Li Zhao

Party: Libertarian

Age: 51

Job: Teacher, Hawaii Baptist Academy. Youth Director, Chinese Lutheran Church of Honolulu.

Born in Tianjin, China. In Hawaii since 1987, arrived from Minnesota

Lives: Waikele

Contact: 262-4088, barteng@hawaii.rr.com

Job history past 10 years:
Iolani School teacher, 2006-2007. HBA teacher, 2003-2006. Punahou teacher, 2001-2002.

Ever run for public office? When? Outcome?
Lt. Governor, 2006.

Anything else you'd like voters to know about you?
I am a survivor of the communist dictatorship of China, so I value freedom and liberty very highly.

1) Why are you running for office?
People need more than just two choices, especially when the differences between Republicans and Democrats are not significant. The Libertarian Party are consistent champions of liberty: civil liberties, free markets, and non-intervention abroad.

2) Should the U.S. set a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq? Explain.
Of course. The US should not have been there in the first place, originally supporting people like Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden in the 1980’s. Once you are there, the best thing to do is to leave. As Will Rogers once said, "When you get into trouble 5000 miles from home, you’ve got to have been looking for it."

3) Should the federal government impose stricter fuel- and energy-efficiency standards on cars, appliances, etc.?
No. People will respond to higher fuel prices on their own, they don't need the government to do this to them. The government has so far subsidized the low cost of fuel by covering the protection and insurance costs of the oil industry in very dangerous and volatile regions of the world. Without these subsidies, alternative sources and types of energy will be far more attractive.

4) How would you get affordable health care to more Americans?
A look at the history of medical care shows governmental favors in monopolizing and controlling health care. This has eliminated choices of health care providers for consumers and has raised costs enormously. The best way to improve health care is, as in all industries, opening to greater competition and ending monopolistic controls.

5) Do you support the restriction that only U.S.-flagged cargo and passenger ships may serve Hawai'i? Why?
No. The U.S. has preached free markets to the world because of the benefits to consumers and the improvements in services, prices, and innovation. It is about time for the U.S. government to practice what it has long been preaching to the rest of the world.

6) Do you support a Native Hawaiian recognition bill?
No. I support recognition and respect for the rights of all individuals equally, neither more nor less for any particular group of people. The role of government in a free society is to be a neutral protector of individual rights.

7) What changes, if any, would you make to the No Child Left Behind education law?
I favor the right of parents and students to choose their own schools. I do not favor government manipulation of education. Socialistic education systems are incompetent at serving educational needs of students and serve to subordinate individual rights to the power of the state.

8) What’s the No. 1 piece of legislation you’d work to pass in 2009?
Americans don't need one more law to make life better. The government is not the solution to our troubles. It is the problem. It would be my objective to repeal a mountain of laws that are currently harmful to civil liberties and free markets -- a mountain of laws that compel us to support unwise interventions at home and abroad.