Mayor’s plan is assault on rights

I am afraid that Mayor Mufi Hannemann is treading in dangerous waters in proposing a plan that would force severely mentally ill homeless people to receive treatment. Is the City and County of Honolulu willing to use the medical profession to deprive people of their liberty, under the flimsy pretext of mental illness?

The plan could allow police who get clearance from a police psychologist to bring a severely mentally ill person to a hospital for evaluation. This homeless person would go through a civil process that would commit them to mandatory outpatient treatment.

Existing laws that allow authorities to impose involuntary outpatient mental health treatment on homeless people is simply a system of social control disguised as treatment. Should forced psychiatric drugging be interpreted as assault and battery or medical treatment?

Fireworks terrorize neighborhoods

The citizens of this state and our dogs, cats, birds and other creatures should not have to go through hell every year so that a handful of merchants can make a profit selling their legal and illegal fireworks. Our neighborhood is like a war zone with suffocating smoke, illegal pipe bombs that shake our house and rattle our windows and illegal aerials that pollute the sky. I called the police five times this year and they couldn’t do anything. They are short-staffed and overextended and not in a position to police the law as it is. The only thing that will work is a total ban! We should not have to put up with lawless hooligans and neighbors who catch their thrills at everyone else’s expense while they destroy and terrorize our neighborhood.

Put academics above sports

Is it any wonder that this newspaper is in favor of the University of Hawaii-Manoa charging a mandatory athletic fee to all of its students? This is exactly what I would expect from a paper that runs a sports section daily but reports hardly anything about education in this state! Do students really want to attend Harvard because it has great sports teams? To put sports above education shows where our mixed-up priorities are once again. I bet students would gladly pay the fee if it went toward benefitting everyone rather than just a pampered few.

Djou responded, others don’t

In past print media, U.S. Rep. Charles Djou was criticized for reaching out to the people of Hawaii. Despite not being in his district, I e-mailed (at the time) Councilman Djou in 2009, regarding the cell phone ban. He promptly responded. I e-mailed every single representative currently on the City Council regarding the ban on fireworks and I’m waiting for a response. I’ll be voting for "fireworks" in November.

Expedience advances Akaka Bill

With passage of the Akaka Bill, Hawaii will become a "Hawaiian nation" and "American" at the same time. The argument that Hawaiians are a tribe like the American Indians with similar rights is baseless. American Indians live on reservations that are geographically clearly defined, which supports the notion of "tribe."

Hawaiians on the other hand are scattered all over the world. The argument that Hawaiian children will have a bleak future if Hawaiians do not acquire sovereignty status is also baseless. Hawaiians are fully integrated into the social fabric of Hawaii as are other resident ethnic groups and have excelled in many career fields.

Arguments for the passage of Hawaiian sovereignty should be based on an in-depth evaluation of its merits as it affects the state as a whole rather than the apparent move by Hawaii’s senators to capitalize on the fact that Democrats control Congress. The treatment of sovereignty has been narrowed down to the sole task of satisfying the cultural interests of a minority group by any means.

Get out of Afghanistan

Why do we refuse to learn our lessons from history? We have only to look at the Soviet Union’s involvement in Afghanistan for a precedent. Even with the advances in warfare technology, we have got no further than they!