I saw some coverage of the rally. A hundred people is a lot and it probably brought out some reasonable citizens with rational demands, but the coverage really focused on the Magamuffins half of whom are clearly out to space. An anti government protest organized on Facebook was my first clue that this was not an assembly of mensa candidates. They actually made me feel a little sympathetic for HPD. We are almost out of the woods people. Don't screw this up.

The rally was coordinated in about a week's time and we had somewhere around 150 people attending. I know that's not packed, but considering the timeline, I was pretty happy with it. I'm not sure how many candidates there were, but I'm a member of Mensa myself and was able to use FB effectively to get this done. I'm not sure why the need for the derogatory comments directed towards people trying to fight for our constitutional rights.

I know some organizations that have been around for years that can't get more than a handful to the capitol for a rally. 

Hey Matt, please tell me you weren't one of those who got arrested. 

https://www.staradvertiser.com/2020/05/01/breaking-news/arrests-made-at-reopen-hawaii-rally-in-front-of-state-capitol/

Not me. I was running about 10 minutes late and the guy in the photo was being arrested as I was walking up. The article says 5 citations - that's not true. They were handing them out like candy.

I took my 13 year old son with me and my wife made me promise to not get arrested and leave him alone there. She didn't want to have to come pick him up. 

What’s so hard about making the groups open? Are they trying to censor what’s said in group? Trying to boost numbers and make it seem like there are more supporters?

Trolls. In a closed group, they can be blocked and comments deleted.

The purpose of the group is to strategize and plan an event, not get into constant debate or have the issue hijacked constantly.

Case in point - this thread was started to let everyone know about about a rally to protest tyranny and is now about Facebook rules and protocol.

Why do people Have to join groups on fb just to get information about it? Trying to boost numbers to make it seem like it has more support? Trying to control posts on the group page?

I posted here more than a week ago and not a single response. I posted again with the date/time for the rally. If joining FB was mandatory to get information, I wouldn't have put the details here would I? And what's the intent of your comment about trying to control posts? You trying to call me out for letting people know about a rally at the capitol?

I agree that a lot of profit flows offshore and that comes down, primarily, to hotels and retail stores (mostly the high-end, fashion type stores). It seems unlikely that Hawaii is going to replicate the demand for brands like Gucci, Prada, etc so that leaves lodging. Short term rentals are a way to keep money circulating in the local economy but that was dealt a heavy blow last August which did nothing but favor the hotel lobby and strengthen their position. I'm not sure where you stand on it, but I saw a lot of the same "anti-tourist" voices complaining about short term rentals, so round and round we go. The hotel lobby won and even more money now funnels straight to them and offshore as you said. If you want to break the back of that lobby, more voices are needed in favor of decentralizing lodging.

Or you could just flat out restrict the number of visitors and keep it all smaller as you said. You are still looking at a massive loss of jobs. It sounds like you're saying that, by keeping the spending local, it will offset. Even using the most aggressive local multiplier in any economic model, you would not come even close to replacing what was lost. You'd also lose a huge check of the tax revenue from that volume of tourists (25% of the general fund comes from tourists) so either expect services to drop and/or taxes to skyrocket and that's all before adding in the loss due to the high unemployment. It would be crippling to the state and everyone here. I know many business owners think they have nothing to do with tourism, but many of your customers may rely on that money for their income. The house painter doesn't get hired if the hotel worker loses their job and has no money to pay for house painting, for example.

So you would have to replace a huge portion of the economy with something else, but that's a pipe dream. You're talking about a government-coordinated effort to attract a whole industry to sprout up or move to Hawaii and that's just not remotely feasible.

I'm glad you agree we need to start opening this economy back up.

I doubt the 6' spread will be maintained.

However, the capitol area says its about 1.3 acres. If I assume the building footprint and other obstacles make up about .3 of those acres, you can still fit over 1200 people in the remaining open area and still maintain a 6' distance.

Please come down to the capitol on May 1st at noon to protest the lockdown of Hawaii and get Ige/Caldwell to ReOpen Hawaii.

For those of you on Facebook, there's a lot more information if you join one of the groups coordinating the event. Three are named "ReOpen Hawaii" and another "AR2 Hawaii". All of them will have information and I encourage everyone to join one or all of them. The group I created can be found here:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/1158891071126420/

We need our "rulers" to hear from the citizens that we will not allow our constitutional rights to be trampled any longer. I've got to believe most members of this forum know what it's like to have your constitutional rights questioned feels like.

Saw this on Craigslist -


Reusable ammo cans empty storage container

https://honolulu.craigslist.org/oah/mat/6906254407.html

I grew up on a farm in California. My dad was never big into guns, but they were all around. I probably shot a .22 when I was 6 or 7. By the time I was 12, we used to trap shoot in my backyard with friends. I bought my first hangun when I was 16 (registered to my father because I was too young to own) - a Ruger P89 which I still have. I didn't shoot much in college nor when I first moved to Hawaii. I got married and my wife wasn't too big on guns (kids in the house) but after Obama's re-election, she softened on it and I've been buying/shooting since.

Wow - misery loves company. I had a 6mm stone removed yesterday. It was stuck in the ureter and they went in with a laser to break it up and left a stent in. Funny thing - no string hanging out and I'm getting worried where it went and what they're going to have to do to get it out now.

A few hours after getting home, I started getting horrible abdominal pain and threw up for hours. Eventually had an ambulance ride to the ER last night. Doc said it was a bad reaction to the anesthesia (which has never happened before after other surgeries). Fluids and anti-nausea medicine helped and I came home this morning. What an ordeal.

Prayers to mrgaf and oldfart. I feel your pain - literally.