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[{"type":"text","text":"Not a fan of bees..."}]

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<title>Daily Smile: Thursday, June 4, 2026</title>

Not a fan of bees...

Daily Smile: Thursday, June 4, 2026

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Rick Hamada

Columnists

You may not like it, but there are crimes that deserve punishment that matches or exceeds the crimes committed, but you will not find that standard prevalent in the Hawai‘i justice system.

As this premise is widely accepted, many of us are left to our own devices to envision what appropriate justice would appear to be if our laws reflected these sentiments.

 on the North Shore where a 15-year-old boy was brutally and senselessly beaten by a group of boys and men within an inch of his life. A 23-year-old lifeguard came to his aid, and he was ganged up and beaten by these cretins. You can also view the story at Stolen Stuff Hawai‘i on Facebook and Instagram.

First of all, there is so much aloha for the families of these victims. For a brief moment try to put yourself in the slippahs of the mother, father, sister, brother, aunties, uncles, tutus and friends of these victims. The intensity and the unabashed pure violence are sickening and infuriating. It was devastating to the victims, and there is no way they deserved such animalistic violence.

[{"type":"text","text":"Calling the conduct by these perpetrators is an offense to animals."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"Oh, it gets worse, though."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"There was a crowd."}]

Yep, a crowd of onlookers who witnessed this barbaric assault. They were witness to the second victim receiving a beating. And who came to the rescue? Who called authorities? Who cried out for the beatings to stop?

None of them, that we know of. But we do know this to be a fact: They were taking videos.

Yes, filming the brutal beatings, some laughing as it took place and more posting the images (as bloody and horrific as they truly were) on, yes, social media. Their priority was grabbing clicks, likes and shares to accumulate as many eyes as possible. In the meantime two young men were getting that absolute crap beaten out of them to the delight of so, so many. 

Which is more disgusting. The actual beatings or the actions and inactions of those reveling in the carnage?

[{"type":"text","text":"I'll go with both."}]

As of this writing the 23-year-old Good Samaritan suffered substantial injuries including concussion, damage to his eye socket and the need for immediate facial reconstructive surgery, along with broken bones. These injuries couldn't be much worse for a man whose career is dedicated to protecting and saving lives. What a screwed up irony this has proven to be.

As for the 15-year-old victim I do not know his current condition. I refer you to the news reports on Hawai‘i News Now and postings on Stolen Stuff Hawai‘i. However, the beating rendered his face "unrecognizable" according to a source interviewed on my radio program.

There is the obvious physical damage inflicted but there is the emotional and psychological trauma that fails to heal as fast as broken bones or cuts and bruises. The pain will dissipate and heal. The beatings and subsequent mental scarring will last indefinitely. Yes, therapy is helpful but it certainly is not a cure. This ordeal will last until the last day. In essence, these victims were issued a life sentence.

So, what of the perps? What of those who stood by and laughed, took videos and did absolutely 

 to come to the aid of the defenseless victims?

[{"type":"text","text":"The Golden Rule."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"Eye for an Eye."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"Tooth for a Tooth."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"What did the victims suffer? What would fair justice look like in return?"}]

I know some of you are already clutching your woke pillows and decrying my sentiments as vengeful and counter to justice. You will think that I'm not taking the perps' and enablers' side of the story and presenting it in a calm and professionally narrative way. You may also believe I'm ignorant by not considering extenuating circumstances due to drug abuse addiction, the undue influence of social media or the power of peer pressure and more.

[{"type":"text","text":"But I don't care."}]

As a matter of fact I would submit that you of the aforementioned opinions are a major part of the problem in finding ourselves where we are today.

And, aside from your misguided and nanny-to-all positions, answer this for me.

Who and where are the parents of these hooligans of similar age as the victims?

[{"type":"text","text":"Wait a moment."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"Did I use the word \"parent?\""}]

[{"type":"text","text":"Oh, I am badly mistaken."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"You are not parents to these criminals. Anybody can mate and create."}]

Only those who are thoughtful, loving, caring, focused and sacrificial for their family are parents.

A parent is involved, knowledgeable, participatory, available, supportive, visible, and most importantly, you are 

 your child's friend. You are not their buddy, and your goal is not for them to like you. When you say no, you mean it. You exercise loving authority over your child because it's your responsibility to raise a good, decent, law-abiding and productive member of this community.

[{"type":"text","text":"And when you do, they will love you for it."}]

If you allow your children to roam and perpetrate senseless violent crimes, then it leads to one conclusion.

