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Opinion
Editorial: Native Hawaiian bill is un-American


"Sometime in the next few days, Congress may endorse secession. If this is the first you've heard of it, that suits Hawaii's Democratic Senator Daniel Akaka and Republican Governor Linda Lingle just fine.

We exaggerate, but not by much. On Tuesday, the Senate debated Mr. Akaka's Native Hawaiian Government Reorganization Act, which would grant de facto sovereignty to the 400,000 or so people who identify themselves as native Hawaiians, aka 'Kanaka Maoli.' To listen to the Akaka bill's supporters, that means nothing more than extending a polite gesture to Native Hawaiians by giving them a kind of parity with other Native Americans such as the Navajo or Cherokee. Yet according to the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, a state agency, under the terms of the bill this new tribe could declare 'complete legal and territorial independence from the United States and the re-establishment of a Hawaiian nation-state.' Jefferson Davis rides again."

Get the Story:
Editorial: Goodbye, Hawaii (The Wall Street Journal 7/21)

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