“The Senate is poised to sanction the creation of a racially exclusive government by and for Native Hawaiians who satisfy a blood test. The new race-based sovereign that would be summoned into being by the so-called Akaka Bill would operate outside the U.S. Constitution and the nation’s most cherished civil rights statutes. Indeed, the champions of the proposed legislation boast that the new Native Hawaiian entity could secede from the Union like the Confederacy, but without the necessity of shelling Fort Sumter.”
I am no expert on Hawaii, but I did live there for ten years.
This “new government” stuff is just stupid. For one thing, the vast majority of the Hawaiian people voted for Hawaii to become a state! It’s true that there were some abuses by large corporations in the past, but that doesn’t change the fact that there was an overwhelming consensus among Hawaiians that becoming a state of the Union would be a good thing. Further, there are hardly any “pure” Hawaiians left! Most people who qualify as Hawaiian for race-based government handouts couldn’t beat an Elvis impersonater in a “how Hawaiian are you” contest.
There is a common myth amongst Hawaiian victimists and race-pimps that missionaries “gave Hawaiians the Bible and stole the land.” If this were true, it would still have been a good deal for the Hawaiians. But the reality is that while the missionaries gave Hawaiians an alphabet, they couldn’t teach them how to make decent candy (yuck). and instead of “stealing land”, they brought Hawaiians a new way of life — maybe what Akaka wants is a return to a more pure Hawaiian culture, like ritual human sacrifices under a military dictatorship, instead of the current system of one vote for every person. (Actually, in Hawaii, they can’t even get that right.)
Don’t get me wrong, Hawaii is a beautiful place. Kauai is the most beautiful environment I have ever lived in. But the current climate of racist, entitlement-driven politics makes me glad I don’t live there right now.