[{"type":"text","text":"You are not a true parent."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"You are a perpetrator and an enabler."}]

For the latest news of Hawai‘i, sign up 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"italic"}],"text":" "}]

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<title>Hamada: North Shore beating sickens</title>

A dozen boys and men ganged up on a 15-year-old boy this week, then turned on the young lifeguard who tried to save him. ASD opinion columnist Rick Hamada asks — who the heck raised these people, and what are we going to do about this crime?

Hamada: North Shore beating sickens

Higa headshot white shirt square

Sterling Higa

Government & Politics

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"Ben Sasse is bleeding from the face."}]

He’s seated across from New York Times columnist Ross Douthat, 

, and he pauses to note it. He’s dying of stage 4 pancreatic cancer. One side effect of the treatment is that his body can’t grow skin.

“Yeah, you look terrible,” says Douthat.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"“Thank you,” says Sasse with a smile."}]

Since his diagnosis, Sasse has appeared on 

 stage, and a parade of podcasts. He uses the time to say what most politicians never dare to.

He talks about faith. He quotes R.C. Sproul. He discusses Tocqueville with the ease of someone who has actually read him.

Sasse is a two-term Republican Senator from Nebraska, a Harvard graduate, a Yale PhD in History. He voted to impeach Donald Trump and took the consequences. Though popular with voters in his home state, he left the Senate to serve as President of the University of Florida.

Now he spends his last days making one argument: American political life has gone badly wrong. Not because the wrong party is winning. Because the whole enterprise has lost its bearings.

Sasse starts with something most politicians would rather ignore: the pace of technological change. Previous economic transformations — industrialization, electrification — unfolded across generations. This one won’t. Robotics and automation will wipe out whole careers within a single working life.

Sasse sees a second shift: disembodied consciousness, the way screens let people leave their world. Families are breaking apart. Communities are dissolving. The local ties — churches, civic groups, the small-scale institutions Edmund Burke called “little platoons” — that help people absorb hard times are being stripped away. The formation of souls and citizens is at risk, and government is mostly ignoring it in favor of clickbait and rage.

He thinks our loves should be ordered, first to God, then to those nearest us, rippling outward from family to neighborhood to state to nation. Caring about a national political party more than your own community isn’t just confused. It’s a disorder of affection.

What’s true of the nation is true in Hawai'i. The legislature introduces three thousand bills a year. How many of those take the large challenges seriously? The demographic shifts, the cost pressures squeezing local families, the slow hemorrhage of young people off the Islands? The floor speeches and press releases gesture toward these problems, but the lawmaking doesn’t match the problem.

Sasse’s example suggests why. He can sit for an hour-long interview on dense political and theological matters because he has a clear philosophy — a disciplined way of working through problems. It also gives him the power to persuade, which is the precondition for coordinated action.

The founders studied rhetoric and philosophy with the same care they gave the law, because republican government runs on argument and clear speech. Most of Hawai‘i’s lawmakers couldn’t sustain an interview like Sasse’s, and the laws show it. There’s no clear direction. No will to rally the public. Few signs that anyone has thought hard about what government is for. What fills the vacuum is performance: press releases, floor speeches written for social media, outrage timed to the news cycle.

Sasse has a simple framework for what a coherent politics looks like. He describes four ways of valuing government, measured in cheers. No-cheer people — hardcore libertarians — don’t understand that government exists to secure liberty. Three-cheer people believe in a state that controls everything. Republicans, he says, are the one-cheer party. Democrats are the two-cheer party. Each has an extreme wing. Hawai‘i’s loudest voices are at the extremes.

What we lack are the one-cheer leaders: those who see government as necessary but flawed, able to secure order but not to deliver salvation.

Government should do a small number of important things well. It should get out of the way of the little platoons. It should never present itself as the path to utopia. Hawai‘i’s government casting itself as humanity’s last best hope has always been faintly comic.

Sasse’s sharpest line comes when he describes what voters already sense about the way their leaders talk.

They know it’s bullshit, he says — and they don’t want to be lied to. Why can’t politics do a small number of important, long-term things?

There is something clarifying about a man making that argument while bleeding from the face. He has no election to win, no caucus to protect, and by his own reckoning, weeks or months to live. What he’s chosen to do with his time is sit down and think hard about what government is and isn’t for, and what we’ve lost by confusing the two.

In watching Ben Sasse die, Hawai‘i might learn something about how to live.

Ben Sasse Getty Images 1231346544

<title>Ben Sasse is dying in public</title>

The former U.S. senator from Nebraska is talking about big ideas everywhere he can as pancreatic cancer takes his life. Hawai‘i's politicians could learn from what he has to say about government doing fewer things well, says ASD opinion columnist Sterling Higa.

Daily Smile: Thursday, June 4, 2026

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Daily Smile: Thursday, June 4, 2026

Authors

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