Talk:Legal status of Hawaii/Archive 9

Page move without consensus
Viriditas:Legal status of X is the appropriate naming convention for this page. Please do not make unilateral page moves on controversial articles without discussion. I've moved the page back to its previous title. &mdash;Viriditas | Talk 13:02, 13 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Jere:My apologies, thank you for reverting the change, Viriditas! I couldn't find any other "Legal status of" pages for other independence movements in Vermont, Texas or elsewhere in the United States.  Could we find a better name for this page?  The "Legal status of Hawaii" is that it is the 50th state of the Union, and no court or nation on the planet has ever disputed that.  Hawaiian sovereignty activists dispute the legal status of Hawaii, but on the basis of theory, not of jurisprudence or any act of any nation.


 * For example, there is Legal status of Taiwan, but in this case, you have an actual nation without de facto control disputing the status with a de facto nation with recognition by several actual nations. In regards to Hawaii, it seems that there is no actual nation, but simply small activist groups, making a de jure claim without any de facto control or jurisprudence to back it up.  There might as well be a Legal status of the United States article, if we're going to entertain the most outlandish claims.


 * This seems to me to be against WP:UNDUE. I would be very interested in hearing what other editors think about possible renames.  Mahalo! --JereKrischel
 * Viriditas:From what I can tell, you are reading far too much into the title. "Legal status of X" applies to many articles on Wikipedia; it's just a simple naming convention.  It is not intended to lend credence or special status to the claims made in the article.  You are also aware that there has been some debate regarding the legal status of Hawaii in terms of its removal from the United Nations list of Non-Self-Governing Territories when it became a state in 1959, and that this has been discussed extensively in the literature as being bolstered by the Apology Resolution, as that 1993 resolution states that the Hawaiian people "never directly relinquished their claims to their inherent sovereignty as a people or over the national lands to the United States, either through their monarchy or through a plebiscite or referendum."  Obviously, some sovereignty activists and groups see this apology as an admission of an "illegal occupation'.  I'm not here to debate that.  But the fact remains, one of the central issues for this movement is the recognition of a separate legal status as a people which is tied directly to the loss of their land.  You can minimize the issue, but its not going away. &mdash;Viriditas | Talk 00:26, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Arjuna:I have only a second before I have to get back to my actual job, but my quick take: while the legal status of Hawaii has no serious challenge internationally or domestically, there is nonetheless sufficient legal ambiguity about its exact status that I think the current title is appropriate, and that its use does not indicate that said ambiguity indicates a challenge to its legal status. Evidence for ambiguity is, for ex., reference in the Akaka Bill that the United States" recognizes the "unique status [of Native Hawaiians] as the indigenous, native people of a once-sovereign nation with whom the United States has a special political and legal relationship". I'm not advocating one way or another for this point, or for the AB for that matter (a fact that may surprise JK, btw -- because I think it has serious flaws as a piece of legislation -- my lack of comfort comes from the center rather than left). Rather, my point is that there is sufficient ambiguity that there is apparent cause to refer to a "special political and legal relationship". I recognize that this is a bill, not a law, but the point is that the issue is a relevant one, though not necessarily controversial, and can be discussed as an article without suggesting that there are serious questions about the legitimacy of U.S. sovereignty over Hawaii (i.e. I agree with JK that such claims should properly be referenced as a minority viewpoint). Arjuna 01:10, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

LarryQ:I agree that this name is appropriate for this article. However, perhaps this article should be merged with Hawaiian sovereignty movement? I suggest this based on WP:UNDUE which notes, "We should not attempt to represent a dispute as if a view held by a small minority deserved as much attention as a majority view. Views that are held by a tiny minority should not be represented except in articles devoted to those views. To give undue weight to a significant-minority view, or to include a tiny-minority view, might be misleading as to the shape of the dispute." In the US and internationally, the belief in illegal American ownership of Hawaii are indeed a tiny minority. This may not be the case in Hawaii, where the view is still in the minority but not tiny, but it is as a whole.

If this article is kept, it needs to be rewritten. The minority view is given to much of the article. WP:UNDUE also notes, "NPOV says that the article should fairly represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by a reliable source, and should do so in proportion to the prominence of each. Now an important qualification: Articles that compare views should not give minority views as much or as detailed a description as more popular views, and may not include tiny-minority views at all." This article balances the two views (America legally owns Hawaii v. America is illegally in Hawaii) when the latter is clearly a minority view. The article needs to be rewritten to conform to Neutral point of view.

