OK, I'm not fond of Obama, but this latest one is hilarious.
http://www.truth-out.org/sai-v-obama-et-al-hawaiis-legal-case-against-united-states65850
In short, Hawaii's not actually part of the US.
Seriously?
It may shock some people (particularly the Left), but ultimately, there's NOTHING behind the existence of (as far as I'm willing to spend the time thinking about exceptions) any modern state except consensus. There's no document that says "hey, here's the borders Germany's entitled to", or "here's the limits of China" - except insofar as such boundaries were IMPOSED by outside actors strong enough to enforce their limits, and conformed to by the state itself out of a broader sense of what's in its interests.
Look, country A conquers country B. Or, in the case of Hawaii, country B has an "indigneous" (hahahahaha) group 'seize power' and then cede themselves to country A. There's no title, no property document that says "A owns country B" now. If there is, there's ALWAYS some way to impugn it.
There is no such thing as international law. None. What we call international LAW are simply norms of behavior where states have agreed to cooperate in ways that MIMIC the actions of law across borders, but the simple fact is that there is no supra-national organization that has the ability to enforce anything - it's all voluntary.
Everything in the relationships of states - whether they are currently sovereign, independent states, or subject formerly sovereign states such as Hawaii, Scotland, the Navaho, or Bavaria - has to do with POWER. In many cases, the initial absorption of the subject state is a simple question of military force. Ultimately the absorbed state can either stay rebellious, or reconciles itself with its subject status. Eventually (2 generations? 3?) control becomes the norm, and no longer needs to be actively mandated.
Note that in such cases, absorption is not always resisted nor even always negative. States too follow enlightened self-interest. Often the subject can or does rationalize the advantages of being a smaller part of a larger state as a more secure, economically advantageous situation. Independence as a theory is nice, but in practical terms geopolitics is a world red in tooth and claw, and the small or young are often the first preyed upon.
My point is, what happened, happened. Queen Liliuokalani's protests and American concessions notwithstanding, if the US took down the Hawaiian flag and raised their own flag, the fact that it stands uncontested in practical terms makes it reality. Objecting to the legal formalities (the Congressional act of annexation can't have been legal, according to Dr. Sai, because US laws don't apply internationally) doesn't make the ownership of Hawaii any less real. That just makes it arguably an act of conquest instead of legality. Big deal.
The Grotian view of international norms, and legal bases for actions, has been demonstrably false for CENTURIES. Countries conform to norms that they agree with, and ignore ones that they don't, and won't agree unless compelled. Thus any sort of legal basis for the annexation of territory will ALWAYS be contestable later by some hedge-lawyer because SOMEONE will always object, and always have some rationalized basis for their objections...and unless & until that person has an army available to change the current reality, they will remain as irrelevant as ever.
The second point is that as a scholar, Dr. Sai's intellectual credibility is doubtful:
1) he contends that he "...step(s) aside from politics and power and look at Hawaii not through an ethnic or cultural lens, but through the rule of law..." - bull****. Dr. Sai is Hawaiian. To suggest that he's not taking his stance for ethnic (& political) reasons is complete nonsense. Whether his primary motivation is Hawaiian independence, or against Obama, and one goal simply dovetails conveniently with the other, his denial is disingenuous. This isn't to say that his point is de facto wrong, but to obviously perjure himself immediately doesn't add to the value of his conclusions.
2) anyone that is trying to make an academic or legal point and then likens himself to Morpheus in The Matrix isn't really doing anything to incline the rest of us take him seriously.
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