The Most Expensive Price of All: Something for Nothing

The greatest economic lesson taught in the schools in Hawaii, is the desirability of getting something for nothing -- as in getting paid to do some work, and then once paid, the workers go home or goof, demanding more for them to actually do any work -- since why should they after they've gotten paid?

And nobody can fire them -- because nobody else is allowed to do that work, by their friends the lawmakers. And so of course, the price for everything, is exorbitantly high -- and there are no alternatives, no choices other than what the ruling party provides them -- or not, once they've already collected the money.

The lawmakers and public workers pride themselves on their ability to get something for nothing -- and so that defines the standard of value and exchange in the Island culture -- everybody hoping to get something for nothing, over the other guy, who they are convinced has unlimited money, and should as a public service, have as much of it taken away from them as possible.

The other guy is somebody nobody anyone has actually seen or met -- because they live in magnificent castles on the other side of town where they hire people who haven't learned to fight back -- and undermine the efforts of the "greedy" and "ambitious people." These people always seem to want to do something -- to change and improve things, rather than let the other guy do everything. Such people, they have concluded and been taught, don't know how it is done around here -- that no honest, self-respecting person would be caught dead doing anything -- because if they did, how could they create more high-paying jobs to do it? And so the work must NOT get done.

Such is life in paradise.

The More Things Stay the Same

Societies and cultures don’t have the luxury and option of staying the same -- forever after. The whole reason and purpose of cultures and societies is to deal with challenges of change by providing institutions and protocols to provide a continuity from one era to the next -- rather than just worshipping the past, which is what culture and society has become in Hawaii, and so no longer plays a useful role in lives but actually becomes counterproductive to it.

If they have ten million to spend, they don’t need to spend it on a memorial to the dead -- as much as to spend it to feed, clothe and house the living. That’s what society and culture is for and about -- providing for the living, and not building monuments, pyramids, memorials to the dead. The great memorials and testaments to the past, are in the living.

Otherwise, there is a culture and society of the dead -- in which the living are sacrificed for the dead -- as in the folklore of sacrificing the virgins to the volcano, and in that way, the jealous, petty, vengeful gods can be appeased. And if that be the gods, it is no wonder that the people are jealous, petty and vengeful in their image -- and do not think something is terribly wrong when each day, another heinous crime of unspeakable brutality is revealed.

And yet the people say, “The more things change, the more they stay the same,” as though that’s the way it has always been before and always will be -- because they have resigned themselves to those norms, when assuredly, they are not normal. To be able to determine that, requires a lot of trust in one’s own judgment --not to conform and give in to such a horrible past as the inescapable fate and future for those living in that culture now who have become so brutalized by the latest insensibilities.

Loving, caring, "good" people do not drag their loved ones into the streets and batter and stomp them until they are dead -- because they “owned” that other person. For that matter, one doesn’t even do that to a perfect stranger, or one’s worst enemy. Yet in reading the newspapers there now, something very distinctive is unraveling in the sensibilities of that culture and society -- beyond the response to the stresses of the times -- that reveal the strength, meaning and purpose of that society.

Instead, what we see in Hawaii now is the disintegration of civilization and civility, in which the forums become just another excuse to viciously attack others.

Something is very wrong there -- yet the people are in denial that anything can be wrong. It is a society imploding, and just going through the motions because it doesn’t no what else to do but go faster headlong into the abyss.

I think that is the terrifying spectacle playing out to those who have felt a bond to Hawaii but now see it from afar and realizing it has no future but only this dreaded inevitability of self-destruction.

How Do You Solve A Problem Like Hawaii?

Like a lot of pork barrel projects (earmarks), they exist for no other reason than that they can get the federal funding for it -- while the very real problems of Hawaii run out of control.

It was the same thing with the previous city ferry operation -- it existed for no other purpose but to sop up the federal funding, and as soon as it was over, they packed and left -- meanwhile, the problems of Hawaii soared out of control!

The major justification for any project is that they can get the federal funding -- regardless of whether it addresses the real problems in Hawaii, which are neglected and soar out of control if they can't.

The only real reason for government is to solve real problems a community faces -- and not just to create high-paying jobs for government workers (themselves).

