 Good morning Hawaii folks afternoon or evening. If you're on other time zones. Welcome. Thanks so much for joining us at think tech Hawaii rule of law and the new abnormal law and social justice, pretty much any topics that are timely and worth exploring. Today we have the good fortune having with us and Davis retired law professor from University of Toledo School of Law and now situated in Virginia exploring his roots with some great stories about that. Hey, and David Larson, one of the leading professors at Mitchell Hamlin School of Law in St. Paul Twin Cities Minnesota. Both David is and Ben was the chair of the American Bar Association section of dispute resolution, probably the largest single gathering of dispute resolution professionals in an organization in the world. And from your experience leading people who's calling this conflict resolution, any thoughts about what that might have to offer for the incredibly divisive, even hostile conflicts that are basically shutting us down now and endangering us. Yeah, you know, I like to say we're living in that era of amygdala hijack, where we're, you know, people are being driven emotionally that that that temperature is raising and people you look at school board meetings. Repeatedly, people are attacking each other in school board meetings, and school officials are getting threatened, and their families are getting threatened. And if you could get people to just take a breath and step back and reflect on what you're doing and what you're saying, Is this really how you want to discuss this issue about masks in school, we could just take the temperature down and try and move people away from being so emotionally driven with rage and anger and fear that I think that the people in our section have a lifetime of experience in those kinds of circumstances on a smaller scale, they're constantly having to work with people to try and take the temperature down. And let's step back and think a little more rationally. And, you know, I know this is very emotional and there's reasons why that's true. But maybe we can help with that and maybe we can, we can calm things down. I was, I was thinking, you know, one of the difficulties you run into is that how do people get into these rages, I think it's part of it is tied to efforts to trigger them, you know, to trigger them that are ongoing to really engender fear and gender all those emotions, you know, tripping the amygdala, this would say it, you know, to get people in these states and I can imagine some people, you know, when they look at themselves afterward, they're kind of like, oh my goodness, what was that, you know, but why did I get to that? This is such a point. You know, I hope it's in some sense that something comparative might help. For example, my wife just got back from visiting up in Quebec, Canada, right. And one of the things that really struck me when she talked about how it went there is that if you were to go into a shopping mall, right, you had to show your vaccine card. At the door, obviously you would mask and you had to wash your hands with the hand sanitizer at the door. And when you went inside, before you went into any store, you had to hand sanitize just what you have to do. In addition, you have to, there's a maximum of three separate family units can get together at any point in time. And I think if I, if I remember right, that, you know, you're basically really required to be very compliant with very strict rules on things like what type of test you can show to show that you have got a negative COVID. There are certain tests that will be accepted, others that won't. And if you play around, as happened to a couple of Americans who tried to play around trying to go across the border there, I think that they ended up getting something like 75,000 franc, 75,000 Canadian dollars, or kind of an eggling, I guess, their, their vaccination cards or something like that, you know. And when I, you know, we don't think of Canadians as being sort of outrageously different from us, although the Canadians would say we are, they are very different from us. But the idea that they're doing those kinds of things is that, you know, they have so many fewer total cases. You know, I'm the kind of person said that if that kind of actual facts were given to people, would that possibly help with people understanding that, you know, this is really serious. I was very sad to hear recently about someone who I know is a young gentleman, you know, who I would have thought would have been vaccinated, but he wasn't. And he's got COVID now. And if it's this particular variant, you know, I'm worried that, you know, he'll be one of those 24 or 30 year olds who gets very sick and dies of it when he could have just been vaccinated. I wanted to show I have my booster that I got on Friday, you know, or, you know, one of the advantages of being 65 in this life, you know. And, but you know, I just the sense of relief from getting the second shot. And I know there are people who question whether this the shot is is reasonable and question the science behind it and all that. And, you know, I can understand those kind of hesitation. But I do think that, particularly when you see these children getting sick with it, how, you know, how you could live with yourself as a parent, having some philosophical reason for not getting the shot for yourself, but not thinking at least enough for your kids, you know, or to your grandparents or your parents, you know, just trying to protect them. You know, I don't know how you reach into that. You know, but I like, I like the comparative approach. One thing we do is to go cross border and see what's going on in other countries, but we also can bring it home and say let's do a comparative with your own life. Let's think back a couple decades, you know, when we were doing polio vaccines and we're doing these as vaccines, how you did bucket any of that. You know, and let's kind of, let's, let's, let's go back in time a little bit. And why were you able to do that and why were you so willing to do that. And there probably will be an understanding of well there was a public health need for that. And, you know, I understood the urgency of measles how dangerous that can be, and that we certainly don't want to get polio ourselves or spread it. And then it's like, oh yeah, I kind of understand now. So that that idea of doing parent other countries and saying they've had much more success than we have by being a little stricter, and also just remember how we were ourselves, not that long ago. And, you know, all those, all those inoculations that we've all been used to having for kids to go to school all those required inoculations that they had to have. I heard someone trying to distinguish the COVID vaccine with those by saying well it's new. I'm like, well, yes, it's new. Because this thing is new. Thank God we don't have to have 10 years of people doing research to come to something