http://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/sections/commentary/your-views/your-views-jan-25.html

Your Views for Jan. 25, 2012

In reference to the county's review of their land tax policies, County Finance Director Nancy Crawford was recently quoted telling the County Council, "Ultimately, you charge the rates you need to get the revenue you need to run the county." Then, Ms Crawford, are there any limits to government's insatiable appetite to spending and taxing, or is it only matter of taxing to meet any spending level?

In a recent Tribune-Herald article, County Real Property Assistant Administrator Michael McCall is quoted as saying that the agricultural property assessment exemption program, which accounts for approximately 14 percent of property taxes that could be collected annually, is "very lucrative," as if it were the government's money in the first place.

In that same article, consultant Jeff Melrose noted that agricultural land for "a retirement home for a couple of sheep and a llama" is somehow not a bona fide farm. If so, than what other zoning classification would be more (legitimate) for the freedom of a retired American?

What has happened to our republic? Since when did owning private property become a liability, subject to the taxing whim of progressive bureaucrats? When did we become a people of the government, by the government and for the government?

Rick Toledo Jr.

Hilo

(Mr. Toledo is a Director of the Conservative Forum for Hawaii)

Heritage Foundation director to speak on Hope for Hawaii Education

Jennifer Marshall of the distinguished national think-tank Heritage Foundation will be speaking in Hilo on “Hope for Hawaii Education: How We Can Win School Choice”.   The talk is open to the public and will be at 6:00 pm Thursday February 2 at the New Star restaurant, 172 Kilauea Ave., Hilo.  Ms. Marshall is Director of Domestic Policy Studies for the Heritage Foundation, widely considered one of the world's most influential public policy research institutes. In 2010, National Journal named her as “one of 12 power players” in Washington, D.C. for her work on school choice and education reform.

She will be speaking about Hawaii education at several engagements around the state, on Oahu at BYU and at the Heritage Foundation special event at the Hilton Hawaiian Village, then in Hilo and Kona.

Big Island residents ranked Education their #1 concern at the recent Hawaii Island Economic Summit sponsored by the County of Hawaii and Kona transportation.  There are ongoing concerns about the quality of our Hawaii public schools, the increasing popularity of charter schools and the recent HSTA contract issues about teacher performance evaluation. Parents are increasingly seeking empowerment to influence their children’s education for the better. Ms. Marshall has great insight in such issues, especially in light of recent Washington, D.C. school system experiences such as their Opportunity Scholarship Program passed by Congress in 2004, phased out by President Obama in 2009 and resurrected in 2011.

The Conservative Forum for Hawaii and The Hilo Tea Party are jointly sponsoring Ms. Marshall’s Hilo presentation.

$15 charge will include buffet dinner.

For further information contact Marie Ruhland   895-3741   marie@hiipm.com



Mayor’s Office
East Hawai‘i:

-------- Original Message --------
Subject:     RE: Testimony regarding plastic bag ban
Date:     Thu, 22 Dec 2011 12:22:52 -1000
From:     cohmayor@co.hawaii.hi.us
To:     forumhawaii@gmail.com

Aloha Walter and Dr. Ed,

Mahalo for your email and I appreciate your perspectives about the
proposed plastic bag ban. We will definitely consider your thoughts before
we make a decision on this bill.

Mele Kalikimaka

Billy

From: Conservative Forum Hawaii [mailto:forumhawaii@gmail.com]
Sent: Monday, December 19, 2011 7:04 PM
To: cohmayor@co.hawaii.hi.us
Subject: Testimony regarding plastic bag ban



conforhawaii.com

Dear Mr. Mayor:

Banning plastic bags is a terrible idea. It will raise everyone’s cost of living, make our lives just a little bit more difficult, and will
accomplish none of the ban’s stated goals.

Your help is greatly needed.

Paper bags cost more than plastic ones, which is why shopping will be just a little more expensive.
Plastic bags have way more utility and convenience than paper bags and reusable shopping bags,
so everyone’s life will get  just a little more inconvenient.

Especially right now, with our economy in the tank and folks really struggling,
we expect our politicians to make our lives less expensive and easier, not cost more and be more difficult.

Our position as conservatives is that this bag ban law is another unwarranted micro-management of our lives that should not be the purview
of our elected officials.

