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After reading the website http://www.hawaiiankingdom.org... and pondering the words of Keanu Sai, I would say that this conflict is more about point of international law and that the Hawaiians are very likely to compromise about the telescope if their sovereignty is respected, but they would like to assert their sovereignty which according to binding executive agreement between Liliuokalani and President Grover Cleveland was never extinguished. He was out of office before he could get marines back from the Spainsh American war to restore the multicultural Constitutional Monarchy which was the legal government of the islands in those days. The sugar issue was the American planters issue, the six planters that our marines set up as a faux government was not the government of the people. Our governments issue was that they wanted Pearl Harbor as a coaling station for the Pacific and because Liliuokalani's predecessor David Kalakaua had been forming alliances with other Pacific suzerains for economic unions that we would not be able to manipulate. Our treaties of annexation were with the faux government and were removed from the Senate before they could be ratified when Grover Cleveland sent congressman James Henderson Blount to check out the situation and he reported in favor of the queen. The Hawaiians also provided 20,000 signatures to Washington DC saying they objected to being annexed. In international law, that would prove that there was opposition to the annexation and void it. Two houses of Congress passed a law to annex Hawaii, but Congressional laws do not have any standing outside of the US borders although the pirates in Washington DC would like to change that. At present the Governor of the State of Hawaii and the federal judges there have no authority beyond the 200 mile limit of California and the real governor of Hawaii should be the commander of Pacific fleet who occupies the country as an agent of the United States. As an occupied country, it should be governed under its own laws which are the laws of the last constitution not under duress. At the very least maybe we need to negociate with them and amend our flag to contain 49 stars and a crown since they are still a legal monarchy. I will also say that i am an interested party as my grandmother was a schoolteacher in the islands in the teens of the last century and went to tea with the old Queen and her report was that she remained a ruler of her people until her death. It does not appear that there are any of her line named to be a new sovereign if the monarchy is restored, but there is provision in the constitution for the constitutional assembly to name a new monarch usually from the ali'i

I hear spam is much more popular than the poi there, but It could be a myth as I haven't seen any polling data to back it up - just anecdotal evidence. haha.

I have no issues with people protesting. I've had friends that got extra credit in their humanities studies for protesting, though so I find such uninformed student protests dubious.

I don't mean to imply that there is no sense of injustice with the US occupation of the island, but I see it as historical fact, not something we can turn back the clock on. Same with the Native Americans - terrible track record with wars (including biological warfare) and breaking peace treaties, trail of tears, etc. etc. But, their small consolation is the reservations and today, many of my friends are 1/4 or 1/8th of Native American descent. "Pure" native american populations have been declining for a long time and more of them identify as Americans rather than members of their native tribes. What's done is done, and it's too late for the Natives to have a say in who builds what on what mountaintop that someone else owns.

That's why I say the religious route is a good argument. The mountain should have been protected as part of the agreement to make the Hawaiian Homelands if it's sacred... but still, no one would stand for someone destroying Jerusalem or Mecca - even if the destroyers rightfully owned the land. I'm sure there's a way to lobby for protected status if it's that important.

Heck, I think Hawaii is gorgeous and maybe we shouldn't built giant telescopes on pretty mountains anyway ;-) I'm sure the locals could make a zoning ordinance to scrap the construction easily.

I just don't think the simple fact that they're of native descent should hold much weight in the decision. I mean, who cares who their parents and grandparents were - they're Americans living in Hawaii now and if they choose to live a traditional Hawaiian lifestyle, they can live on the reservations... er... "homelands."

The Hawaiian Kingdom folks in particular are a bit nutty and want to "end the US occupation" of Hawaii.
http://www.hawaiiankingdom.org... I have a hard time taking them seriously - especially since they're hypocritical in thinking that because the kingdom usurped other tribal lands and conquered the islands that they're the true stewards of Hawaii and not the USA which, in turn, usurped them.

Of course the Kingdom of Hawaii isn't a state of the US, it is an occupied territory! I didn't know there were so many progressive people in NC.

I used to live in Hawaii, and always loved these guys squatting on beaches and protesting. Viva la Revolution!

http://www.hawaiiankingdom.org/united-nations.shtml

I humbly suggest you look at what happened the last time habeas corpus was suspended. It resulted in the illegal imprisonment, on US soil, of over 100,000 people, many of them US citizens. They were held without trial, in most cases they were not even accused of a crime. When they finally were released, many of them had lost their homes and all their possessions. Some of them were killed while imprisoned. A small number were so bitter that they renounced their US citizenship.

