Letters to the Editor: August 31, 2022

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What it is

Polarization is the relevant term today and it will continue as long as the Democrats in Congress/Senate and the president continue to push green technology over common sense energy policy in the United States.

The globalist agenda is clearly making America more vulnerable to outside threats around the world with this unrelenting push. Almost all material needed to attain there goals needs to come from China and areas that China is gaining control of every day while America continues trying to figure out how to stop the lunacy that grips our politics.

The short answer is America’s leading political class has been purchased by foreign interest and has been very busy enriching themselves and there family’s fortunes through lucrative business deals with Americas main competitors. The other huge issue is the very real entrenched federal bureaucracy that does not need to be re elected and seams that it cannot be fired.

Voters on both sides of the issues need to wake up to the threats and realize we will all be victims if we do not bridge the gaps between us. Go ahead and hate Trump all you want but he was right on the money with the draining of the swamp, and also of the threat from China.

We the people have no power as long as we stay divided. How long this stays that way is up to the people who vote. Look closely at the things you read and think are real as there is always another side. I hope West Hawaii today is listening? The continued publishing of one-sided views is very damaging and lends itself to a continuation of the divide.

Bob Johnson

Kailua-Kona

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There’s no legal right

Hawaii County has no legal right to collect a fee for their illegal gang-cesspool.

A high school senior can read the ordinance which enables our sewer department to charge Ka’u residents who are hooked up to the plantation sewer. But, any law student can see that the law is in error. It supports an illegal operation. No law professor will point that out. The fault belongs to the law — not the person who doesn’t pay their bill. A jury would find that person not guilty. Judges find him guilty.

Guilty or not guilty we start another round of sewer meetings in Naalehu. We are still on shaky ground, administratively speaking. They will fill the air with pettifogging, carney barking, and finger-pointing. This meeting will be exciting.

Meanwhile, our sewer works fine until a pipe breaks. Then the ground crews fix it fast. Let’s see a law professor do that.

Jerry Warren

Naalehu

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Violence is not the answer

What does it mean that at least one prominent Republican official has publicly stated that if former President Trump is indicted there will be riots in the streets of our cities. One might ordinarily mark this down to the usual political hyperbole if Trump’s calls for demonstrations in Washington on Jan. 6, 2021 had not resulted in an obstruction of a constitutionally mandated procedure and attempted insurrection. Having called the mobs into the streets once, warning that they will bring riots again has to be taken seriously.

U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, ranking member of the Judiciary Committee, used to be more cautious with his rhetoric. But no more.

Further, among Trump supporters there is a tendency to look for coded signals in public statements. So, an outright prediction from Senator Graham, which was immediately repeated by Trump on his own social medium, is equivalent to a direct call for violence.

What does it mean when one of our two major political parties engages in attempted public extortion? Threatening violence to force an action or to prevent an action is extortion. It is illegal.

What does it mean when one of our two major political parties thinks it is alright to influence governmental decisions by threats of violence? It may seem outlandish to say this, but it is true that both fascism and communism have a history of being established by violence or threats of violence.

Why would one of our two political parties want to threaten to bring mobs into the streets again? The only excuse I can think of is that Republicans are convinced that America’s governmental apparatus is so corrupt that the only possible remedy is violence. As if violence ever solved anything.

I am not ready to abandon the greatness of the American Experiment to any system built upon threats of violence. I strongly suspect that the vast majority of my fellow citizens agree with me on that. It is the government’s duty to protect its citizens from violence, not to threaten its citizens with violence. Any political party that uses threats of violence to get its way has abdicated its responsibilities as well as its reason for existence.

John Sucke

Waimea

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Letters policy

Letters to the editor should be 300 words or less and will be edited for style and grammar. Longer viewpoint guest columns may not exceed 800 words. Submit online at https://www.westhawaiitoday.com/letter-to-the-editor/ or address letters to:

Editor | West Hawaii Today

PO Box 789

Kailua-Kona, HI 96745

Email: letters@westhawaiitoday.com