Thus, a very distinctive culture has evolved in Hawaii in which the only reason people do anything is to get the money as an end in itself -- and not to address and solve any real problems.

That's also why there is no (manufacturing) industry -- because that would mean to create something real and useful that people all around the world would want to buy.

Instead, the only "thing" manufactured, is this illusion of a "paradise" while people are working 2-3 jobs to barely survive -- because they are convinced that they live in paradise. The newspapers will even publish, as they did today, that such a life is the least stressful anywhere in the country -- rather than the reason each day now, there is some bizarre and tragic occurrence because another lifelong resident of paradise has snapped.

Creating more illusion is obviously not going to be the solution but that people have to come to grips with themselves -- and realize what they are doing and why things don’t get better, and in fact, nothing seems to be connected and related to anything else that makes sense anymore. The experience of its citizens have become a meaningless hodgepodge of special interest lobbying of the moment -- to secure as much money for their trade association (ohana) as possible.

To these ends, the information and media sources and distribution have become hopelessly corrupted and manipulated, so that the truth is simply who is the most ruthless and persevering a perpetuating their own lies -- without conscience, until the next pot of money is brought in.

A Ship of Fools

Laws were intended to ensure the success and prosperity of human communities -- and not to ensure their extinction so only the seals, turtles and whales will survive in their "natural" state.

That is the meaning of the great teachings that are the foundation of great societies -- that they are biased towards human success and not giving equal chance to the jellyfish and whatever forms of intelligent life the self-hating and self-loathing Sierra Club and PETA elitists think would make better heads at the Department of Education and Planning.

It's not like there aren't hundreds of similar boats operating all over the world under all kinds of conditions, with an admirable record for safety and usefulness, that Hawaii doesn't have to reinvent the wheel and do environmental tests as though none have ever existed before.

That is the benefit of learning about the world -- so that people no longer think, "This is Hawaii, so none of the laws that make any sense can apply."

There should be reasons for laws and not just arbitrary because the lawmakers can -- and don’t know how to use that power responsibly for the benefit of mankind, because their whole conditioning in life has been to defraud the system -- as though there was great merit in that, and proof of one’s intelligence, if not ruthlessness to be the tyrant.

But morality is no longer an issue or a value in Hawaii where all discriminations are forbidden -- but simply knowing how to milk the system gets one highly esteemed. At no time is that more true than at the elections -- in which winning, is the end in itself, rather than the beginning of a great public service. As long as the citizens are fooled every two or four years, that is all that is necessary.

And so the people go back to complaining between elections -- until at election time, they are fooled once again -- aided by the media personalities, who are flattered to be of such service. Predictably, things get worse, and it’s not just one’s imagination that the people lose all sense of their own power and ability to do anything for themselves anymore, and only await word of how much the federal government will be sending their way -- because they have “proven” how incapable they are of doing anything for themselves, and need more and more aid every year.

That slavery to one’s own helplessness and futility, is a catastrophe waiting to happen.

It's A Better Newspaper

The online newspaper is a far superior product to the old hardcopy product -- because it allows the interactivity of communication, rather than being one person imposing their reality on everybody else unilaterally. That is what the hardcopy newspaper inherently can't do -- which is a handicap in information gathering and processing.

One has to be able to interact with the information (source) in order to get the highest reliability -- otherwise one is limited to one person's perception (understanding) and interpretation of an event rather than the total perspective (possibility) of it. Journalists, or anyone of any training, has a biased perspective, because it is not the totality of what is going on but a preconceived idea of what is going on -- and their questioning and inquiry molds it to their expectation and the familiar.

The beauty of the interactive inquiry is nobody knows for sure 100% what is going on -- which is the journalistic presumption, but as people discuss the different possibilities (and some people obviously do it much better than others), many perspectives and solutions can emerge rather than the one usually offered by the AP. And that is more like life and reality -- that rather than anybody knowing, everybody is trying to find out.

That requires letting go of the old journalistic/editorial control -- which is usually what they are lamenting, that they are not the only game in town anymore and the only person who knows what they are doing. It's good to be the king, and not so good to be like everybody else. But even with that level playing field, one can still distinguish their ability to discuss and discover reality.

