Any discussion of a Hawaii constitutional conventions starts with rhapsodizing about the past — how, back in 1978, a new crop of Hawaii leaders was born and the Office of Hawaiian Affairs was created and citizens came together to discuss and to listen and to make decisions for the good of all.
Forty years later the fresh faces of the ’78 ConCon have become the old guard of the Democratic Party, and the Office of Hawaiian Affairs is sullied by vicious infighting and ethics violations. But what has changed most dramatically from those golden days of civic discourse and citizen engagement is that there is little hope for civic discourse and citizen engagement.
Nobody would turn out for this thing except the extremists, the moneyed special interests and the nuts.
That’s what everyone is afraid of: that Hawaii’s constitution will be hijacked and altered to suit rabid right-wingers who want to take away civil rights protections from every perceived minority and push nuclear power, religion in public schools and extinction for unions. Or that left-wing crackpots will come in with anti-military, anti-corporate, anti-GMO, anti-vax, anti-everything regulations that will leave Hawaii with no jobs and nothing to eat but medical marijuana. Or that a new brand of extremism will infect the state and turn our elected officials into zombies, leaving no one to pump the brakes on anything that’s too radical and crazy.
What is clear, even if it isn’t spoken outright, is that the thing that existed in 1978 is now extinct: the ability of people to listen respectfully to new ideas and divergent views and perhaps even change their minds as a result of new information they received. Minds are so rarely changed, regardless of facts.
Compromise is now a dirty word. It’s something that the weak do. It used to be a good word. It used to be something that wise people did to get along and to work together to make stronger communities.
Today change is based on how many people an organization can get to come to the Capitol or to a public hearing and shout the loudest. Political power is based on how much money an organization has to spend on advertising and advocates. It’s not about ideas. It’s about strong- arming. Intimidating. Stalking. A ConCon could so easily become a battle royal between radical opponents pushing fringe ideas, with the outcome determined by how many loud, angry people showed up on a given day.
How can you arrive at a solution together when there isn’t even agreement on what a fact is? There was no shortage of passion, even anger in 1978, but it was accompanied by reason and civility and a commitment to working together. That’s what people are idealizing when they talk about the ’78 ConCon, not the participants or, really, the outcomes. They’re missing the process. The sad truth is we couldn’t do that today.
Forty years ago who could have imagined that direct democracy would be a scary thing? At least they had the wisdom to let us vote on it.
Reach Lee Cataluna at 529-4315 or lcataluna@staradvertiser.com.