We also feel all  the arguments by the progressive activists pushing this are all wrong, and the net effect would actually be harmful.

    * We feel that litter is a behavioral problem, not an object problem.
For example, we cannot reduce car accidents by banning just Toyotas.

    * Plastic bags will be replaced by paper, which is less environmentally kind than plastic, takes even more landfill room, and
actually introduces more carbon into the air than plastic bag production and use.

    * Plastic bags do NOT contribute any significant content to the vast mass of sea-borne plastic debris, which is nearly all small
particulates of other origin.

    * NO scientific studies show plastic bags are a significant harm to wildlife. None.  Only a very few, rare, isolated and over-hyped photos
contradict this, not any real science.

    * Plastic bags will be replaced by paper, or re-usable bags, which are much less useful for the full spectrum that bags are currently used
for (transparent, cheap, light, and water-proof)

    * Paper bags will be more expensive than plastic, costs that the poorest among us can afford the least

    * These sorts of details of daily life are for individuals to decide, NOT the nanny-state government.

Personal liberty is again lessened by this ban. Bad idea.

Warmest aloha

    Walter Moe, President   
    Edward Gutteling M.D., V.P.  

 http://www.hawaiireporter.com/fighting-plastic-bag-ban-on-big-island/123

http://www.hawaiifreepress.com/ArticlesMain/tabid/56/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/5694/Pilago-Seen-as-Swing-Vote-on-Hawaii-County-Bag-Ban.aspx

CONFORHAWAII.COM
19 December, 2011

Dear Forum:

We have one last chance to persuade our County Council NOT to go ahead with Pete Hoffman's plastic bag ban.
Your help is needed. If everyone adds a voice, the impact will be felt.  Recent public feed-back has been very much against this law, and momentum is building.
Most councilmen have re-election on their minds, and are sensitive to the people's voices.

The next and final council meeting on this is Wed, 21 December.
Please let them know how you feel, immediately, by sending them an email or fax. (Too late for US mail.)
Mr. Pilago is the key swing vote, and he can indeed be influenced for the better.

Please do NOT let this drop.
It is just like the "broken window" theory of police work: allowing small crimes to go unpunished,  like breaking windows, leads to massive larger crimes becoming common.
Allowing even the small loss of liberties to go unchecked inevitably leads the ratchet to go only one direction towards our loss of even greater liberties.
This has got to stop, and you can and must help.

Our position as conservatives is that this bag ban law is another unwarranted micro-management of our lives that should not be the purview of our elected officials.
We also feel all the arguments by the progressive activists pushing this are all wrong, and the net effect would actually be harmful.

2 November 2011

http://www.staradvertiser.com/editorialspremium/letterspremium/20111102_Letters_to_the_Editor.html?id=133057513

http://www.hawaiifreepress.com/ArticlesMain/tabid/56/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/5333/Fundamentals-Matter-Capitalism-not-the-Problem.aspx 29 Oct 2011

http://www.hawaii247.com/2011/11/21/gutteling-capitalism-is-not-the-problem/Fundamentals Matter.
Capitalism not the Problem

By Edward Gutteling

I’m writing this on the 44th anniversary of the execution of that poster-boy of “social justice”, Dr. “Che” Guevara, viewing articles of the Occupy Wall Street demonstrators in Hawaii and the mainland.  Some proudly wear T-shirts with Che’s image. Many wave slogans, reflecting their fundamental beliefs. That’s where the problem lies, as that matters. Screw up the fundamentals, and badness follows.

There are many signs like “We ARE the 99%” and “Blame Wall Street Greed”. Tea Party and conservatives can support that. But there’s also “Jobs are a Right “, “Capitalism is the Problem“, “People, not Profits”, “Tax the Rich” and even “Eat the Rich”.

They want to mobilize opinion against the institutions at the heart of our current economic problems. They see correctly that some big banks are government protected villains that have mostly avoided punishment, that the financial system’s failures hurt everyone and the poorest the most, and the badness can happen again. They see bleak futures ahead. No hope, no change.

Some understand the fundamentals of how money works: labor is stored as money, pieces of paper in which we trust government to maintain the value of our efforts. Our government has failed at that responsibility, under both GOP and Democratic administrations, repeatedly. Major financial institutions still profit from that mismanagement while the economy tanks, jobs vanish, the value of our labor shrinks, and we are further impoverished.  The TeaParty and conservatives agree.
But we don’t see tearing down capitalism as they way to create wealth for everyone.

