Letters to the Editor
Pre-emptive war endangers all of us
In threatening a pre-emptive war against Iraq, President Bush is recklessly endangering all of us — our families, our city, our state, the entire country.
This unnecessary war could destabilize not only the Middle East, but the whole global balance. As stated by Howard Witt in an article in the Jan. 19 Advertiser, "If a war in Iraq goes wrong, if a strike against North Korea becomes necessary, if terrorists hit America with yet another devastating blow — and none of these scenarios requires much imagination — the consequences for the United States and the world could be catastrophic."
Buckminster Fuller said that the day the first atomic bomb was dropped was "the day that humanity started taking its final exam." If George W. Bush is filling in the blanks, we are going to fail.
Barbara Downs
Philosophers weighed in on economic scene
In defense of President Bush's recent economic plan and in rebuttal to recent critical editorials and comments by this paper and others, I wish to share a few thoughts:
"The only difference between a tax man and a taxidermist is that the taxidermist leaves the skin." (Mark Twain)
"In general, the art of government consists in taking as much money as possible from one party of the citizens to give to the other." (Voltaire, 1764)
"A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul." (George Bernard Shaw)
"In a higher phase of communist society ... only then can ... society inscribe upon its banners: From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs!" (Karl Marx)
"The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of the blessings. The inherent blessing of socialism is the equal sharing of misery." (Winston Churchill)
"A liberal is someone who feels a great debt to his fellow man, which debt he proposes to pay off with your money." (G. Gordon Liddy)
"Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys." (P.J. O'Rourke)
Government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: "If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it." (Ronald Reagan, 1986)
"I don't make jokes. I just watch the government and report the facts." (Will Rogers)
Pohaku La'au Green
Hilo
Licensed practical nurses one solution
I believe that the immediate solution to the nursing-shortage problem is to allow licensed practical nurses with more than three years of nursing experience to take the Registered Nurse State Board Exam. You would be surprised by the number of LPNs who can pass this exam. One can learn more from on-the-job training than from rote memory from the textbooks.
On the Mainland, many nonprofit county hospitals are still training LPNs to do the same job the large city hospitals are training their registered nurses to do today. They realize that it will be more cost-effective to pay an LPN than a registered nurse to do the same job.
It is unfortunate that people in Hawai'i do not have a choice for more affordable hospital care today. Perhaps someday a nonprofit county hospital will be dedicated to provide quality affordable hospital care for the lower-income families in Hawai'i the same way they have been doing for decades on the Mainland.
Cecilia Graybeal
Being truthful isn't 'getting away with it'
Ellen Goodman's Jan. 21 commentary ponders how a president can tell 30 million women who have had abortions that they did something evil and got "away with it." Since when is being truthful "getting away with" being truthful? Abortion is evil.
I showed Goodman's commentary to a woman who was formerly for abortion. Her response is telling: "Evil must exist. It is the only thing that can explain the blindness to what is obvious. I was blind. Goodman still is."
Consider the facts. Eight million Jews were killed by the Nazis. Most agree this was evil. Why? Because it was the taking of innocent human lives. Nazi ideology and laws did not justify the killings or make them less evil.
Thirty-nine million human beings have been killed by their own American mothers. This is also the taking of innocent human lives.
Can Goodman tell me what it is about a "woman's right to choose" or the "right to privacy" that justifies these killings and makes them not evil so that calling them evil would be "getting away with something"?
Christopher J. Wilson
Voting for the candidate
Before either political party gets too smug and self-congratulatory, it pays to realize an important fact: People are voting for the candidate and less for the party. This crossover voting is a hopeful signal for the future of Hawai'i. Maybe we can begin to work together now.
Carolyn Arnold
