Letters to the Editor
Friday, October 11, 1996

Greedy medical profession
fuels right-to-die issue

Doctors will do everything to keep a patient with a degenerating or deadly disease alive. How else do doctors make money?

As to the old, disabled, painfully waiting to die, we are reminded that life and death is in the hands of our creator. Let's not mention that the beds in which humans are lying alone and in pain, waiting to die, each cost $4,000 and up per month.

Individual choice of euthanasia should not be legalized just because humane, dignified relief from pain is not cost effective to the medical profession.

Fran Zalman


Why aren't candidates talking
tax rate imbalance?

Guess what? Our property tax rates are among the lowest in the nation. Those in California and North Carolina are more than twice that on Oahu. Who benefits most? The rich, the large estates, the resorts and the absentee owners of our most expensive lands.

Who benefits least? The middle class and the poor.

Guess what? Our excise (sales) and income taxes are among the most regressive in the nation. Who suffers the most? The middle class and the poor.

So the rich landowners pay less than their fair share and the middle class and poor just get by - after the state and county exact their tribute.

What's wrong with this picture? No major candidate or party for the current elective state office has given a nickel's worth of attention to this imbalance. I don't think it is because they don't know or don't care. It is because they and their benefactors benefit from the system as it is.

They know what they've done and want to keep it intact. No wonder our votes are wasted in Hawaii. The choices are mere illusions and labels. They offer no real difference.

Stuart Sumner


Views on honor differ
when you are being persecuted

Regarding Ted West's letter, "Sovereignty is earned, not granted by government,"(Star-Bulletin, Sept. 27): His is an interesting, if not narrow, perspective, especially, "The Hawaii homelands must be reclaimed by Hawaiians in an honorable way."

What is his perception of honorable? Hard work and sacrifice, to partly quote him? Or is it United States of America armed troops fronting Iolani Palace, as occurred with the 1893 overthrow of a sovereign Hawaiian nation that America once recognized?

Did he by chance mean "might makes right," instead of hard work and sacrifice? It is so easy to step on the shoes of the other when you are in power. Has he considered what it would be like if he wore the shoes that were stepped on?

Manuel K. Baptista
Waipahu


It's not true that election
conveyed anti-gay mandate

In response to Ronald Higa's Oct. 5 letter to the editor, and others who assert that voters of the recent primary election sent a "strong message" against same-gender marriage, I ask them to look at the rest of the returns, not just those from one or two races.

The two legislators who worked hardest against same-gender marriage these past two years were Milton Holt and Terrance Tom. Holt lost his seat by an embarrassing margin for an incumbent. Tom held on to his by a mere 54 votes.

That's hardly a strong message against same-gender marriage.

Doug Althauser


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