Letters to the Editor

Monday, May 6, 1996

Gas 'crisis' is much ado about an election year

We Americans are very gullible, epecially those of us here in Hawaii. I offer as proof the large number of Democrats we have elected to office.

Case in point: Gasoline prices surge upward and we are told the good news that President Clinton is to force a rollback of gasoline prices by releasing 12 million barrels of crude oil from the nation's Strategic Petroleum Reserve. The intent was that this oil was to be held for an emergency. Are we in an emergency because this is an election year?

Twelve million barrels amounts to 67 percent of one day's consumption. This will force a rollback of gasoline prices?

Why don't we buy the Brooklyn Bridge also while our heads are in a cloud? I understand the price is cheap.

Stan Philbrick
Kaneohe


Legislators, media, judges thwart will of the people

The Honolulu Advertiser and the Star-Bulletin ran editorials in which they stated that the issue of same-sex marriage was too important to allow the people to make decisions. Members of the Senate have stated essentially the same thing.

Common citizens are building up strong resentments against legislators who will not listen to the views of the people because they think people are too ill-informed to make good decisions; against the media whose editors use trite phrases such as "popularity contests," rather than rational and informative analysis of issues; and against the judicial system, which is imposing its ideology on the people through the courts.

We live in a representative democracy, a system created to ensure that the country is run by the will of the majority of the citizens. We see in the actions and words of legislators, editors and judges their belief that a small elite group of people should be allowed to rule.

We live in a democratic republic. The people have the right to make the important decisions that determine what kind of society we will have. We the people must decide how we will define our social entity. Is anyone listening?

Robert D. Goodwin
Laie


Did we forget that prisons were meant to punish?

I am completely fed up with the present criminal justice system. Hawaii's career criminals are often back on the streets committing crimes before the police can finish writing the reports on their latest offenses.

Judges, legislators, parole board members, and advocates of the American Civil Liberties Union are more worried about offending the civil rights of criminals than concerned for the victims of the crimes.

When are they going to wake up and take the necessary action to make the correctional system something that accomplishes what it was designed for - to ensure that punishment is severe enough so that criminals change their outlook and realize that they don't want to return?

Do away with the country club atmosphere of our present correctional system that includes the law libraries (inmates clog our courts with frivolous lawsuits) and make the prisoners work for their keep.

R.H. Pickering


Ode to a downright odious 1996 legislative session

Nuthouse in a Nutshell

High-3 goes on for "Inside guys."
Campaign spending unreformed,
The auto rate's still on the rise . . .
(Big surprise!)
Joe Souki says it's all OK!
(We'll soon forget and vote like sheep.)
Seems one big party can't agree.
They've let us down,
They've failed us all.
They haven't earned their keep.

M.Y.L. Ching


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