It’s not complicated. It’s Oklahoma’s statehood
Published: June 14th, 2021
The Flag of Oklahoma
The City Sentinel is an independent, non-partisan and locally-owned newspaper based in Oklahoma City.
The City Sentinel Editorial
The Sunday, June 13 headline in The Oklahoman (‘Feds seek $82 million for reservation case costs’) distilled the latest series of steps taken to dismantle Oklahoma.
If Congress agrees to spend the money, the U.S. government will spend that money to crush efforts to sustain the area we call “Oklahoma.”
The money will be used to support implementation of “land fixes” that sunset forever legal and jurisdictional efforts to retain the meaning of “statehood” for Oklahomans.
Beautifully produced televisions ads and soothing rhetoric will try to hide these efforts as they yield the end of Oklahoma.
The City Sentinel declines to accept the end of Oklahoma, but ours is only one voice in a sea of confusing and often deliberately misleading assertions.
The chorus of opposition must be raised now, on behalf of citizens and taxpayers, people in business and those who labor, those of every ethnic and faith affiliation, members of all political parties, and leaders of small tribes seeking to control their own destiny rather than cede their fortunes to Big Tribes and Big Government.
State leaders in elective and appointive office must for the sake of us all unite to sustain a future for Oklahoma, even as we continue to argue about other things.
It is past time for people whose names are in the news every day – and those who want to have their names in the news every day – to unite around a deceptively simple idea: Oklahoma is a state.
It is months past time to push back against efforts in Congress, including those of a long-serving U.S. Representative, to convert the eastern one-half of the state into competing jurisdictions where — in the near-future — new taxes, regulations and administrative rules will be set in place eroding property rights and jurisdictional meaning.
This is actually not complicated, but it is challenging:
Hand-wringing and unwillingness to understand the implications of these developments will bear real consequences. Consequences will include the end of Oklahoma and a new governing reality that makes the future darker, not brighter, for us all.