Exploiting tolerance ADVERTISING Exploiting tolerance Mr. James Borden enjoyed a curiously sympathetic profile in Sunday’s Tribune-Herald (Aug. 23). But his grisly anti-abortion signage is only his latest outrage. For months, he displayed signs calling President Obama a Muslim jihadist, with
Exploiting tolerance
Mr. James Borden enjoyed a curiously sympathetic profile in Sunday’s Tribune-Herald (Aug. 23). But his grisly anti-abortion signage is only his latest outrage. For months, he displayed signs calling President Obama a Muslim jihadist, with a caricature of him as a black rat lynched in a noose!
The offensive messages he paints and displays on his truck certainly are protected by the First Amendment, and he likewise is free to practice whatever it is he calls his “religion.” No one could legally object if he drove his hate-wagon through the streets all over town, or declaimed his opinions from a pulpit on private property. But his so-called church is squatting in a public park, and he is exploiting Hilo’s tolerance for eccentricity.
Fortunately, there is an easy way for Hawaii County to minimize the impact of Mr. Borden’s venom on Kinoole Street, without restricting his constitutional rights.
Simply cut the time for street parking on the makai side, along Lincoln Park, to just one or two hours.
Hal Glatzer
Hilo
Take back the park
I am writing this letter out of concern for the families who would like Lincoln Park to be a nice place to visit. My family is one of them.
It is not in the best interest of the public to be bombarded with (James Borden’s) hateful, politically divisive and grotesque images and messages when trying to visit a children’s playground. Many of the messages and images I have seen there are not fit for viewing by young children.
Yet, Lincoln Park was built to suit the needs of families in Hilo with young children, to give them a safe, colorful place to play and meet new friends. I do not find it acceptable that certain individuals use Lincoln Park as a place to post reminders of the worst and darkest offerings of the world when the park was built to be just the opposite.
I also do not believe calling attention to these issues in this way is in any way conducive to helping solve any problems, but instead creates the problem of needlessly traumatizing innocent visitors to this centrally located Hilo park.
I’m asking this city’s lawmakers to help its citizens rid Lincoln Park of this nuisance.
Kodi Cibulka
Keaau