So what are these protestors’ solutions?
>From the Occupy Wall Street website:
•    “Immediate debt forgiveness for all,
•    Guaranteed living wage ($20 / hr) regardless of employment.
•    Free college education,
•    Fast track to end the fossil fuel economy
•    One trillion dollars infrastructure spending now,
•    One trillion dollars ecological restoration… ”

They’ll spread the wealth and get that “free stuff”.

But they say nothing about making the wealth.

Now we learn MoveOn.org and government unions such as SEIU and United Federation of Teachers are supporting the protests, and the DC Tenants Advocacy Coalition paid some non English-speaking Hispanics to demonstrate. Iran's Gen. Jazayeri praised “America’s Spring. The last phase will be the collapse of the Western capitalist system.” When Venezuela President “socialismo o muerte” Hugo Chavez broadcast his support, New York protestors cheered and hoisted a hammer and sickle.

What gives with all that?

My up-the-road Hamakua celebrity neighbor Roseanne Barr, a protest supporter, told Russia Today television’s Keiser Report:  "I first would allow the guilty bankers to pay, you know, the ability to pay back anything over $100 million [of] personal wealth because I believe in a maximum wage of $100 million.” (Roseanne at a mere $80 million safely misses the cut)  “And if they are unable to live on that amount then they should, you know, go to the reeducation camps and if that doesn't help, then being beheaded," "I am in favor of the return of the guillotine and that is for the worst of the worst of the guilty.… Because it teaches children, you know,”
No, I’m not making that up.

Dr. Guevara became President of the Cuban national bank, supervised forced redistribution of all private land, personally killed scores of imprisoned “counter revolutionaries”, and enforced codes of permitted behavior.  “For all the people”. You know, better than the “99%”.  Poverty blossomed, and some protested. Che said in 1961: “Youth must refrain from ungrateful questioning of governmental mandates.” “Instead, they must dedicate themselves to study, work and military service, should learn to think and act as a mass.”  Those who “choose their own path” were “delinquents.” Che promised “to make individualism disappear from Cuba. It is criminal to think of individuals !”

No, I’m not making that up, either.

Replacing capitalism with the tyranny of the state is not the way to “social justice”, nor “sustainability”, and certainly not to wealth.

Conservatives do see the problems, and fundamental principles guide real solutions.  Stable money not a politically manipulated facade, free honest markets not state crony-capitalism, limited government and responsible individual sovereignty. Consenting adults should be allowed to commit acts of capitalism in the privacy of their own domains, without the state or the mob butting in.

Cherish liberty, thrive and prosper.

Dr. Gutteling is Vice President of the Conservative Forum for Hawaii

Dear Editor:

  http://www.hawaiireporter.com/hawaii-island-residents-should-have-a-choice-over-whether-to-use-plastic-or-paper-bags/123 9/28/2011

Let us decide for ourselves

Our county council is still considering a law banning plastic bags from retail stores, forcing us all to either paper or reusable shopping bags instead.  This is supposedly in our best interests from litter and environmental reasoning, despite that it will definitely increase our cost of living, increase the hassle levels of daily life, increase the volume of our land fill, and is unproven in any venue to actually have decreased the net level of litter. 

In fact, many communities have faced lawsuits based on increasing damage to the environment as a result of increased use of paper over plastic bags.

Plastic bag use is widely considered a cheap and valued convenience by our community. This sort of micro-management of our daily lives is unwanted by most citizens, as they correctly view this sort of manini intrusion as excessive, and beyond the proper role our government should take. The implications are that many Councilmen consider most citizens too stupid to act in their own best interests, and so must be forced in to details of behavior by the more enlightened wisdom of a mere majority of the council.

These sorts of decisions should be made by the community as a whole, and should be submitted to the people as a referendum.

All citizens who vote are capable of weighing these pros and cons, and making their own decisions on these matters. This isn’t that hard.

Stop passing laws that increase our cost of living and make our lives harder, without asking our permission first.

We therefore urge the council to put this and all similar measures to a vote by referendum, and allow the community as a whole to decide.

Walter Moe, President

Edward Gutteling, V.P

The Conservative Forum for Hawaii