Autistic History

People on the autistic spectrum often have trouble distinguishing people's intentions. Apparently, John Stossel, Fox News' libertarian on retainer, has an autistic view of history. On Fox and Friends he made the rather dubious claim that no one has been helped more by the government than the American Indian. His point was that government aid damages people and communities and that Indian reservations today are not well off.

Stossel seems to believe that these programs and efforts aimed at Indian reservations are designed to help the Indians, a fundamental misunderstanding. Stossel also claims that this unprecedented help has been continuing for the last "200 years". 200 years ago from this year would be 1811, and a cursory understanding of American History would place the Plains Wars, at the very least, in the post-Civil War era. The infamous Wounded Knee massacre happened in 1890 and the government only legalized Indian religious practices in the 1960's. As recently as a few years ago an Indian reservation was taken by the government for unpaid taxes.

Stossel's misunderstanding is due to the Randian view of welfare programs as the actions of do gooder liberals who just don't know any better. In truth, welfare, in the case of the Indians, was created specifically to foster a dependent relationship with the federal government. Stossel's strange viewpoint actually excuses the federal government. It's not that the government was trying to impoverish and destroy Indian communities, he apparently believes the government honestly wanted to help but couldn't figure out how to do so.