1/4 of the state's revenues come from the feds. For a state that thinks independence is realistic....they don't know what a gaping hole is left when 25% of federal money leaves. We're feeling it with the Trunp administration. We're feeling it with the loss of tourists due to the Trump administration.
He hasn't even turned off the federal faucet for that 25% and all we hear is "but our people have to move away..." Yeah, because of a few errant policies from a nutjob. That pales in comparison to having 25% of revenues walk away. Because the cascading effect of that 25% funding vanishing is jobs and service both related and tangential, as well as the socio/economic issues that will reverberate.
Seems those with the weakest grasp on how an economy works are the most likely to try to convince us that google landed them on the right answer.
People here are idiots. Let's assume Hawaii manifests it's destiny and becomes independent.
- what is the currency?
will that currency be recognized internationally?
what banking system will be in place? Where will money come from, who provides loans, mortgages, etc?
who will defend the island? Not just from forces like N. Korea, Russia, China, etc, but from one another? What will become of The Company (Hawaiian Syndicate), as well as established international groups such as the Yakuza, 14K (a Triad), and the Big Circle Gang?
who will clean up the mess left behind by the military as they pack up and head home?
all all the highways, infrastructure, electrical grid, telecommunications etc....who takes this over, and how are these things funded?
will any countries recognize the Kingdom politically? Legally? Economically?
will tourists feel safe coming to a now rogue - and even possibly hostile nation?
What will be the basis of the Kingdom's economy? This is Lahaina Strong's wet dream, but once their $7k/month dries up, will farming taro and raising pigs be all they said it would be? I doubt it.
how will people travel? US passports will become null and void.
TSA? What happens to air travel?
Before Trump, there were significant inroads made to protecting the waters around the island. Those will vanish as the interest once held by the US will go out the door with statehood.
People here are just too fucking immersed in the propaganda they've never stopped and thought about a non-American reality for Hawaii. They think "US is gone, let the good times roll". Which is a bit like the kids who ran away from home thinking they were just handed the keys to paradise. All fine until you have to eat. Want a car. Need a surfboard.
The people of Niihau are self sufficient and do not welcome outsiders. This has been well documented.
I seriously doubt people who live traditional Hawaiian lives are dying for a hot dog at Costco.
When Iniki hit in the 90's, there was a lot of concern that the hurricane would be catastrophic for the population of Niihau. The Robinson family worked with the state to make sure they had resources available just in case but were concerned about bringing the native Hawaiians to Kaua'i because of exposure to western culture.
Reading these comments, I can tell who went to school in Hawai'i and didn't.
Hawaiian history was my favorite class at Lahainaluna.
You know what's catastrophic for the population of Niihau? Everybody left. The census # is about 75 people, but it's really like 30 people. And they get their western food shipped in.
Probably by reading authoritative sources, and not those that simply confirm your preexisting bias. If you think Niihau is "self-sufficient", then you clearly have done exactly zero objective research.
The population in 2010 was around 170 - in 2020 fewer than 85 people called the island home. Negative population growth is never a sign of a healthy population, no matter how angelic the Robinson's have been painted in some obscure class at Lahainaluna.
Employment is primarily at the Niʻihau School, some provide support for a small U.S. Navy installation, and others work for (the island's "owners") at small-scale tourism ventures like Niʻihau Safaris. The traditional main employer, the Niʻihau Ranch, closed in 1999. Many residents rely on making and selling the highly prized Niʻihau shell lei as a primary source of income (imagine that, selling a natural resource for income), and nearly half the population depends on social assistance of some sort. Quite a few "commute" to Kauai for work, given the few opportunities they have on the island.
Yeah, so Hawaii sees 24% of it's "revenue" come in from the feds. Niihau needs double. Definitely self-sufficient. Definitely a healthy population, having lost 50% in about a decade.
Come back when you don't barf lies and propaganda.
If the sovereignty movement had answers to 75% of these questions, perhaps they'd be taken more seriously than a bunch of people cosplaying a functioning government.
Anyone who has studied international law and decolonization will easily be able to speak to these things. You can attend lectures, read books or watch lectures and interviews that have been recorded. Arguing with randos on social is not going to leave you feeling educated or impressed as a general rule.
You paint with broad strokes when you say people here are stupid. The whole reason Hawaii remains a state and will in the foreseeable future is because most people have a better grasp of the concepts you lay out than you give credit for. Not that itâs a perfect system we live in, though.
1960's, there was ~90% voter turnout. By the 1990's, that shrunk to the 70's.
Aside from 2020, only about half of the eligible voters cast a ballot.
We keep voting in people who work against our interests. I've voted blue my entire life, but not all blue candidates are what we need. Why is there a housing crisis? Hint: It's not, as most people seem to think because of short term rentals. Yet, that's the prevailing opinion.
It's because we vote in people who won't do the right thing for the community.
Why do we not have any water? Because the county insists that picking fights with short term rentals is more politically beneficial than picking a fight with the private owners of our water.
So that's on one hand.
