...I'd like to share some mana'o on the opposition to Native Hawaiian causes. Many of them are what people call "conservative" or "libertarian", and there are organizations behind them such as the Grassroot Institute/Hawaii Reporter that would claim such a title.

But think for a moment: what are they "conserving"? What do they "conserve" by tearing down the Office of Hawaiian Affairs and Kamehameha Schools? What's so "conservative" about destroying Hawaiian traditions by perpetuating McWorld and Americanization and standardization? Nothing but their own bank accounts, that's what.

Now, I don't think that conservatism and libertarianism are bad, not at all. But if you want to see a conservative culture, look at Hawai'i as it was: a kingdom of pious Christians, who at the same time preserved their old traditions and their connection with the land. Hawaiian society was primarily based upon the land, the 'aina, and on the family, the 'ohana. It was an agrarian society. You can't get more conservative than that! And that's what these folks, these "conservatives" or more accurately neocons ("con" is apt) are doing: destroying traditional, local culture.

Or, let's look at it from a libertarian point of view, looking at liberty and private property and all that. WHOSE LAND IS IT? It used to be Hawaiian land, until that cadre of Yankee businessmen took it away. And their descendants, either in truth or in spirit, are trying to take it away again, and telling us what to do with our land. What honest respecter of private property would dare tell the Kamehameha Schools, which is a private institution which receives absolutely no public money, what to do with its own property or who it should admit? But it happened, first with the forced selling of property in the 1980s, and now with Doe vs. KS.

It's time to stand up for the real conservatives, who are the true children of this land. Yes, let there be "aloha for all", but you neocons are not going to take away what is rightfully ours.