onslaught, the understanding is complete.
Pick ‘em
Day after day,
trucks loaded with horses leave Morton,
Texas headed for Mexico. Those
trucks aren’t hauling horses to a roping or to a sanctioned endurance ride. The
endurance ride those horses are bound for is a one way trip to slaughter. Naïve
Americans, including the Governor and the Attorney General of New Mexico,
Susana Martinez and Gary King, respectively, have taken personal positions that
commercial horse slaughter is at odds with their state’s traditions and values.
Are you
kidding?
The values
implicit in the responsibilities of horse care are surpassed only by those in
the care of human beings. There is not a rancher alive who has not walked to a
favored old horse simply emotionally pummeled knowing it is his and his only
responsibility to end the suffering of that loyal friend. It is the fulfillment
of an unwritten contract.
Furthermore, in the absence of direct
personal responsibility, that person would universally defer only to the most
humane method to accomplish the same end when that life ending circumstance
becomes necessary.
I cringe at the reality of Mexican
horse slaughter.
The state,
however, remains at war with Valley Meat Company in Roswell that has been forced to run a
juggernaut of obstacles trying to become the only regional equine slaughter
plant. In that role, they would operate under the guidelines of the USDA, on American
soil, and under strictest rules and regulations.
What a
political, special interest debacle this has become!
What is
equally disgusting is to discuss this with the folks who buy and move horses to
Mexico
for slaughter. They support the governor and the A.G. in their efforts to
disallow the business. They want the conditions of current stability. They
don’t want the robbery emanating from fees and regulatory burdens New Mexico would pile on
the process.
Today, every horse in the
commercial slaughter channel is being killed. The system is working albeit it
isn’t under the professed best practices, most humane approach. The buyers and
facilitators are paying the fees including the mordida crossing the horses into
Mexico.
They know the game and control the outcome. Dealing with the state of New Mexico poses a
moving target. They’d rather deal with the corruption of Mexico.
So, horses will likely continue to
face the horrors of Mexican death while New
Mexico upholds some imaginary tradition and …
candidates posturing for future campaigns.
Choose ‘Em
I have a
letter describing my great grandmother’s memory of her experience facing
Geronimo. The year was 1885 and her family, the Shelleys, had been warned that
Apaches were approaching. In preparation, they gathered two families and two
other men who were in the district for the purpose of mineral exploration.
Sure
enough, Indians were observed up the creek stealing horses. The decision was
made to make for the Gila River. At Cliff, there
would be added protection with more numbers of defenders.
Everyone,
including children, was expected to carry a gun. In the retreat away from the war
party sightings, they observed more Indians to their front taking cover for
ambush along the trail. With no choice, the party backtracked to a one room log
cabin and set about setting up a defense. They gathered wood, filled a door
barrier with rocks, and broke chink out of the walls to form rifle ports.
They waited.
They waited.
By
nightfall, no Indian had tested the cabin’s defenses. While the men stood
watch, the women put the children under the bed and then squeezed together on
top of it and tried to sleep. Hours later, a huge calamity arose. The children
and women started screaming and attempted to escape from the bed. Indians must
have dug their way through the roof and dropped on the bed where they were
slaughtering the women and children!
Somebody
struck a match and the chaos was unraveled. The women collapsed the bed onto
the sleeping children. No one was killed, but everybody was scared out of ten
years of growth. Someone finally laughed. The story ended with the group making
their way to Cliff where a cavalry unit from Ft. Bayard
had arrived to bolster the defense.
Geronimo
and his band went on to string together one of the most epic life and death
sagas in all of history. Ask any American who the most famous warrior was, and,
arguably, Geronimo will be a leading candidate. The chase and the chapters of
the story of his final surrender in Skeleton
Canyon near the border
are monumental.
The
outright fear of his ability as a war leader, as witnessed by the actual words
of those who faced him, prompted further action. He would never again be
allowed to escape incarceration and continue a reign of terror. The United States
put him and his followers on a train and shipped them to Florida. Their remnants were eventually
relocated to Oklahoma
with a stop in Alabama.
The 700 or so legal descendents
never returned to their homeland until they sought the purchase of 30 acres of
land along I10 east of Deming in Luna
County. It is there they
now face an old nemesis … New Mexico.
The location of their toehold of homeland is within a line of sight of two
geographic features that remind passing motorist of their once dominance. One
is the overhanging rock on the east slope of the Florida Mountains
to the west and the other is the flat topped Massacre Peak
to the northeast. In the former, they gathered to watch General Crooke and his
cavalry pursue them in the Geronimo chase and in the latter they massacred a
caravan of merchants from what is now Juarez.
Good, bad or indifferent, both attach their permanence to this land of their
ancestry.
They want to build a gambling casino
on their ‘homeland’ where upwards of 15,000 vehicles pass daily. New Mexico stands
steadfast against the move on the basis of horse trades that pose threatened
termination of educational pledges if the casino is built. It doesn’t matter that
Luna County is named among the 20 most at risk
counties in the nation. The state is again caught in a game.
What is more, the state demonstrates
no inclination to imagine what the return of the Chiricahuas would pose to
national interest. The impact and allure that could be created in welcoming
this band of mysterious, historical people home could be immense. Hollywood alone has built
a mystique around these people that has world stage implications. Gambling aside,
this act has star power beyond a casino.
But, New Mexico demonstrates the liberal
propensity to choose who is allowed to succeed rather than allowing businesses
to seek and create regional advantages. Taking handouts is a way of life for
the state. Fostering a robust business environment is completely foreign.
Destroy ‘em
In the backdrop of Luna County’s ‘Apacheria’, lays
some 90,000 acres of state trust lands and private improvements and holdings
that will become landlocked if Senator Udall’s (D-NM) wilderness legislation is
passed. He is orchestrating another grand taking. When the Chiricahua verbal
history is related, lessons should remind us of the wisdom of the great white
fathers in Washington.
The lessons the Tribe could pass to the 95 plus families that derive direct
livelihood from the lands threatened can be drawn from history. It would be
direct and simple.
The lesson would start with the expected
blind eye from the state of New
Mexico offering protection. Remember, the state
depends on the federal government for 36% of its budget from federal revenue
transfers. There is no appetite to jeopardize subsidies to stand for something
constitutional. The statement would end in narration.
“Beware … sovereignty means nothing
if you are caught on the wrong side of a liberal power play.”
Stephen
L. Wilmeth is a rancher from southern New
Mexico. “I have a whole lot more empathy for the
Chiricahuas than I ever expected … both of us … the cowboy and the Indians can
watch in unity this federal assault from the top of Massacre Peak.”
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