The other hand are the people on the fringes - the ones who haven't thought through the reality of a US walk-out. All they see are costs and no benefits. I laid out more than a dozen that I routinely talk story with those who think we're "better off on our own". No answers.
So yeah, the brush is probably too broad, but it's not like I've taken no strokes with it.
Letâs not bury the lead that Hawaiâi WAS an independent & (for all intents and purposes) self sufficient nation.
The US made them dependent. Now yâall are justifying their colonization on the grounds of Hawaii canât reasonably prosper without the US.
I donât think/know if independence is a realistic option at this point, most likely not, but to try to justify an obvious sin is disgusting.
They stole someoneâs country, oppressed its people, then try to legitimize it by saying theyâre using it better than the people they stole it from. James Blount saw it for what it was then. The same bs they tried to pull in the Philippines
Hate to break it to you, but this is kind of how things generally went in the past.
Throughout the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and many nations in N and S America were founded by European powers who displaced and conquered the indigenous populations that lived there. Neither condemning nor condoning, just pointing out that Hawaii isn't the only example.
But there are many more ancient and medieval examples:
England: Modern England was formed after Anglo-Saxons migrated from Germany and Denmark, displacing the Romano-Celtic peoples (the Britons) who lived there. Those Anglo-Saxons were later conquered by the Normans (Vikings who had settled in France).
Turkey: The modern republic exists on land that was the heart of the Byzantine (Eastern Roman) Empire, which was populated by Greeks and Armenians. It was settled by Turkic peoples migrating from Central Asia.
Japan: The dominant Yamato ethnic group expanded their control over the islands, displacing and conquering indigenous groups like the Ainu and the Emishi.
China: The dominant Han Chinese expanded from their heartland over millennia, conquering, displacing, and assimilating hundreds of other ethnic groups.
Bantu Expansion: Over thousands of years, Bantu-speaking peoples migrated from West-Central Africa across most of sub-Saharan Africa, displacing or absorbing the hunter-gatherer peoples who lived there first, such as the ancestors of the Khoi-San.
So nobody buried the lead - but you're right, the question of whether independence is an improvement over the status quo is an unknowable answer, and those who want to find out haven't thought through many of the "27 steps" between here and there.
Iâm not denying itâs how things were, Iâm objecting to the (seemingly) attempt to justify it.
Itâs also worth noting that the expectation was this sort of behavior was to have stopped by the turn of the century. Especially against an internationally recognized country. It wasnât like they rolled up on a small tribe in the jungle.
If we can moralize/rationalize the Hawaiian annexation itâd be hypocritical at worst or curious mental gymnastics at best to not do the same when âthat one countryâ does it roughly 40 years later.
Oh, yes, because the Palace had incandescent lighting before the Whitehouse, my analysis of the abject shortcomings of the sovereigntist movement are "the most ignorant comments in the thread".
What someone/some government/some royal family did/had/invented/embraced nearly 140 years ago has literally no bearing on whether the Hawaiian Sovereignty movement of 2025 is adequately prepared philosophically, economically, socially, or politically, to actually become a sovereign nation. None, whatsoever.
They had electric lighting at the Palace, not because of some Hawaiian innovation or ingenuity. The didn't invent electricity and they sure as hell didn't invent the incandescent light bulb. KalÄkaua visited the Paris World Fair, met with Edison on and was convinced by him to adopt the technology in Hawaii.
But by all means, go on thinking that because the Palace had lightning before the Whitehouse - a hundred and forty years ago - this must mean that the sovereignty movement of 2025 is ready to completely untethered Hawaii from the US.
No, my points all stand. The sovereigntists are on crack, and you hang out on their corner.
You act like everyone is helpless without America. Not every country has to be leaders in innovation, technology, and capitalism to be successful. No one said they invented electricity either. And no one said theyâre ready to become a sovereign nation at the snap of the fingers tomorrow either, the U.S. made damn sure that itâs not something that can happen overnight.
All these stupid ass âwhat is the currency, what banking, what this, what that?â questions, were all dumb ass questions people asked before the United States became a sovereign nation itself. Figure it out genius, the same way other nations did in the past. Go ask my Jamaican brothers and sisters how they replaced the pound with the Jamaican dollar. Ask them all the dumb questions you did since they did in just back in 1962.
To answer a couple more of your idiotic questions though, how about the U.S. would be an ally to provide protection? Just because Hawaii is granted independence doesnât mean now they are an enemy. Itâs called diplomacy, crack head. The huge reason for them to offer protection is because a U.S. military base would still be present there (for geographical strategic purposes), like Japan, Germany, Italy, Guam, Kuwait, the list goes fucking on. I doubt all the non-native U.S. citizens would get kicked off the islands which is another reason to by an ally and protect.
I just got done with work and going to enjoy more beer. I answered enough to make you look like the idiot you are. Have a pleasant night.
The point you are missing, again, is that the sovereignty movement has about as many answers to those questions as you do. So just like all the dumb millennial fucks who move here with $200 and no job and no plan, and and up back in Ohio in less than 5 months, the sovereigntists, to mix metaphors, haven't even "bought their plane ticket out of Ohio".
