After 45 years of witnessing impurities of every imaginable kind in local politics, the recent fixation in both major parties on ideological purity is mystifying.
Oahu Democrats ended a nasty internal fight — for now, anyway — by rejecting a reprimand of state Sen. Mike Gabbard for sponsoring a constitutional amendment on traditional marriage. Similar complaints against 10 other lawmakers were withdrawn.
It was wise to back away from the absurd position that Democratic legislators must display 100 percent fealty to the party platform or face discipline, which would turn elected officials into rubber stamps for platform writers instead of voices for their constituents.
Instead, Oahu Democrats urged — not ordered — legislators to call a special session to enact same-sex marriage, a strategy far more likely to achieve the platform’s goal.
A similar battle rages on the Republican side between the local GOP hierarchy and a conservative offshoot called the Hawaii Republican Assembly. While the conventional political wisdom is that Republicans need to moderate themselves to compete in Democratic Hawaii, HIRA bills itself as "the Republican wing of the Republican Party" and seeks to move the local GOP to the conservative extreme.
The group, which lists former GOP Chairman Willes Lee as an officer and has been encouraged by lone Republican state Sen. Sam Slom, was incensed that the tiny seven-member GOP minority in the state House helped elect Democrat Joe Souki as speaker and has sought bipartisan cooperation on legislation.
HIRA recently issued a manifesto denouncing bipartisanship, compromise and the notion that there are two sides to a story.
"Bipartisanship has an undeserved positive reputation," the group declared. "Through endless manipulation of low-information voters, and so-called moderates and independents, the false premise that ‘governing from the center’ is a good thing is constantly being advanced by liberals and their allies in the news media."
The statement went on, "Too many times in politics, there is no other side of the story. Sometimes people’s ideas have no merit whatsoever. … Sometimes in debate there is no middle-ground, no trade space; it has to be a binary decision."
Whichever side of the political spectrum you’re on, it’s the height of arrogance to think that there’s only one possible right answer and that you’re the only one who knows what it is.
Given that we’ll never get everybody in agreement, how do they propose to resolve differences if not by compromise. With guns? Militias? Talking us into submission with their superior intellect?
Our Constitution is built on separation of powers andchecks and balances written specifically to assure that nobody could have everything their own way and that public policy would have to be based on collaboration and compromise.
Armchair patriots should know that better than anybody.
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Reach David Shapiro at volcanicash@gmail.com or blog.volcanicash.net.
