A Suggestion from Jeff Sessions about Hawaii Judge

[leilanidude]

quote:

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Originally posted by HereOnThePrimalEdge

"Jeff" Sessions, US attorney general who belittled the state of Hawaii and then tried to explain his comments away as a "joke," is today celebrating Confederate Memorial Day in the great state of Alabama:

State government offices are closed Monday in Mississippi and Alabama for Confederate Memorial Day... to "honor those who served in the confederacy."

I thought pointing out the connection between Sessions and the Confederacy (Jefferson Beauregard Sessions) might shed some light on the person who implied that those of us "sitting on an island in the Pacific" are somehow out of touch with present day reality. Perhaps he should have looked in the mirror this morning, to see how in touch he is with present day reality as he celebrates a war lost over 150 years ago.

But no, let's insult Hawaii, it's judges, and it's residents instead.


On the fifth day - the scientists who studied the rivers - were forbidden to speak - or to study the rivers. -Jane Hirshfield's poem on creation

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Attack the person instead... Good deflection, straw man... []

[HereOnThePrimalEdge]

Attack the person instead... Good deflection

The person is the source of the original comment. If he wishes to cast aspersions on Hawaii's relevance on the issue, he should put his own house (Alabama) in order.

On the fifth day - the scientists who studied the rivers - were forbidden to speak - or to study the rivers. -Jane Hirshfield's poem on creation

[PaulW]

Hi MarkD,

Thanks for the link. I did some googling and indeed there are quite a number
of people advocating open borders. Interesting idea but a long way off.
That one column got it wrong though, in no way does the EU have open borders.

"Further foreign immigration to Hawaii is undesirable"
Now there's another group I wasn't aware of and you seem to be a member.
Even legal immigration is not desirable? That's a bold statement and strangely
it usually only comes from people who themselves have benefitted from it.
Everybody comes from somewhere.

You even want to stop the rich from coming to Hawaii? Uh, I respectfully disagree.
Not that it's in any way possible. Phew.

Laughing at the crazy Wall does not mean one is in favor of completely open borders.

As for the race business, let it go. Set yourself free. No race is more this
or that than any other race. Nobody needs or wants your protection, except if
they're living in the Stone Age in the Amazon. No matter where I go, people are
basically always the same.

[kalakoa]

"Further foreign immigration to Hawaii is undesirable"

For what value of "foreign"? Haoles okay, so long as they're US Citizens?

[MarkD]

I appreciate the responses to my views.

To TomK

Re your cryptic comment about my writing style being familiar, be assured I have never been on Punatalk under another name.

I contemplated pulling a couple of the harsher insults from the TMT dialog but won’t. Seems new dissenters on TMT might want to comment with care.

Indeed there is problem with people having their own facts, i.e. misinformation. Trump is example 1. Separating fact from opinion is always a goal. You allude to a dislike of “outrageous and unverifiable opinions.” Hmmmmmmmm. That seems to be setting the bar a bit higher.

To PaulW Greetings to you back, Paul ---- My reply:

Immigration from the Mainland Former Governor Ariyoshi once commented that (paraphrasing) We do not have room in Hawaii for everyone who wants to live here. A sage comment. But banning interstate migration is unconstitutional. Mainlanders will continue to come. Let us welcome them.

Ban rich people? I did not intend that, but I would love to tax the heck of them. Property purchase over $2 million? Conveyance tax rate doubled. Over $4 million? Rate tripled. Property taxes--same thing. Transient accommodations tax on B&Bs--same thing. I could go on. Use the money for affordable housing. But the rich have lawyers and connections to legislators. Things will remain as they are.

(When I expressed sympathy for low income people with a history in the islands, e.g. native Hawaiians, I was alluding to this situation. The point had been made to me that each person, regardless of race or origin, should be judged and treated the same. Well, what the Mark Zuckerbergs of Hawaii want--preferred access to legislators, the justice system, county planning and permitting, you name it--they get on a scale of 10-1 compared to John Q. Public. Hence the direction of my sympathies.)

Foreign Immigration I will not gripe about small scale foreign immigration (though it can quickly add up.) Refugee programs are another matter. One wonders what would have happened had Clinton been elected and the programs ramped up. Example: About 100,000 Somalis entered U.S. since 2001. Some stats: 15,681 in Minnesota, 7,493 in Ohio, 7,179 in Texas, 6,136 in New York.