Actually, no. I'm assuming that your referring to the Japanese internments during WWII. That's the closest thing in US history that I am aware of that resembles what your talking about. You could be talking about some fictional event or something else entirely dealing with some other country so correct me if I wrong on that. However, during the internments, Habeas corpus was not suspended. The language in Executive Order No. 9066 which created and authorized the internments never mentioned habeas corpus at all. In fact, even while in the internment camps, they still enjoyed habeas corpus for all matter except their internment. The Hawaiian Organic Act held provisions to suspend habeas corpus pursuant to the constitution but instead of suspending it (see section 68), they declared martial law until communications to the president could be established and he issued the executive order. It should also be noted that Hawaii wasn't a state, it was a territory at that time.

Now habeas corpus violations did happen and the courts had ruled on them. Particularly in Hawaii's case with Duncan v. Kahanamoku, 327 U.S. 304 (1946) that said the Organic Act's martial clause law did not close civilian courts.

The last time Habeas Corpus was ever suspended was during and right after the civil war. President Lincoln suspended it and congress later ended up enacting the suspension in law. The total number of people effected were about 9, two of which were executed (that I know of) and the rest were released after the war was over and the circuit courts were making their ways around. One guy in Indiana ended up winning a regular civil trial instead of a military commission and I believe they went ahead and hung him at the conclusion of that.

That is the only time habeas corpus was suspended besides this time in the US history. Also, in the present suspension, your either had to be a foreigner caught in combat against the US (enemy combatant) or in the top layer of a terrorist plot in order for the suspension to have affected you. There was never 100,000 people exposed to it and the Japanese American internments were done in spite of habeas corpus not with it's suspension.

I don't think the government is evil. I think the government is made up of people just like you and me. Some are honest and some are not. Some make mistakes, some have and act on their prejudices. Some deserve admiration, and others deserve denigration.

I can agree with that. On the whole though, I think the good outweighs the bad.

Just because something hasn't affected you or me does not mean that it cannot. Just because you trust your government today does not mean that you can trust them always. Please, have a look. This isn't some wacko fringe theory, this really happened. It's an ugly chapter in US history. I don't want my kids or their kids looking back at us this way.

I think your mixing a little mistaken history with rumors floating around conspiracy channels. Now, I agree with you in principle but I don't agree with you over the habeas corpus and the manipulations of it that we have seen. Roosevelt never attempted to suspend Habeas corpus, he just ignored it.

I'll leave you with this adaptation of a poem originally written by a German named NiemÃller. I don't know who wrote the version I'm quoting below.

Last time I checked the goal of any military was to protect the country and it's government, at any means necessary.

Then you checked through rose-colored glasses.

Were the Koreans about to attack the United States? Were the Vietnamese? The Iraqis (then or now)? Was Panama? Was Granada?

Most American military deployments over the past 100 years haven't had squat to do with protecting our country. They've been about protecting "U.S. interests" - that is, the political and financial interests of the ruling class.

Even Pearl Harbor was not an attack on the U.S., as Hawaii wasn't a state but a territory (invaded and illegally annexed); there hasn't been a direct military defense of the States against foreign attack since 1814. (Terrorism by non-state entities not being a military action.)

On the other hand, I don't recall the Electoral College helping to keep the southern states from trying to break away back in 1860 either. In fact, it was probably the strict plurality voting method that lead to Lincoln's election, and by extension the Civil War. Australia's system would have served us better in that instance.

(We could debate all day whether the Civil War was "good" or not, because it ended slavery. This is a difficult issue, so I'm not even going to go there.)

My joke was based on the fact that Hawaii is now a state (as of 1959) unless of course you are pushing the agendas of groups like The Hawaiian Kinkgom.

Fact: *ALL* of the U.S. was 'taken' from the indigenous peoples by 'invaders'.

Sugar production is one of the things Hawaii is known for. Now, while I could have said "Lets invade Louisianna" it wouldn't have been as funny, because far less people know that Louisianna is a large sugar producer.

It was a joke that was not meant to offend anybody. I didn't make any kind of derogatory remarks towards any culture or ethnicity, so don't try to play Political Corrctness games.

There are plenty of groups claiming that the U.S. (and/or Canada and Mexico) don't have sovreignty in a particular region of the Southwest, Pacific Northwest, Florida, Texas, Vermont, and a whole slew of other places.

Now, how can you judge me of being unaware of history from 1 line of text? Research indicates George Washington most likely didn't have wooden teeth...but it makes for some funny jokes.

You accuse my comment of being trollish, but yours is what exactly? If I hadn't already commented in this discussion I would use my moderation points to mark you down.