Democracy is based on the lurking suspicion that more than half of the people are right more than half of the time and it’s the worst system we know of except for all of the others that have been tried.
Divine right of kings, Louis “The state is me,” 15th, theocracy, beloved leader, or fuhrerprinzip — they all have led to disaster. The U.S. Constitution has endured for 237 years, longer than any other current government. Maybe longer than any government ever, since most past, non-democratic governments lasted only until a new pharaoh, tsar, emperor, or general secretary of the party was installed and changed the basics to suit his wishes. A dynasty is just a series of genetically linked dictators.
Now in Hawaii we are getting the rare option of modernizing our state Constitution. This could go too far, or not far enough. The biggest fear, we could lose some rights. Most of those, often called god given rights, are enshrined in the U.S. Constitution, but there are implicit rights taken for granted subtly protected that a con-con could undo but should not be allowed to. The U.S. Constitution has only been amended 27 times. Only one of those reduced rights. That was a disaster and soon reversed.
Fortunately, the outcome of the con-con would have to be ratified. The people would have the option to reject any proposal. Unfortunately, that which looks like a blue-eyed bargain can turn out to be the red-eyed devil.
Those who write legislation like to think they have the prescience to have thought of everything but we know that only god might be perfect and legislatures make lots of mistakes; mistakes that can take generations and billions to fix. The voters are supposed have the ultimate veto power but experience shows they have a proclivity when in doubt to vote yes and some awful stuff gets passed anyway. No referendum should be longer than two pages in language that a high school student can understand. There was a referendum once in California, 80 pages long. It had a great sounding title, like the Freedom and Lower Taxes Initiative. It made great public promises on page one, took them away on page seven, gave benefits to a select group on page 40 but sent us the bill on page 50. Be careful what you wish for because it’s hard to put the genie back in the bottle if he has friends on the outside. California’s referendum process went out of control when special interests bought signatures. We can prevent that by making it a misdemeanor for solicitors to get paid and a felony to pay them.
On the other hand, there are a lot of flaws in Hawaii’s current structure that a con-con could fix. The counties deserve more autonomy: many things are done better locally. The plantation system with indentured labor is gone but the plantation mentality lingers on. Why do we have state instead of local school administration? Why is our tax and fee structure so regressive? Creative progressive sources of revenue could be explored. Unfair practices could be eliminated. The size and cost of government could be revisited. Do we really benefit from a bicameral legislature, or does it just make things less efficient? A con-con can examine hundreds of issues with less interference from the legislature.
Objection to the projected cost ignores the great strides in modern communication. The majority of contacts can be done electronically as county council meetings already are. Face-to-face meetings could be weekly instead of daily to reduce expenses. Documents that had to be distributed could appear on everyone’s monitor instantly. Some businesses are run entirely online, why couldn’t a convention?
Sure there are risks, but there is no progress without risk. We have a republic form of government that means government by the people; when the people lead, the leaders will follow.
Ken Obenski is a forensic engineer, now safety and freedom advocate in South Kona who writes a biweekly column for West Hawaii Today. Email obenskiik@gmail.com