It's really more -- much, much more than the old static, one-way indoctrination model. Again, that's usually not brought out by the old media -- that the new media is the whole world of information, and not just the perpetuation of the old status quo of information control and management (suppression).

It got real bad in Hawaii so that the people couldn't hear the full range of the alternatives but were forced to rely on individuals (politicians) who limited them to what they could believe possible, and so the people made the same choices time and again, that are the problems of life in Hawaii.

Doing the Wrong Thing

The culture and society of Hawaii has developed a very bad habit of doing only what they can get the money for doing -- instead of doing what really needs to be done, even if they have to raise and spend their own money. Not to have a greater guiding principle but to get money (at any cost), is really the ruin of every great individual and/or society.

And that’s why despite the crushing problems that plague the state -- like the homeless taking over and despoiling every part of the island now, government is powerless to do anything about it -- because it has lost its moral purpose for being and so are confused as to what really needs to be done to solve these problems -- because nobody is going to pay them to solve them. It’s money they are going to have to raise and pay for the solutions (and creating them themselves) -- rather than doing them because that’s what the money is for -- to solve somebody else’s problem.

Do you see the difference? Nobody will give you the money because you want to do what is best for YOU; they’re giving you the money to do what is best for THEM. They rightfully figure that if you want to do what is best for yourself, you’ll willingly pay for it yourself -- and would not expect for somebody else to pay for your own benefit and good.

They just figure human beings would never be so corrupted as just to do things ONLY because they can get the money doing that, while ignoring what they really have to do, because somebody else won’t pay them to take care of their own problems.

That is the major reason and justification for the Boat or Rail, and not because they make sense. That’s what the people of Hawaii are doing because they can get the money from the federal government to do it. They are incapable of turning down the “free” money, even if it actually costs them more, to get it -- while producing little of any good, and assuredly, doing a lot of bad, because it is ONLY for the money -- and nobody can understand anything else anymore.

That is what fifty years of statehood have taught Hawaii -- that to win in this world, you ONLY do things that get you the money -- and you wonder what happened to Hawaii of old? What do you expect happened to the Hawaii of old?

When the Going Gets Tough

When times are stressful, we see the weaknesses of our communities spring leaks, and so it’s not surprising, to see reports daily now, of people going off the deep end -- doing something unfathomable to everybody else. That is the result of unrelenting distress finally breaking out in the most vulnerable in every community -- the weakest links. And that is why every society sees the necessity to create safety nets so that these walking time bombs among us, don’t explode when we happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. There's no defense for catastrophes like that -- no matter how many liberals one gets to stand on a pin head chanting, “No more bad.”

We’re lucky in the USA that we know those as the worst of times -- and that they are relatively extraordinary times that we have to get through, and build up that infrastructure to get us through such difficulties. When people are desperate, they will do desperate things -- even if it is the thinking that they can go to prison for a lifetime and have society take care of them -- when things get bad enough.

Reasonable people don’t think that way, but people out of their minds do -- especially when one lives in a society of misguided liberalism, inspired by the desire not to offend, or to even understand.

Then it seems like life becomes one endless torment of random acts of every kind, with a greater outrage of insensibility each day. Problems are not addressed and solved at their most basic and fundamental levels, but for rationalizations and justifications that become more meaningless until one no longer even wants to hear about them. There is just this hopelessness and weariness of being ground down a little bit more each day.

And that’s why we do all the good things we do -- in times before we really need those habits and skills, to bring us through at that base level. Those who are prepared for the worst, never experience it because they are fully prepared for those eventualities and possibilities and it is within the reflexive responses to deal with them.

Those leaning the wrong way, get clobbered. It was fine to provide for a fine shelter for oneself, but needn’t get greedy and monopolize that market -- only now to be left holding the bag of goods nobody wants. At such times, everything we’ve known to be valuable, becomes nearly worthless, and a lifetime of liabilities that squeeze all the life out of us.

Nobody rings a bell when those times change so dramatically -- and that is why, the ability to adapt to a wide range of possibilities and changes, has great survival value, even when it seems, nothing will ever change -- because it is already paradise.