As a side note, this conversation here has made me rethink my plan to write an article about the Legal Status of Texas. I will confine my writing on this to the Republic of Texas (group) article. LarryQ 03:17, 14 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Viriditas:I support a complete rewrite of this article, as its current state is somewhat below atrocious. If that does not solve the problem (which I think it will), then I will support a merge. &mdash;Viriditas | Talk 03:35, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Arjuna:I agree with Viriditas, and that if it continues to exist it should be a short, focused article summarizing the main points, and not providing a soapbox or vendetta machine for any side. Arjuna 03:48, 14 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Jere:Mahalo Viriditas, you may very well be right that I'm reading too much into the title - but I think, as per LarryQ's comments, that WP:UNDUE applies. I guess from my perspective, the argument against the legality of the State of Hawaii is a fringe argument, and even those who wrote the Apology Resolution included "Section 3. Disclaimer. Nothing in this Joint Resolution is intended to serve as a settlement of any claims against the United States."  This isn't to say that this piece of legislation hasn't been bandied about by certain activists, but I'm afraid that for the most part, it doesn't pass the "snicker" test.


 * I suppose if I were to write an article on the Legal status of Hawaii from scratch, it would include notes of the first treaties negotiated by the Kingdom, the declaration of the Republic, annexation and the Organic act of 1900, statehood of 1959, and then a very small section describing contemporary challenges made to the Republic, Territory and State, and maybe some reference to a section of the Hawaiian sovereignty movement which should include the information regarding claimants to the authority of the Hawaiian Kingdom.


 * I think part of the reason why this article has evolved the way it has is because a discussion between IslandGyrl and myself became much like the Arjuna/JereKrischel template - we both listed out our arguments, and made a matrix out of them. Each additional point on one side was counter-balanced by a point from the other side, and so on.  The essential nature of an evolution of that kind is to essentially give equal treatment to a fringe view - and it also turns the document into one which almost begs for qualification at every step.


 * I've been through some of this same type of dispute on Race and intelligence (I stepped away from that because it was taking too much of my time), and the challenge really is how to manage balance when the "mainstream" view is so terribly in dispute. Both sides essentially grab whatever references they can, and tit-for-tat argue and counter-argue individual points.


 * I'm not sure if there is an alternative to diving into the details, since neither side (which thinks it is the majority view), wants the other side to get a pass on some line of argument, but I'm open to other ideas and suggestions.


 * Anyway, I'm open to a total rewrite, if someone would like to suggest outlines we can work with, maybe we can come to agreement on the larger sections, and then flesh them out appropriately.


 * Mahalo to you all for helping! --JereKrischel 05:16, 14 August 2007 (UTC)


 * LarryQ:The more I think of this, the more I think a merge is better than a rewrite. Much of what is in this article is present in the Hawaiian sovereignty movement one.  Why is there a need for a separate article?  The Alaskan Independence Party article does a good job of summarizing why that group believes Alaska is not legally an American state due to what the group believes was an illegal vote under international law in 1958.  There is no Legal status of Alaska article despite the fact that this party had the political power to elect a governor of Alaska in 1990!


 * If this article is rewritten and kept, I suggest a short article. How about a brief summary that traces the history of Hawaii from the unification wars that resulted in the Hawaiian Kingdom, the overthrow, the republic, territory, and statehood.  This would be followed with one or two paragraphs into why some believe that some of the actions in this sequence makes American ownership of Hawaii illegal with a link into the Hawaiian sovereignty movement article.  It would end with a paragraph or two indicating that this is a minority view with a few explanations of why this is so.  A See also section could link to similar groups in the USA and the external links section could have a few links to sites arguing for the different views presented. The article would need to be watched as it would be prone to hijacking by proponents of one argument or the other and that dreaded neutrality disputed tag would keep reappearing and have to be removed on a regular basis.  But I think this would be a good approach and would cut down on the soapbox quality of this article.  LarryQ 00:37, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Laualoha:I agree with shortening this article! The whole meaning of the "legal status of Hawai'i" is lost when everyone gets pulled into one tangent, then another. I admit that I am participating in this, because if I don't some really offensive stuff stays uncorrected. Right now, I'm editing a section called "Claims to the Kingdom", which was written as a long series of POV personal attacks on every major sovereignty leader in Hawai'i. I would really rather not be doing this. I'm not even a follower of these people, and have disagreed with most of them in-person, but I can't conscientiously sit around and see total BS being written about them, either!--Laualoha 20:16, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Arjuna:I agree that a major haircut is called for at the very least. And I agree that the legal status of Hawaii is not under serious dispute domestically or internationally, and any suggestion that it is would be undue weight. But at a state or local level it is contested by a vocal group or set of groups, and that is appropriate to discuss in the article. (Sorry to activists on this issue -- I realize this is very sensitive, but at a national or international political level, like it or not it simply isn't on the radar screen. Whether it should be or not is another question, and I'm not going to go there -- this is an "encyclopedia" article, not a political venue.) I agree with Laualoha on the POV attacks -- it reads like a propaganda / personal vendetta screed. I do think the IslandGyrl/JereKrischel matrix has some value, though -- in this or some other article, somewhere. Arjuna 05:20, 19 August 2007 (UTC)