Michael Barone

Akaka's Hawaiian Sovereignty Plan a Bad Idea

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March 24, 2008 RSS Feed Print
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Here is an interesting denunciation in Pajamas Media of the Hawaiian sovereignty legislation long sponsored by the state's otherwise obscure junior senator, Daniel Akaka. I have blogged on this subject before. Akaka's idea is to give native Hawaiians something like the status of Indian tribes. There are just a few problems. Like who exactly is a native Hawaiian (there are very few people who are descended only from native Hawaiians and many with varying percentages of native Hawaiian ancestors)? And has the Indian reservation model worked so very well? This is a move toward racial separatism that comes to us just as we have been getting accustomed to the preachings of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, which Barack Obama went out of his way for 20 years to listen to.

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racial sepratism? SO it wasn't just that when the Hawaiian people were deprived of what was rightfully theirs? And there are hardly any of them left for the sole reason that not only was their land taken from them, so were vast amounts of their people! You should really do some more research on what the truth is and stay your Haole butt home.

MJ of HI 11:46AM October 29, 2011

You are precisely right. Hawai'i's "sovereignty" plan is a horrible idea. But I do not say this because the Native people do not deserve their sovereignty, but because the bill does not give them enough sovereignty! The United States ILLEGALLY overthrew the just and sovereign kingdom of the Hawaiian people in the name of greedy business interests! The 1993 Apology Resolution attests to this fact.

Kenneth Conklin stop trying to deceive the public with your revisionist history of the Hawaiian situation. Most, if not all, credible scholars, including both Native Hawaiian and non-Hawaiians, agree that the United States illegally overthrew the Hawaiian kingdom.

Hawaii should not be considered on par with the indigenous peoples of America (I am not saying that Hawaiians are better than them). The Kingdom of Hawaii was a sovereign state recognized by the major powers of the time including America! There was no immediate physical threat to American interests in Hawai'i so American soliders should not have invaded the palace and overthrew the sovereign Queen. Shame on those imperialists!

Queen Lili'uokalani was just in trying to promulgate a new constitution because the Bayonet one did not give justice to the sovereign head of Hawai'i and her beloved people. Stop spreading your racist creed against Hawaiians. Have you or any of your supporters no shame or decency to give respect the indigenous peoples? How dare you come to Hawai'i and insult the aboriginal peoples by accusing them of being racist in trying to re-assert their inherent right to sovereighty! Hawaiian history has already been written and the truth already revealed. Stop spreading your racist imperialist American agenda.

There can be no justice in acquisition of sovereignty if there was no justice in initial acquisition. The native people of Hawai'i did not directly relinquish their claims to their land or inherent sovereignty. It was taken by them by itinerant business and American imperialists.

How can the so-called America claim to be a just moral authority and promoter of justice and freedom when she will not herself acknowledge the stolen sovereignty of Hawai'i and other Pacific nations? Hypocrites! America is a colonizer and empire-mongerer!

Hawaii is still a colony of the United States and needs to be put back on the UN list of non-governing territories.

Malama pono

Samoans for Hawaiians 3:33PM May 24, 2009

Will the Mexicans be next claiming part of the USA?

Doris Reichert of HI 3:12PM February 08, 2009

Michael Barone

Michael Barone

Michael Barone is a senior writer for U.S.News & World Report and principal coauthor of The Almanac of American Politics. He has written for many publications—including the Economist and the New York Times.

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