This state of affairs is not new, but is making headlines because a Nebraska lawyer has filed a lawsuit on behalf of the Oglala Sioux tribe against Anheuser-Busch, Miller, and various other defendants. The lawsuit claims $500 million in damages—reparations, really—for letting the malt beverages be sold in places where Pine Ridge residents can so easily get at them.
Unlike Kristof’s column and blog post, the Times’ earlier reporting on the dispute at least makes a few concessions about how the tribe’s alcoholism problem has more complicated origins than the lawsuit would make it seem. For example, it quotes Oglala members who say the unusual Pine Ridge policy of complete alcohol prohibition within its boundaries has been a failure; other reservations, such as the nearby Rosebud, choose to legalize liquor sales, which tends to establish a class of local sellers more interested in staying in the community’s good graces. Kristof by contrast appears to have swallowed the lawsuit’s contentions in one hearty draft. And lawsuit contentions, like beer itself, can be dangerous when over-quaffed by the naive.
It took me about thirty seconds online to find the brewers’ brief on behalf of their joint motion to dismiss the case, filed April 27 more than a week before Kristof’s column. Of its many arguments as to why the case should fail, this one jumped out at me: