Laws and morality
Just to quibble a bit … Peter Braun writes that all laws are purely based on morality (Your Views, Jan. 24).
Then why are there laws requiring the use of seat belts and provisions for disabled accessibility, for instance? I don’t see any moral basis for those or a myriad of other laws.
Karen Cooper
Hilo
Hotel expansion
I lived in North Kohala, outside of Kapa‘au from Jan. 3, 1984, through June 5, 1994, and it was a great place to live.
During that time, I witnessed the socioeconomic changes and stressors that happened when certain real estate agents in the area began marketing to the wealthy.
During that time, two gated communities, Kohala Ranch, and Puakea Bay, were developed, and some agents started buying up local homes and flipping them for a great deal more than they paid. There were issues with access to traditional fishing sites and other problems.
Currently, there seems to be a lot of good things going on in Kohala, but I read that an entity, Hawaii Island Retreat at Ahu Pohaku Ho‘omaluhia, wants to more than double their business from 16 to 36 rooms. I’m trying to remember, did the old Kohala Inn even have 16 rooms?
Granted, I have not lived in Kohala for quite a while, but this does seem like a rather large expansion for that neighborhood. Are 16 rooms not enough?
Why is it that often, people who have so much frequently want more (and often share less)? And, when will enough be enough?
Ricia Shema
Volcano
And on it goes
People seem to forget why the Founding Fathers chose to declare the separation of church and state in the First Amendment.
England had endured hundreds of years of religious wars. It was Christians killing Christians for religious and political reasons. They all worshiped the same god, the same Jesus and held the same cross as sacred. And yet, for nearly 200 years, they kept killing each other.
In the world of Islam, Sunni and Shia pray to the same god and hold sacred the exact same scripture, and have been killing each other for centuries.
Make no mistake, those who oppose abortion, gay marriage and LGBTQ civil rights, do so based upon a morality rooted in their religion.
History shows how deeply people resent and resist the imposition of someone else’s religion upon them. This isn’t over.
Russ Button
Keaau