We just had another community meeting about the upset over taxes. One member of the band who works for the band office stood up and said:

     "What I am hearing is that anybody who is opposed to these taxes is crazy. We need this money to build houses and create jobs. What are we going to do without it?"

     I was about to stand up to address the issue of logical fallacy – and how making promises to fix homes and make jobs with other people's money, without consent from them is stealing. ...

     But protocal stopped me – because an elder named Joe Charlie wanted to speak. I naturally yielded the floor to him.

     Joe Charlie stands up and says:

     "These white government ways are very sneaky. They are tricky. They blackmail your mind, so you think you are getting a good deal but you aren't. We have to guard against this white government way of thinking ... they are very manipulating"

     After a pause for dramatic effect, he continued:

     "I seen the little handout they gave people after the protest. It showed that little graph – and you can see, it says all the money they will be getting from this tax. ... but that's very backwards ....

     Another pause for dramatic effect:

     "Turn that graph upside down – to look at it properly. Look at it from both ways. When you look at that graph upside down – it shows how much money they are taking from you. It's stealing -- but they show it this way to hide the fact that it's stealing your money"

     I just about stood up to cheer when he said this.

     I who have spent years studying libertarian economics, and who pride myself on my ability to communicate these ideas – was totally humbled by the ease with which this dear old fellow, one of our Big House speakers, had managed to neatly, simply and without even a hit of equivocation, explain a basic theory of economics in terms that nobody could fail to understand.

     Nobody stood up to contradict him. In fact – everybody clapped and raised their hands to show their support for what he said.

     How good it feels to be HOME! I mean it – the more time I spend here in Cowichan, the more I listen to the wisdom of my elders, and just shut up and pay attention – the more I learn and feel good about where I am, and what I am doing.

     I almost forgot – this same elder stood up about an hour later and said he didn't want the referendum. He says, "This is as Abner Thorne says an 'Individual Right'. That means nobody should be allowed to vote to take my right away"

     My good friend Willie Seymour of the First Nations governance institute said pretty much the same thing ... but so far, I've not pushed on that – because I am afraid that if we didn't ask in the very least for a vote – we would be completely ignored.

     Again. I sat in stunned silence, as an elder was able to say, and explain something about libertarian thought in a way much better than I could.

     In Awe – really

Meaghan Walker Williams – Cowichan – British Columbia