So now a famous restaurateur with a “von” in his name has, in his inexplicable ignorance, publicly proposed levying an additional expense on the most vulnerable segment of local society and the elitists have crawled from the golf courses in support of his Trump-like proposal.
So now a famous restaurateur with a “von” in his name has, in his inexplicable ignorance, publicly proposed levying an additional expense on the most vulnerable segment of local society and the elitists have crawled from the golf courses in support of his Trump-like proposal.
The First Amendment of the United States Constitution applies to all 50 states, including the state that is most alienated from the rest. Evidently, only anybody from that ever-shrinking political disposition that is still concerned about freedom of speech is aware that the Supreme Court of the United States long ago ruled that panhandling is protected speech.
Amusingly, these are quite the same people who will hyperventilate sulfur dioxide out of the hot tropical sun for the paid-for opportunity to raise funding for behemoth multi-billion dollar medical and other charities when they panhandle the public, then spend the funding they receive any way they please. Should they each be forced to pay for yet another permit?
Perhaps the freedom-hating millionaire and his snobby supporters should voluntarily pay the amount of the permit fee they would impose to our cash-strapped state and/or county governments for the right to publish letters in the local newspaper. If latte-sipping patricians believe that only those who can afford permits should enjoy freedom of speech they would vastly increase support for that argument by being role models and paying it forward. Until the matter goes to court, anyway.
One of the segments of society which is easiest to pick on are the homeless since they are generally unaware what new legislation against their plight awaits them. Hugo must carefully parcel his leisure time to attack the homeless since he seems to compulsively seek out weak targets to expose to his virulent written hostility. Who’s next, Hugo, blind folk or wheelchair-bound? Is my response ad hominem? You bet it is!
If I may offer an admittedly unsolicited suggestion to those who most loudly whine about the impoverished cluttering their ocean view, consider the fact that our isalnd has become an incubator to a pair of vector-borne incurable diseases — dengue and Zika — and all the local authorities are doing about it is going through the motions. Some areas like Milolii have been compelled to crowdsource for financial and logistical support (without having to pay a panhandling permit fee, at least so far) while presidential visits and the Pro Bowl occupy the bosses’ agenda. Maybe this is a matter of greater concern, or will be after a celebrity or political elitist contracts “breakbone fever” and too-little-too-late is finally undertaken by those who rather conspire to increase the residue of their coffers by crafting new laws aimed at moped rider apparel and attacking the poor.
Tom Munden is a resident of Kapaau
My Turn opinions are those of the writer and not of West Hawaii Today