WATER RIGHTS - TRIBAL SOVERIGNTY VS. THE STATE ++ THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE NUTTY AT THE CAPITOL

++ AGENDA FOR THIS WEEK’S MEETING

++ ANNOUNCEMENTS

++ WATER RIGHTS - TRIBAL SOVERIGNTY VS. THE STATE

++ THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE NUTTY AT THE CAPITOL

++ AGENDA FOR THIS WEEK’S MEETING

Our 12 noon luncheon for Wednesday, February 15th will be held at

Italiano’s restaurant, 4801 North Lincoln in OKC. Our speaker for this

week’s meeting will be Oklahoma’s Attorneys General, Scott Pruitt. On

the evening of the OU - OSU Bedlam football game last November, Fox

News sponsored a presidential candidate forum with the three panelists

being the Attorneys Generals from Oklahoma, Florida and I believe

South Carolina. The format was for each candidate to appear by

themselves with the three AG’s as they presented questions in rapid

fire with follow up questions if clarifications were needed. I wanted

Mr. Pruitt to come and give his perspective on the remaining 4

presidential candidates based on his time with them. If you are

vacillating or struggling as to who to vote for on March 6th, come to

this meeting and perhaps Scott’s perspective will be helpful. In

addition, I have asked that Mr. Pruitt give us an up-date on some of

the hot topics he is dealing with at the AG’s office. I recommend

arriving early as we will start at 12 noon sharp, move through our

announcements quickly and then give as much time as possible to Scott

as he will have a lot of information to present.

++ ANNOUNCEMENTS

* VOLUNTEER NEEDED - After another stellar meeting this past

Wednesday, I am determined to find one or more volunteers to video our

programs to put them on the internet or record them for pod casting on

our blog site. If equipment is needed, we can purchase it for this

use. Many of our programs need to be heard by an audience beyond those

in attendance at our weekly meetings. If you have the skills, please

contact me, we might have 2 or 3 people doing this in case someone

needs to miss a particular meeting. We will not record our candidate

interview meetings.

* EVERY SUNDAY MORNING - Our good friend Glen Howard hosts “The

Senior World” radio program every Sunday morning on Oklahoma City’s

blow-torch talk radio station, KTOK 1000 AM. The show airs from 10

until 11:00 a.m. when many of us are at church. However, you can log

on to http://seniorworldradio.com/ and listen to any of the past

programs archived through pod casting. I was even a guest a few weeks

back, talking about OCPAC and the up-coming legislative session.

Perhaps as many as a third of Glen’s programs have as a guest, a

person who recently spoke at an OCPAC meeting. All of the Senior World

programs are taped and as such our speaker last Wednesday, at the end

of our program, was rushed out to get into the studio with Glen to

tape the show which will air this coming Sunday. Many of those in

attendance thought our speaker, Mr. Benjamin Domenech, was one of the

best if not the best speaker we have ever had. I was blown away at how

clear his presentation was regarding the move toward full blown

socialism in health care and why it is impossible to work, especially

long term. Check it out, Glen has some great shows on KTOK radio.

* TUESDAY EVENING - ADA AREA - Hey guys and gals, round up your

valentine and take them to the Ada Tea Party meeting in Ada which

starts at 6:30 p.m. The location is the Chamber of Commerce meeting

room, 209 West Main Street. Speaking this month will be Catherine

White. The title of her presentation is: Connecting the Dots -

Understanding the Times.

* THURSDAY EVENING - TULSA AREA - OK2A (Oklahoma 2nd Amendment)

will host their Tulsa area meeting on Thursday evening, February 16th

at the 2A Shooting Center. The location is 4616 East Admiral Pl, with

the meeting beginning at 6:30 p.m.

* FRIDAY EVENING - OKC AREA - Oklahoma County’s annual Lincoln/

Reagan Day Dinner and Auction will be held at the Marriott Hotel

Ballroom, 1515 Northwest Expressway in OKC. Speaking will be political

strategist and former Presidential advisor, Dick Morris. RSVP by this

Wednesday, February 15th by contacting Whitney Harbour at (405)

285-5465. The cost to attend is $60 per person for general seating.

* VIDEO ABOUT ATHEISM - Last October we had Gary Crossland, author

of the book THE MERGED GOSPELS, do a Christian apologetics

presentation at our OCPAC meeting. It was just excellent and I have

particularly enjoyed the audio version of his book. He has just

produced a humorous video about atheism. It is very clever and has a

strong message at the same time. I think it takes about 10 minutes and

is produced with real excellence. I strongly suggest giving it a

viewing, http://mergedgospels.com/MG/001.html

++ WATER RIGHTS - TRIBAL SOVERIGNTY VS. THE STATE

If you have received our e-mails for any length of time, you will know

that I was a supporter of Randy Brogdon for Governor during the 2010

Republican primaries. Mary Fallin prevailed in that effort and since

she has become Governor, I have wanted to be fair to Mary when she

does what is good, but will still be critical when I believe she is

making a mistake.

