• Congress looted our Social Security • Sexual rights are human rights • May there be peace on Earth Congress looted our Social Security High Social Security payroll taxes have contributed to yearly Social Security Trust Fund surpluses until the
• Congress looted our Social Security
• Sexual rights are human rights
• May there be peace on Earth
Congress looted our Social Security
High Social Security payroll taxes have contributed to yearly Social Security Trust Fund surpluses until the proclaimed surplus is now in excess of $2.29 trillion.
However, Congress has elected to sacrifice Social Security on the alter of corruption by spending the entire surplus requiring the U.S. Treasury to cover the embezzlement by issuing non-negotiable IOU bonds to the Trust Fund. Such economically irresponsible and morally reprehensible behavior by Congress demonstrates total disrespect for working people.
Congress must now determine how to legally fund the IOU bonds when they mature. The choices are increase taxes, sell legitimate T-bonds, or monetize the debt. Congress will select the easy way out and ask the Federal Reserve to crank up the printing press and create money out of thin air. Of course debasing the currency means that the dollar becomes a peso and your Social Security check will only buy some coffee beans or at best, a bowl of java.
Currently the yearly program surplus is about $170 billion and to save Social Security, the yearly surplus must be invested in precious metals so that future Social Security recipients receive something of value. Yet Congress will scream out a refusal claiming that it will doom Social Security. What really frightens them is that we will gain control of our Social Security tax program and they will lose a cash cow. Any politician that proposes a Social Security tax increase will expose his motive to increase the size of the cash cow for looting by Congress.
In the future when the Social Security eagle takes off on its monthly mission what would you rather receive in your hand; a gold coin, a worthless Federal Reserve note, or an IOU? The choice is yours.
• Robert Dalquist, Orange, Calif.
Sexual rights are human rights
Hawai‘i has a long and honorable history of respecting and embracing cultural and religious diversity. This celebrated tolerance was gravely threatened in 1998 by the constitutional amendment passed that year against gay marriage.
Supported and financed extensively by powerful religious extremists’ foundations mostly from the Mainland, this referendum was a deliberate and atrocious assault upon democracy. It was spearheaded by small yet vocal and well-organized religious coalitions publicly committed to legislating morality nationwide.
Hawai‘i was then but the latest pawn in their national campaign, and the repeated willingness of this faction to sacrifice truth and decency in order to achieve their self-serving agendas at any cost is well documented and on record. Admirably, once again today the Hawai‘i Legislature is focusing on correcting this injustice through a renewed push to grant committed same-sex couples similar rights and benefits to married couples through civil unions.
The issue here is not about marriage, despite the millions of dollars that were previously funneled into the inflammatory media smoke screen intentionally manipulating and confusing us. Their massive advertising and commercial blitz in 1998, and again in 2007, was designed to deliberately mislead, emotionally incite and manipulate good, well-meaning people into supporting legislation of bigotry and intolerance, hoping to distract the public from the real issue, and unfortunately it worked both times.
However, attempts to legislate morality always attack our fundamental liberties. Further, they violate America’s constitutional law requiring separation of church and state. The real issue then and now is simply one of equal rights and justice for all — for everyone — regardless of race, religious creed or sexual orientation.
Science has proven that a person’s sexual orientation is not something that is chosen any more than is the color of our skin. Sexual rights are human rights.
Attacks on the rights of any of us attack the rights of all of us, and threaten everyone. Otherwise, who’s next? We must ensure that the Aloha Spirit of our beautiful state continues to extend evenly to everyone by treating people equally.
The majority of Hawai‘i residents have spoken out in favor of tolerance, and hearing us, our lawmakers now appear to have found the fortitude and conviction to rectify this mistake. Get behind our state representatives in taking a courageous stand against discrimination and prejudice, and encourage them to vote YES on equal rights for all by calling and writing them now with your support of civil unions.
• Michael Ra Bouchard, Ph.D., Clinical Sexologist, Hilo
May there be peace on Earth
We all live here as one ‘ohana, people and animals too. I know things change and we must accept the way it has become, but I can’t accept the love that is missing.
Yes, the animals do wrong things, carry disease, mites, destroy gardens and makes noise, but don’t we do that too?
While I am still alive, I want to enjoy every minute of every day here and be thankful for everything. It saddens me, even in our neighborhood we can’t find peace and live together as a happy family.
I must be a dreamer. Bless you all and peace be with you.
• Gayle Medeiros, Kapa‘a
