Tent City, USA

One of the most remarkable transformations that has apparently become the new tradition on July 4th in Hawaii, since the banning of the homeless from homesteading the beachfront parks, is that they become overnight tent cities for the rest of the community -- for a day or two, at which time, one can see the state-of-the-art in camping and recreational gear on full display.

Most of these happy campers look like they never left their backyard -- and co-exist peacefully and amiably in very close quarters. Even movement through these campsites flows freely and easily -- as long as it is understood, that getting anywhere fast is not the objective. It is the co-existing and defining “community” and “interpersonal interactions” that is the objective -- which has been misplaced by a mentality constantly trying to get somewhere else, and in that process, missing every chance to create the present reality which is the only reality.

From these present actions, the future is created -- and not because people “intend” to act intelligently sometime in the future -- and it always becomes more distant, every time one checks in for a status report, until it is deferred so far into the future, that one knows that the only time one will see those “good intentions” actualized, is in the afterlife, of which many even then, hope doesn’t exist. In that manner, they never have to account for anything.

That is the world and reality beyond “liberalism” -- which for most seems to be knowing all the right things and the right things to say, but failing completely to manifest that understanding in any of their actualizations of thought and deed. In fact, what is usually the case, is that their actions are a contradiction of everything they profess to believe -- thinking that their “professed intentions,” is all that is required to reconcile these disparities.

In this manner, they ARE the problem in the world -- thinking they are its saviors and even martyrs. How do we know the difference? Only by the actions, accomplishments and results. People who truly “love mankind,” don’t insist they live trustingly with murders and thieves -- hoping for the best results. They choose instead, to protect the innocent from those with long records of mischief and malice against their fellow men.

Such people have nothing to hide and so they are comfortable living and acting in the light, in the sight of all the others -- with the common good, safety and welfare even higher standards than the arbitrary laws -- that cannot presume good will.

Five years ago, the only people who camped at Ala Moana Park was the "homeless"; with them banned, everybody can feel free to do so -- including the “homeless” also.

In designing the future, one also can’t favor the disadvantaged over everybody else, thinking that is an intelligent and compassionate society -- but merely entrenches dysfunction over the general welfare, which is a critical flaw in liberal thinking. Societies need to be defined by its strongest links and not its weakest.

As one moved through the crowds, what was striking is how proud people were of doing so well with so little. that was everybody’s idea of genius.