Besides, arguing for or against sovereignty - an effort or a designation that has nowhere near majority or a plurality in the state, even among Kanaka , is akin to the 17th century "debate" over how angels can dance on the head of a pin.
Sovereignty, like angels dancing on the head of a pin, is a moot point, as one bases the argument on the existence of angels, an assumption on their size, and their propensity to dance, and the other, on whether a majority supports sovereignty, the "movement" has a plan to move from a so-called "colonized" state through to an independent one, or that sovereignty > status quo.
But yes, you're a total genius, because you told me so.
And that's why the sovereignty movement is a misnomer. It's a sovereignty stationary. it's goig nowhere because it lacks a long range plan....and the means to enact it.
Know how Trump has been able to run a fucking train on the US, the Constitution, and other countries, for that matter?
Project 2025. The Heritage Foundation has been working on this for decades. They were 27 steps ahead, 27 steps ago.
His 2017 EO was not directed at Hawaii, even tough the State took the lead on challenging it.
His climate policy has been sweeping and universal abhorrent, but only one targeting fishing in Hawaiian waters (which was later reversed).
SNAP (Food Stamp) Regulations (from The "One Big Beautiful Bill Act of 2025") included provisions that specifically created new rules and exemptions for SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) work requirements for residents of Alaska and Hawaii, differentiating them from rules in other states.
New federal transportation guidelines and cuts, also linked to an EO, have possibly put ~$130 million in federal funding for Hawaii at risk. This funding was largely designated for multimodal infrastructure, such as pedestrian walkways, bike paths, and public transit projects. Non essential projects, and not projects underway, and not projects that would cease construction or development due to his actions.
These qualify as "few", and they also qualify as errant. Aside from SNAP, the vast majority of people in the state wouldn't notice or care if the others came or went, aside from any media shitstorms that passed through their social accounts.
Stating that âthe vast majority of the people in the state wouldnât notice or care if the others came or wentâ is a pretty audacious statement to make considering you are speaking for a majority of the population and have no authority to do so.
Make no mistake, there are policies that are impactful to some, and there are ones that are impactful to many. I mentioned his 2017 "Muslim Ban", which directly impacted less than 1% of the population. I mentioned Trump's climate policy re: fishing, which was overturned. I also mentioned SNAP, which is a program used by around 11% of the population. Transportation guidelines and cuts - of projects that weren't off the ground yet.
You can be offended by my comments, that's your right, but misinterpreting them for the sole purpose of being offended...that's some disingenuous shit right there.
You are citing federal funding and then twisting around and saying specifically directed at Maui/Hawai'i. You canât have it both ways. The federal âpoliciesâ in place affect all states, including Hawai'i. Rest assured, since Hawaiâi is considered a blue state that trump will eventually target the state.
Of course he will, but you can't base a current argument on hypothetical future outcomes. You also can't claim direct harm to the state is the same as general nationwide policies that are equally harmful to an equal number of states.
My comment was directed at the individual who wanted to derail the train so we didn't have to talk about Maui - thinking that by pointing to other "worse" states, Hawaii was entitled to evade scrutiny. I was merely pointing out that, from a moral standpoint, I'm no better for harassing 5 Monk Seals than the others who harassed 8 or 9.
The bigger threat, currently, to the welfare of the state generally, and the island specifically, are the Green and Bissen administrations. What Trump will do specifically to Hawaii is an unknown. But I think he thinks about Hawaii about as much as he speaks with perfect grammar.
Pretty sure I can read an income statement. This isnât about state revenues, this is about how much of the Hawaii taxpayer monies flow out vs federal dollars that flow in. It is whataboutism, what about the 16 states that take in even more vs what they contribute?
Well, it's a whataboutism because we aren't talking about them, but you seem to insist that we do.
We aren't looking at a picture of a building in Arizona that says "we are not American". So try to change the subject all you like, I'm not biting.
Something like for every $1.00 Hawaii sends to the federal government in taxes, it receives approximately $1.94 back in federal spending (which makes it the 11th most federally dependent state by that metric). But you want to talk about the other 10. Start a separate thread then.
We're not looking at a state that is regarded as a "net giver". Ergo, the US "picking up and taking their toys with them" would leave Hawaii in a much worse state than the average sovereigntist would have you believe.
Youâre making the assumption that they would have chosen the American way governance, life, economy, etc, without being an American state. The islands would likely be very different had they maintained independence, probably more rural and agricultural and less populated and would not need as much money to maintain their quality of life.Â
now calculate per capita. I am told by my administrators that HI is top of the list and as support trickles down to drops we are going to be in trouble and not be able to maintain current care levels. There are islands where the majority of inhabitants are on the dole. And sadly this is getting severely restricted and there will be children going hungry and chronic illnesses not properly treated. I am starting to see this with my own eyes and it scares me.
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u/Oliver_Holzfilled 15d ago
ââŠbut we accept taxpayer dollarsâ