With that said, I have been impressed with her stand regarding water

rights and Oklahoma’s Sovereign Tribes. She is displaying the

strongest exposition of leadership on this issue that I have seen

since she has been in office.

Over the past several years, we have devoted at least 6 programs at

OCPAC regarding Tribal Sovereignty and/or water rights. In the past,

it has appeared that both sides indicated they wanted to work out an

agreeable deal between the tribes and the state of Oklahoma to best

serve all the people of Oklahoma. However, there seemed to be little

movement toward that end until recently when the City of Oklahoma City

proceeded to purchase the storage capacity at Sardis Lake in

Southeastern Oklahoma with the intention of building a large pipeline

to central Oklahoma to supply water for central Oklahoma for many

years to come. A similar agreement has existed with Atoka lake and has

worked well for many years.

When OKC bought the water storage rights and I am sure in their minds

the water also, at least two of Oklahoma’s tribes then filed a lawsuit

in Federal Court, claiming the water belonged to them. Even though I

don’t believe any of the Tribes spent any money to build the lake,

they cite treaties from well over a hundred years ago, claiming the

water is theirs.

Sardis lake is one of the newer lakes in the state and was built by

the Army Corp of Engineers, primarily to be used for water supply. The

cost of building the lake was to be paid for by the State of Oklahoma.

The State was more irresponsible than the worst drunken sailor when it

came to paying off the loan, and as such, the feds took the State to

court to pay up. That set the stage for OKC to offer to pay off the

debt for the water storage rights and in their minds I am sure they

believed the water would be theirs also.

Since that time the Tribes have been trying to make their case in the

media and now Governor Fallin has taken the lead by responding with a

request for water adjudication, which would be a long and expensive

court proceeding. If it were to occur in state courts, I believe the

advantage might go to the State. If it proceeds in federal courts, I

believe the advantage might go to the Tribes.

Over the past few years, the various tribes have spent millions of

dollars running high quality TV commercials about themselves. Many

prominate people appear in these ads, particularly those run by the

Chickasaw Tribe. They are always warm and fuzzy and try to project a

best foot forward on behalf of the tribes. I have had many people ask

me why are they running those ads since they are usually not selling

anything, other than themselves.

My answer has always been one of speculation. I believe they are

trying to build favor in the eyes of Oklahomans and especially the

media. As I said they have become a huge source of revenue for many of

the TV stations in Oklahoma as well as newspapers and as such, those

medial outlets may be hesitant toward being critical of the tribes if

occasion should arise.

What might that criticism be? I don’t believe most Oklahomans know

just how much of a legal advantage tribally owned businesses have over

non tribally owned businesses. I am not even talking about the casinos

in which the tribes have a monopoly. That’s right, once Remington Park

was purchased by the Chickasaw Tribe, no one other than a tribe owns a

casino in Oklahoma.

Over the past 10 to 15 years I believe the tribes have been pushing

the envelope as far as they can, trying to find out just how far they

can push the meaning of tribal sovereignty. In other words, they

rather like being considered as a sovereign nation within a state and

having all kinds of legal advantages. To me, it is nothing more than

reverse discrimination.

With 39 federally recognized tribes in Oklahoma, I believe it to be

very divisive and will become worse as time goes on. With the wealth

created by the casinos, the tribes are purchasing ever more

businesses. I have half jokingly said that someday, almost everyone in

Oklahoma will eventually work for the government, that is, a tribal

government.

As I have said in the past, treaties between the government and the

various tribes were entered into to solve an immediate problem.

Usually to put an end to killing one another. However, these treaties

in the long term now present some difficult problems for a modern

society. A society which should be striving to treat everyone equally

at least in the eyes of the law. The problem is that today, Tribal

Sovereignty now gives significant legal advantages to one group of

people over other groups of people.

While I recognize the legal agreements, I believe they are

particularly harmful to the majority of people in Oklahoma. Truth is,

dissolving those treaties probably must occur at the federal

government level and I don’t believe there is much movement in that

direction at this time. I do believe the U.S. Government can

unilaterally detach itself from any treaty at any time we might so

believe it to be in the best interest of our nation.

Please, should anyone want to write about how we stole land from the

Indians, you need to understand that ownership of property was a

European concept brought to this continent by our forefathers. Prior

to the arrival of Europeans, Indians didn’t own land, as the nature of

their pantheistic religion of shamanism had them as part of creation,

something to be a part of, land was not something to own. All tribes

were nomadic, some more so than others. Often times they would

displace one another in certain areas before they moved on to other

areas.

However, there did come a time when private ownership of property did

become a reality and as such we made treaties giving the ownership of

land to various tribes. Thus the movement of the 5 civilized tribes to

various parts of what is today Oklahoma.