Refugees usually come in groups. I am ignorant as to exactly how states are designated, but there is a process. Hawaii is a poor candidate due to small size, but at some point, some official might have said: “Hawaii has not taken anyone yet. They can take 2,000 refugees from nation X.” (If Democrats return to the White House in 2021, we can expect refugee programs to rise.)

I make no disparagement toward any race or culture, but the limitations of Hawaii means that any sizeable foreign immigration is problematic. (An immediate issue is that refugees get start up money, i.e. free apartments. Meanwhile 30-50 homeless live in downtown Hilo parks. {Presume whole number of homeless in East Hawaii is far higher.} Take care of our own first?)

Affordable housing is disappearing on Oahu, Kauai and Maui. That mostly leaves Molokai and on the Big Island, the land south from Hilo to Pahala and then up to Ocean View for low rents. Puna will see big changes.

[PaulW]

Hi MarkD,

You seem to laboring under the misconception that immigration is bad. It is not.
It's what made America great (yes, it still is) and who amongst us isn't an immigrant
or descended from immigrants? Even the people here before Cook were all immigrants.

There was an election a while back in New Zealand or Australia or somewhere, where
the two leaders of the two main parties tried to outdo each other in being all
anti-immigration. Ironically, they were both immigrants themselves.

Do you have something against Somalians?? They're just like you and me. You know, people.

We should be encouraging rich people to move here, not punishing them if they do.
Sure, we can all agree on taxes that don't apply to us, but that's easy. Let's raise
the rate on ALL houses and see how we like that.

Extra taxes on vacation rentals is a very bad idea. That will lead to less tourism,
which will lead to less tax revenue, which defeats the purpose. Tax policy should be
there to raise money, not to punish certain groups.

We have to make the most of what we have here in Hawaii, like, for example, probably
the best spot in the world to do astronomy. If people want to be against opportunities
like that then they must want to enjoy the purity of poverty and homelessness. Making
Hawaii more business friendly (e.g. a transparent permitting process) would do a lot
more for the general wealth and well-being than just raising taxes on rich people.

[MarkD]

Hello PaulW,

We should not necessarily characterize views on immigration as either right or wrong. Each side has multiple views. Diversity is a goal of many pro-immigration folks; if they value diversity highly; this by itself can justify their position.

A proponent of zero population growth could oppose immigration on that grounds alone: no more newcomers. We might not like that opinion; might call it extreme. Wrong or uninformed? No. That the person has a misconception? No.

I concede there are several con reasons that can be condemned. Overt racism is most obvious. Racism is not my basis for opposition.

My position on immigration: I strongly oppose illegal immigration but support modest legal immigration. In small states like Hawaii immigration should be particularly modest.

My position on the Somalis: Randomly googled examples of the refugee process. The Somalis emerged at top. I was distinguishing between individual immigration (to unite families, for example) and the process of bringing in large groups of people at once (e.g., refugees). No racial slight intended.

Taxing the wealthy Your quote: “Let's raise the rate on ALL houses and see how we like that.”

Not sure I understand your point. Hawaii’s lack of affordable housing is aggravated by 1) land speculation, 2) conversion of rental housing to B&Bs and 3) wealthy mainlanders buying large tracts of land. These processes are inevitable, but higher taxes could reduce their occurrence and bring extra $ for public purposes. That, IMO, is desirable.

Finally, I doubt higher taxes on B&Bs would reduce tourism. Hawaii's massive hotel industry, visibly upset at B&B competition, would be happy to challenge this assertion.

[leilanidude]

Remember Ellis Island and what its purpose was?
Immigrants had to be vetted, before they were allowed in and we had defined quotas for each country.

Immigration is fine as long as we have some control over it.

[PaulW]

Obviously you don't remember Ellis Island well because 98% of people who showed up were admitted and there were no quotas.

[PaulW]

Okay, bit of a detour:

I fear too many people are falling for the spin of the hotel industry in trying to shut down Hawaii vacation rentals.
I can't blame them, who needs extra competition?

Vacation rentals do not cause homelessness. Are the homeless going to live in ocean front properties?
Vacation rentals have not killed affordable housing. Have a look on any RE website. You can buy houses here for 100K.

Higher taxes on vacation rentals would decrease tourism, especially around here where there are no hotels.
It raises the price, which gets more people to give it up because it's not worth it any more = less vacation rentals =
less tourists = less tax revenue from them = more tax revenue from you.

The Hawaii hotels do not care about the homeless or affordable housing. They care about that $10 mojito.