…if the bill to organise a “native Hawaiian” government has been condemned because it could be a means of encouraging secession and has received the neocon kiss of death of being likened to something that Jefferson Davis would embrace and “reverse Manifest Destiny.” Reverse Manifest Destiny? Horrors! Why, at this rate, we might even get back to small, self-governing republics. But here’s a question: if this is reverse Manifest Destiny, why would a Democratic expansionist like Davis support it?

All of this causes us to remember Gover Cleveland, who opposed the coup against the Hawaiian monarchy and regarded the annexation of Hawaii, which he also opposed, as shameful–if we had listened to Grover, the Hawaiians could go about their business without causing any of us the least bit of anxiety. (An additional bonus–there probably would have been no U.S. entry in WWII!)

It seems to me that the Hawaiians are trying to to find a mechanism to restore the status quo ante before the Court overruled the earlier practice of barring non-native Hawaiians from voting for or serving in said Office. Somehow the Hawaiians managed to go for quite some time under that old system without causing anyone too much difficulty. Of course, the bill is designed to restore those privileges by means of creating a “native Hawaiian” government, which is really what has the consolidators up in arms, far more than the fact that it is “race-based.”

They haven’t been busily centralising all government in Washington just to see some uppity Hawaiians discover the advantages of their own spoils system! Critics are only too keen to point out the differences between the Hawaiians and Indian tribes here on the mainland, but what scares the critics is not an imitation of the “sovereignty” of the tribes–who are more dependent on the federal government than anyone–but the possibility that a native Hawaiian government might theoretically encourage separatism and less dependence on the center. (The odds of Hawaii ever seceding are so bad that it is bizarre that anyone should even mention it.)

The danger of encouraging the revanchist hopes of Aztlan nationalists is invoked here mostly as a scare tactic (since when have the editors of NR taken this particular threat seriously?), but this latter danger only underscores the need for a much stronger line on first removing illegal immigrants from this country and preventing any future mass immigration from Mexico; it should have relatively little bearing on the Hawaiian law.