It's your ConCon. What do you want to do with it? Learn - Discuss - Decide
Personal experience at ConCon 101 meeting
(Please know that this is my Personal view and does not represent the view of HawaiiConCon.org, which is a policy-neutral organization).
I’m really glad I attended the ConCon 101 forum tonight. Hopefully we’ll get a video/audio of the event to share. I felt that I took away some extremely significant insights:
ConCon delegates were regular people, not career politicians.
I think the biggest thing that impressed me was that the 1978 ConCon expressly prohibited legislators from participating. I can’t recall the exact numbers, but out of the 102 ConCon delegates, only a very small handful were “politicians”. The rest were regular, albeit active, folks that weren’t constitutional experts or political science Ph.D’s, though some were some law school students. To me, this was the huge “OhMyGodYouGottaBeKiddingMe” moment (shows you how well-versed a “ConConalist” I am). Observing the panelists recall their sense of innocence, excitement and open possibilities of that 1978 ConCon was a huge eye opener that gave me an extremely powerful reinforcement:
WE CAN DO THIS! Or to copy a catchy phrase: “YES WE CAN!”
Do it, and do it right
The other major thing that struck me was to hear these ’78 ConCon veterans, to a person, voice their support of a ConCon. All the common arguments against a ConCon were brought up, and to my mind the most serious reason to not have a ConCon: the fear of takeover by special interest group, was waived off as a something that the “inertia of the consensus” would easily defend against. The response to the “But it costs too much!” issue was vetted out for what is was: a backdoor reason to not have a ConCon. To the contrary, most of the panelists advocated a “Spend the money; we need to do it right” attitude.
I’m not the only one that wants a ConCon
To personally experience these respected veterans saying that the ConCon was essentially made up of a bunch of “amateurs” and then dismissing commonly raised arguments against a ConCon has firmed up my resolve like nothing else. My general “rebel” nature was in favor of a ConCon just for the sake of making a public statement on the need for real “Change we can believe in” (sorry, I just can’t help but shamelessly steal from you-know-who) but now there’s more than just my own personal reasons for a ConCon. The Vets want one too.
Divine intervention
The “It’s a sign!” moment was when panelist/ConCon vet Jim Shon unknowingly set me up so perfectly that if you didn’t know we never met before, you’d swear it was planned. Jim was talking about the differences between the ’78 and ’08 political atmosphere, lamenting that things aren’t quite as politically active today as they were then, and then he made a statement to the effect of, “..but back then, we didn’t have the Internet. I think that this ConCon can create a whole new paradigm in eDemocracy…” And before the words left his lips, Ed Case, Jay Fidell, and Della Au Bellati all gave me the “Yup! That’s us!” look. And Jay of course obliged, informally adding me to the panel right before the QA period.
The twinkle in Ihara’s eye
I stood up and quickly (under a minute!) gave my vision on what HawaiiConCon.org is all about, reinforcing Jim’s statement. What really struck me at that moment was that twinkle in Les Ihara’s eye. It felt like he was saying, “Wow, so someone actually did this!” and I could tell he was happy about it. I don’t know anything about this guy, though I guess I should. But I was really struck by his desire for citizen participation and clean politics. Very cool.
Magic!
There’s magic in the air folks. Tonight I walked away with an energizing optimism. It’s just the beginning. We’re off to an awesome start. And I just can’t wait to see where it’s going to lead.
I’m really glad I attended the ConCon 101 forum tonight. Hopefully we’ll get a video/audio of the event to share. I felt that I took away some extremely significant insights:
ConCon delegates were regular people, not career politicians.
I think the biggest thing that impressed me was that the 1978 ConCon expressly prohibited legislators from participating. I can’t recall the exact numbers, but out of the 102 ConCon delegates, only a very small handful were “politicians”. The rest were regular, albeit active, folks that weren’t constitutional experts or political science Ph.D’s, though some were some law school students. To me, this was the huge “OhMyGodYouGottaBeKiddingMe” moment (shows you how well-versed a “ConConalist” I am). Observing the panelists recall their sense of innocence, excitement and open possibilities of that 1978 ConCon was a huge eye opener that gave me an extremely powerful reinforcement:
WE CAN DO THIS! Or to copy a catchy phrase: “YES WE CAN!”
Do it, and do it right
The other major thing that struck me was to hear these ’78 ConCon veterans, to a person, voice their support of a ConCon. All the common arguments against a ConCon were brought up, and to my mind the most serious reason to not have a ConCon: the fear of takeover by special interest group, was waived off as a something that the “inertia of the consensus” would easily defend against. The response to the “But it costs too much!” issue was vetted out for what is was: a backdoor reason to not have a ConCon. To the contrary, most of the panelists advocated a “Spend the money; we need to do it right” attitude.
I’m not the only one that wants a ConCon
To personally experience these respected veterans saying that the ConCon was essentially made up of a bunch of “amateurs” and then dismissing commonly raised arguments against a ConCon has firmed up my resolve like nothing else. My general “rebel” nature was in favor of a ConCon just for the sake of making a public statement on the need for real “Change we can believe in” (sorry, I just can’t help but shamelessly steal from you-know-who) but now there’s more than just my own personal reasons for a ConCon. The Vets want one too.
Divine intervention
The “It’s a sign!” moment was when panelist/ConCon vet Jim Shon unknowingly set me up so perfectly that if you didn’t know we never met before, you’d swear it was planned. Jim was talking about the differences between the ’78 and ’08 political atmosphere, lamenting that things aren’t quite as politically active today as they were then, and then he made a statement to the effect of, “..but back then, we didn’t have the Internet. I think that this ConCon can create a whole new paradigm in eDemocracy…” And before the words left his lips, Ed Case, Jay Fidell, and Della Au Bellati all gave me the “Yup! That’s us!” look. And Jay of course obliged, informally adding me to the panel right before the QA period.
The twinkle in Ihara’s eye
I stood up and quickly (under a minute!) gave my vision on what HawaiiConCon.org is all about, reinforcing Jim’s statement. What really struck me at that moment was that twinkle in Les Ihara’s eye. It felt like he was saying, “Wow, so someone actually did this!” and I could tell he was happy about it. I don’t know anything about this guy, though I guess I should. But I was really struck by his desire for citizen participation and clean politics. Very cool.
Magic!
There’s magic in the air folks. Tonight I walked away with an energizing optimism. It’s just the beginning. We’re off to an awesome start. And I just can’t wait to see where it’s going to lead.
Comment
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Comment by Della Au Belatti on May 5, 2008 at 10:00am - ThinkTechHawaii.com has a video of ConCon 101 up on its website (http://www.thinktechhawaii.com). The visual is fuzzy, but the entire discussion was captured and can be heard, including the audience questions and panelist responses. Check it out! Thanks to Jay Fidell for getting the video up so quickly and to Matt Johnson who stepped in as our videographer.
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Comment by Della Au Belatti on April 30, 2008 at 8:07am
- Al - Jay is working on the video and we'll get it posted.
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Comment by Al Beeman on April 29, 2008 at 7:13am - Wikiwiki Della! Please upload the video, I need to see it koke!
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