Vandals deserve to be left out of graduation

The decision to ban five Kapaa High School seniors from their graduation ceremony after they painted graffiti on campus is appropriate (Star-Bulletin, May 27). All students need to learn that there are consequences for their actions. That is a part of growing up and learning right from wrong.

Apparently, these students did not learn much through their years of public education. Hopefully, this lesson will be be one of the most important ones they learn.

It is our business if you don't buckle up

The May 27 letter to the editor by Justin Hahn describes his frustration in government nosing in on people and their business. While I am the last person to want my personal business to become government business, I feel that it is my business if someone wears their seat belt.

Hahn assumes that the only person who is affected is himself and his insurance company and this is not entirely true. Paramedics, firefighters and police make it their business. For more than 20 years I transported my share of injured people to hospitals. People do not realize that public safety workers are left with sometimes daily nightmares of little kids all smashed up, adults who are crippled for life.

And put it this way, it's everyone's business. We all pay taxes and if your accident is severe enough, your car insurance company might not pay out enough to cover your hospital, rehab and salary. Guess who pays for all that? Taxpayers. So yes, it is everyone's business if you don't wear a seat belt.

Not wearing seat belt isn't victimless crime

Justin Hahn declares that he is not harming anyone by not wearing his seat belt, and it is a consensual crime that does not deserve government interference. There are very few crimes that are victimless, and failure to wear a seat belt is not one of them.

When you are ejected from your vehicle, after colliding with another vehicle or a concrete barrier while going well over the speed limit, your stupidity is paid for by everyone who has auto insurance. Our insurance premiums are increased, our tax dollars pay for the policemen and firemen who have to investigate and clean up the crime scene. Our tax dollars pay for the ride in the ambulance, for the attendants and supplies in the emergency room, and for the eventual investigation and preparation by the coroner. You leave behind a family, maybe even children who no longer have a father or mother to share their lives with, and help support them.

And yes, the government must be involved, because left to themselves, individuals are self-destructive and many do not know what is best for them. Laws exist for a reason. You have the free will to obey them or not, but don't cry when you must pay the consequences for making the wrong choice.

No one decides to be 'one of those'

I wonder why anything that isn't anti-gay is seen as anti-family, as would be indicated by Garret Hashimoto's May 27 letter to the editor. Reading his letter, it seems that this can be his only logical conclusion. In my judgment, it is not logical at all.

If we as a society want to give landlords the right to discriminate against anyone based on race, creed, gender, ethnicity, weight, age, religion and a host of other characteristics, then yes it would be fair to allow discrimination based on sexual orientation. Of course, we have decided that this is not fair. People do not choose most of these characteristics.

Regardless of what Hashi-moto thinks, sexual orientation is not a choice, either. He never chose his. I never chose mine, in spite of trying to choose to have the same one he has, with dismal failure after 20 years of trying. I should still have a right to rent from whom I want.

I'm in Michigan now, but I should be free to move back, and not fear that no one will want to rent to me because I'm "one of those."

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