User talk:DiverDaves

Controversial changes to Liliuokalani article
I believe that some of your edits to Liliuokalani are controversial & need to be discussed at Talk:Liliuokalani so that we maintain a neutral point of view. For instance, the landing of the Marines & U.S. sailors absolutely had a role, even if they were not actively participating. I remember reading that when Liliuokalani heard about it, she ordered her own forces to stand down. I also think that characterizing the subjects & foreign residents as "Democratic" is inaccurate. It is hard for me to accept them as democratic when they sought to limit the vote of the non-white majority, if I remember correctly. Also, the U.S. Republican administrations or their agents tended to be pro-annexation, whereas the Democratic Cleveland administration was not. Those orchestrating the overthrow seemed to desire an oligarchical republic when Cleveland derailed the annexation that would have benefited the sugar cane interests. Plus, you cannot take out the role that the Spanish-American War had upon Congress's irregular (as in no treaty) approval of the annexation.

While I agree that the current tone needs some softening, we cannot pretend that the U.S. had no role in the overthrow & that there were not special interests involved in the annexation.

Peaceray (talk) 20:04, 12 May 2017 (UTC)


 * There is also a character limit in an introduction/summary as well which is the main problem why we don't get into the details here but that the body of the article does try to do. The sentence "Attempts were made to restore the monarchy and oppose annexation to United States, but with the outbreak of the Spanish–American War, the United States annexed the Republic of Hawaii." tries to sum the controversial nuances of five years of politic. While the whole incident of American involvement and the significance/impact of the US marines on the success of the overthrow is a matter of historical debate. Modern consensus is that the landing of US troops and their presence in the capital had a role in preventing the queen from countering the rebellion without international consequence or bloodshed.--KAVEBEAR (talk) 00:25, 13 May 2017 (UTC)
 * I encourage improvement to be done but that it be done right and with a decent understanding of both sides of the story not coming from an American apologist angle or a Hawaiian nationalistic angle (I personally hate both sides of those extremes). See Talk:Liliuokalani/Sources and Liliuokalani for a plethora of sources on the topic. --KAVEBEAR (talk) 00:25, 13 May 2017 (UTC)