The stuff about pollution and interruption of cultural practices is more about the idea that those things are being forced upon native Hawaiians, much like annexation was.

Not all native Hawaiians feel this way about the telescopes, but the ones that do are the ones protesting.

Plus some other tribal folks from the rest of the US showed up to protest. I'm glad this was posted, now I know what the heck they were talking about when the relatives used the phrase "going to Hawaii to protest a volcano". I was a bit confused.

And for what it's worth I saw more Kingdom of Hawaii flags than any other.

On a side note I could move there tomorrow and take up surfing. So anybody willing to have a remote engineer working on Hawaii time just let me know...

I was under the impression that the "independent nations" concept implied independence from the states. Naturally as the power in the US has shifted away from the states towards the federal government the autonomy and sovereignty of the tribes has decreased.

https://www.bia.gov/frequently-asked-questions

> Tribes possess all powers of self-government except those relinquished under treaty with the United States, those that Congress has expressly extinguished, and those that federal courts have ruled are subject to existing federal law or are inconsistent with overriding national policies.

That has not changed at all.

It sounds strange, and it kind of is, but in reality life on a reservation in most cases is rough, few options to make a living, lots of substance abuse, tribal politics can be pretty petty and nasty. I lived near a reservation for a while and the first thing you think "oh man they have this nation inside a nation they could do a lot of things" but really life is rough there.

There's a lot of issues going on right now that draw the majority of my energy (climate change, propagation of hate, etc), so unfortunately I can't bring myself to look into or exert effort into the moral debate of natives' rights, but I think it's a massive issue with huge implications and not nearly so clear-cut as some of the other ones we're dealing with (i.e., climate change is straightforward easy to argue about).

The issue, as I see it:

Take Native Americans in the USA. Outside the written-law rights they have regarding their reservations, one could argue their sovereignty was violated if, say, a plot of land bought in the 1600s (off-reservation) that happened to include a burial mound was developed on. One could also argue that, yes, their sovereignty was violated, but they failed to defend their sovereignty, and so it was relinquished (I don't like this because I think seizing via violence is fucked). One could also argue that they aren't the prime sovereign claim to that land - one tribe might have warred and taken it from another some 500 years prior, so why should the most recent tribe be considered the morally "sovereign" authority on the land?

Which brings me to the point that really concerns me: Taiwan. Populated by natives that were mingling with mainland Chinese for centuries, before a total Japanese takeover. Japanese sovereign territory (by violence). But then, mainland Chinese take over, uh, "back again?" Maybe? Arguable. Either way, another violent sovereign takeover. And finally, a civil war in China between two political parties, with a huge swath of one side fleeing in defeat to Taiwan. Is that even a sovereign takeover, or a political shift? And what of the aborigines, during this time?

Now China is claiming sovereignty over Taiwan, and from one point of view, they kind of do have a claim - Taiwan was technically Mainland Chinese territory, given back after Japan lost the war, and the Communist party did overthrow the Democratic party. However, the Communists did not successfully completely terminate the Democratic party (which is great because who wants more death), so on the other hand, I can see why ROC(Taiwan)'s claim to the island is also legitimate.

Either way, I'm terrified PRC will enforce their self-proclaimed sovereignty over the nation (which is effectively non-existent at present) using violence, which I'm not sure ROC(Taiwan) would be able to withstand, and then I'm worried afterwards the rest of the world will let China get away with it for the slippery sovereign arguments listed above.

As you acknowledge in the next paragraph, it’s not like Native Americans weren’t seizing land from each other by violence. So what good does it do to write off the primary ways in which land is acquired in the absence of any applicable legal process?

Does bring up a good point though - are the borders of most countries now "locked in?" Perhaps. Federations might form / break apart, which could shift around "sovereign territory." Like, imagine the EU consolidating, or the USA splitting.

Ask the Ukrainians.

This can get messy, but it can also give rise to some really culturally fascinating places, like the Alsace.