MORAL STANDARDS
Mille Lacs Messenger
by Thomas Ivan Dahlheimer
April 16, 2003
MORAL STANDARDS
In response to Melanie Benjamin's April 9 letter to the Messenger, I would like to say that I agree
with her statement that the band's casino gambling businesses provide a lot of jobs for rural area
people. But so do the sales of illegal drugs. Drug dealers make a lot of money, and then they buy
houses, cars, etc. and this "helps" our rural economy to "prosper". I wonder if Melanie Benjamin
ever stops to think about whether the casino business is immoral and incompatible with the Mille
Lacs Band's traditional high moral standards. If she were to see band member children going without
food because their parents lost all their money gambling, like I have on a number of occasions,
she might start thinking more seriously about these moral issues.
Why do our country's Native Americans have to abandon their tradition of high moral standards and
degrade themselves by getting involved with the casino gambling business, the casino sales of
tobacco at cut-rate prices, storing nuclear waste on their reservations and, after centuries of
suffering with the plague of alcoholism, the business practice of selling alcohol in many of their
casinos?
With all the foreign aid that our government gives to far away countries, I would think that they
could help our country's Native American communities' economics to prosper without forcing our
Native Americans to degrade themselves by abandoning their traditional moral standards in order
to make enough money to live comfortably.
Click
articles to return to Dahlheimer's articles, letters, profile, videos, etc.