In particular he romanticizes the American Indian. The American Indian is no better and no worse than the American Greek, Pole, African, Turk, or Scotsman. To argue that any group is entitled to special privileges in a democracy, no matter the tattered treaties, is to undermine the nature of democracy itself and to fracture the bonds that ought to bind us together and make us want to work as one for the betterment of our land. Wilkinson should travel to Connecticut where the Pequots have turned their ancestral lands into a gambling casino. An evening of blackjack and roulette might teach him that no group of people is special.
Environmentalists are too Wordsworthian.
When Wilkinson is off the reservation, he is tough, clear-thinking, and, more often than not, right. Wilkinson is right in arguing that the system for distributing western waters needs to be reformed. He is right in asserting that our nation needs to develop an ethic of place.