To The Forum: Several weeks ago Walter Lewis, in a letter to the forum, proposed placing approval for island development projects on the ballot. This idea is at once foolish and disturbing. It is silly because it is largely an
To The Forum:
Several weeks
ago Walter Lewis, in a letter to the forum, proposed placing approval for
island development projects on the ballot. This idea is at once foolish and
disturbing.
It is silly because it is largely an impractical proposition.
Just imagine having two or three polls each year. Who would pay for this
balloting? What arbitrary guidelines would be used to “pre-qualify” a
development?
Voter turnouts are notoriously low nationally, approximately
36 of eligible voters register and actually vote. Assuming that 50 percent of
the turnout would either approve or disapprove a project, we are then
subjecting property owners to the whim of 18 percent of the relevant voting
population.
If you think that money buys regular elections then you have
to see the folly here. There is no doubt that Lewis would soon be decrying the
fact that big money was corrupting these special elections.
This
proposition is unsettling because it shows just how far we have strayed from
the principles upon which America was founded. We have strayed by neglect and
ignorance.
The Constitution is the supreme law of the land and its
principles were, in large part, drawn from the common law tradition of liberty,
property and contract. Through this wonderful document the Founders presented
to us the moral foundations of a free society.
The Constitution describes
our rights as unalienable and endowed by our Creator-they are natural rights
given to us by virtue of our birth. These rights are not granted by government
and are therefore not subject to the political will.
U.S. Supreme Court
Justice Robert H. Jackson reminded us in West Virginia Board of Education vs.
Barnette (1943): “The very purpose of the Bill of Rights was to withdraw
certain subjects from the vicissitudes of political controversy, to place them
beyond the reach of majorities and officials and to establish them as legal
principles to be applies by the courts. One’s right to life, liberty and
property, to free speech, a free press, freedom of worship and assembly, and
other fundamental rights may not be submitted to vote; they depend on the
outcomes of no elections.”
Lewis, who I believe was or is a lawyer,
should understand these principles.
America is a Constitutional Republic
as evidenced by Ben Franklin when he was asked, outside the hall where the
founders were completing their work,”…what have you given us?” He
replies…”a Republic, if you can keep it.”
If left to those
such as Lewis, we will not keep it.
R.E. Weir
Kapaa
