Letters To The Editor
Plantation voting
Mahalo to Jade Moon for her post-election column on Hawaii’s horrible record of not voting.
You don’t have to go too far back in Hawaii’s history to see how precious your vote is, and how it can be abused – back to the plantation days, when pencils in voting booths were attached to strings hanging from the ceiling.
That way plantation bosses could tell whether the person inside the supposedly secret booth was voting left (Democrats) or right (Republicans, which the bosses supported).
Please, Hawaii, voting is a sacred gift, and if you don’t speak through your vote, you may wake up one day and find you have lost your voice altogether.
Frank Watanabe
Honolulu
Blame teachers
I blame Hawaii’s schools for the lack of voter turnout. Our schools do a terrible job of teaching civics and history, and some liberal teachers refuse to teach about the Founding Fathers because back in those days some of them owned slaves.
Yes, that was reprehensible, but so are many of our teachers.
And now public school teachers are demanding more and more money?
Sorry, I am not sympathetic.
Richard Lee
Honolulu
Loyal again
It was nice to see Jerry Coffee refer to himself now as part of the “loyal opposition” to President Obama. For the past four years, his MidWeek columns have verged on traitorous, including calling Obama the greatest domestic threat to the nation. Maybe his recent heart attack mellowed him?
Janet Martin
Honolulu
The Christian vote
Christian leaders need to change their message to their followers for future elections, otherwise “Christian” candidates and issues will continue to lose ground. In general, while churches tell their members to vote, they also advise that it does not matter who wins because ultimately the results are “in God’s hands.” Unfortunately the message becomes reinterpreted by Christians as “it doesn’t matter who wins, so why bother voting?”
As more and more leaders are elected who are hostile to Christianity, it becomes more difficult for the church to evangelize. Even if you believe that we are in the Biblical “End Times” (each new generation thinks they are), it is unclear as to how long that lasts, so it could be thousands of years of (losing) elections yet to come.
Leighton Loo
Honolulu
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