The Biblical principle is that a house divided cannot stand. I believe

the divisions created by the 39 nations within the state is beginning

to show what kind of problems will develop. Will the state have its

hands so tied by the various tribes that it will be impossible to

develop a comprehensive plan to meet the water needs of the State of

Oklahoma for decades to come?

There is plenty of water in Oklahoma to meet our needs for decades to

come as well as excess water that we could sell to out of state

interests to pay for increased collection and distribution

infrastructure capabilities throughout the state. In my estimation, it

is shear foolishness and emotionalism to think that it would be

harmful to the citizens and state of Oklahoma to build a collecting

pool on 2 or 3 of our rivers about 5 miles North of the Red River to

gather water and sell it to North Texas, just before we lose it as it

flows into the salinity of the Red River.

Every day, we wave by-by to millions of gallons of water, worth

millions of dollars each year as it exits our state. Why you might

ask? Emotional regionalism and disagreement over who owns the water. I

do not support selling stream water that runs into the Red River up-

stream of Lake Texoma. I also don’t support selling any underground

water to sources outside of Oklahoma and I don’t agree with selling

lake water outside of Oklahoma. I would prefer to see those excess

water sources re-distributed to other parts of the state when

practical.

We don’t have water shortages in the state, we have a distribution

problem. Our real problem is how to get the excess water from the wet

part of the state which is in the Southeast to the other parts of the

state without harming the water needs and quality of life for the

people in the Southeast. We need to be able to do that at as

reasonable cost to those who need the water. Determining payment for

that water will be a challenge. If the state is the primary owner of

the water, that problem may be easy to solve.

++ THE GOOD, THE BAD & THE NUTTY AT THE CAPITOL

With the session under way, legislation is passing and being defeated.

One of the frustrating things is how little regard some Republicans

have for liberty. Representative Steve Martin (R-Bartlesville) has

proposed legislation to allow law enforcement to pull people over to

determine if they have liability insurance as the drive down our

roads.

I certainly have no problem with requiring liability insurance or a

responsibility bond to assure a person has the where with all to

compensate for damages caused in an accident when they were at fault.

I am not opposed to stiff penalties for those driving without such

coverage, but government crosses the line when it allows law

enforcement to stop people to check for such when there is no

reasonable suspicion to believe a person is driving without. Laws like

that display the evidence of a police state.

Then Representative Jeanie McDaniels (D-Tulsa) indicates we need to

create a law which requires a person riding in the back seat to wear a

seat belt. Seems current law only requires people in the front seats

to wear seat belts. I believe our real mistake was when we required

people to wear seat belts in the first place. Don’t get me wrong, no

argument from me, people are definitely safer with seat belts on than

without and I urge people who are concerned for their safety to wear

them. However, a serious principle is at risk here.

There is always a certain amount of tension between a desire to have

liberty in one’s life on the one hand and the desire to be at peace

and be safe on the other hand. People that love liberty tend to be

more of a risk taker. Whereas, people who care more about peace and

safety are more adverse to risk taking. In the perfect world, each of

those kinds of people are capable of living near each other. However,

when the peace and safety crowd determines to pass laws which limit

the personal liberties of the risk takers, then friction begins to

take place.

Proper laws in a free society, let me say it again, “a free society”

are laws which regulate the behavior of one person or group of people

toward others. However, once government decides it can pass laws which

protect people from their own actions, then that government no longer

respects a person’s liberty and takes on the philosophy of “statism”

or fascism. As it digresses, government will soon see its

responsibility as controlling where people go, when they go, what they

eat, how much they can weigh, if they can own weapons, and on and on.

One of our founders said, once a people care more about peace and

safety than they care about liberty, they will soon end up with

neither. Would to God more of our lawmakers understood that our

founders fought our war of Independence, shed their blood and died so

we could have liberty. None of them died so the government could tell

us that we had to wear seat belts in our autos, helmets when we ride

our motorcycles, bicycles or horses. None of them died so government

could control our weight, health or demand we eat nutritious foods. As

a matter of fact, they didn’t die for very much of what goes on in

society today. As for me, I prefer liberty any day over the hoped for

illusion of peace or the concerns about my personal safety. I am

perfectly willing to count on my own judgment and common sense to keep

me from irrationally unsafe activities. Also, if and when I make a

mistake, I believe it is up to me to take care of those problems.

On the flip side, I also believe there is a good chance we may have a

large number of bills passed this year which will chip away at the

many years of foolish liberalism heaped upon the people of Oklahoma

during the decades of rule by the Democrats. Time will tell.

I look forward to seeing everyone this Wednesday. For instructions on

how to become a dues paying member of OCPAC, please read past my sign

off.

Charlie Meadows

Charliemeadows7@gmail.com