that at least cuts off the high end. You know, that that's the thing for me, the high risk part. But, you know, these efforts and mine gains to distinguish this COVID vaccine from other ones. And I think even there's the people who assert the Tuskegee case, right, which of course, you know, was about and I saw somebody explain this the other night. It was totally eloquent. Tuskegee was about purposely infecting people and not giving them treatment and then watching what happened to them. Well, they got very sick and that we're talking about actually being infected by a thing coming up with a treatment to try to solve it. You know, it's like completely the opposite in a sense. Yeah, we've got so many inconsistencies. People will say I don't want to take a lab, a new lab created vaccine. But if it gets sick, give me the lab created monoclonal antibodies. Those are lab created to so you won't take something lab created to prevent the disease, which will take something lab created to treat the disease. But it seems to be inconsistency. And, you know, and I mean, there are people say there's some kind of fetal tissue somewhere in the process of this being made and that's their religious objection, you know. Yeah, you know, you gotta vote who says it's okay. Yeah, some people said there's fetal tissue in the vaccine, which is completely wrong. So, you know, there's some, some very old fetal tissue that was used to her for growing some of the antiviral material. There's a sequence of events. And the, the age of that issue is so far removed that pro life advocates who've been asked about this and to think about it critically. They stood and kind of resigned to the fact that no, this connection is not there. And literally there's no fetal tissue in in the vaccine that just doesn't exist. And another claim was, there's there's aluminum in it. Now you don't put aluminum in your body. Well, you know, there are aluminum salts that help the vaccine operate. That type of aluminum salt is in food and we're ingesting it all the time. And the whatever amount is in the vaccine is so much lower than you get in your daily diet. And again, it's just irrelevant. Yeah, well, it's interesting how these like little arguments. It was the Nicki Minaj one about your, excuse me if I say it, your testicles getting bigger, you know, I mean, I was like, what kind of craziness is this, you know, I mean, that, you know, it sweeps through the social media, and then people get freaked out by it. It's just these little things get built up. And I wonder what extent that what was two things. One is that getting followers getting people to see you and getting people to listen to you can be lucrative. Okay. And so there is, it kind of reminds you of the old stories about the people who are like sovereign citizens that writing books about, you don't have to pay taxes and all that stuff and making money with those books. And then when you looked at them there, they filed their taxes perfectly on time with CPAs and all that to make sure that they didn't have a problem with the IRS, but they found that sort of an angle that works for him right you know. And here is that the angle is one where, you know, how many 620 or near 675,000 people dead in the United States. It's just, I don't know what what what what has to change. I do hope that some of these videos of people who didn't get the shot, who are in the hospital and are asking to get the shot and are told it's too late, or even worse the ones who say, once I'm over this, I will get the shot and they die brings home the point that you know, if you still have the possibility. And you, it's free and get it and and and and help yourself survive and help those around you survive. We've got a we've got a vaccine adverse effects reporting system. That's a that's a real thing. But problem with that site is that anybody can report nothing's verified. Anybody can put anything on there. And the problem is that people then go to that site and then say, look, look at what's happened to people from the vaccine and people put of languages things on there. It's reported as data from this reporting site. It's not at all. And it's an unverified, unverified site, and that becomes viral. And, and then people think, God, I'm not going to get the vaccine because I might get, for example, swollen testicles or who knows what else. My toes are going to grow or something. I don't know. But, you know, like, for example, I got this shot on Friday. So I get a, I'm in a system was called the safe where they asked me every day how's it going. You know, so there's a choice for me, which is, I can play around right and say, you know, my ears are turning green that my nose is grown for time. I mean, I can write anything I want. Right. Okay. But then it's like the question of sort of personal responsibility. I mean, as a person who's going to provide data that would hopefully be of assistance to what's going on, try to honestly respond to what happened, and hope that each of us individually through our collective actions is up providing meaningful information, particularly for people who are having adverse reactions if they are, you know, so that those are the folks who get called first to see how you're doing, as opposed to calling me, I'd say my nose is growing. And they would say, sir, your nose is growing, you know, somebody takes the time and I'm like, I was just joking around, you know, I mean, it just, it's just the kind of a little minimal level of sort of civic responsibility, if I could say it like that. In both getting the shot and both the follow up, I understand snarkiness I understand all of those kinds of things. But you know when you hear about these cities and towns and places that are spending money on creating getting, you know, trailer trucks, put the bodies in. There's another thing I just saw that one of the governors has got some COVID money and they're going to build prisons with it, you know, I'm like, seriously, I mean this COVID money was not for building prisons, it was for COVID stuff, you know. The Arizona governor is taking that money and giving $7,000 to families to take their children out of public schools that require masks to pay for them to go to private schools that don't require masks. You know, $7,000 for that. You know, I mean, I, you know, I understand the hey look let's throw some money and so we want to subsidize private schools and you know the whole sort of anti public school thing that goes on out there in the world right I understand that kind of instrumentalization. Okay. But you know, what are we talking about putting them in schools where they don't have to wear math. And what happened is that the kids get exposed, and they get quarantined for two weeks right away after the first day of school. I just saw as something happened in Harvard Business School. Harvard Business School is gone completely remote because and you would think that people went to Harvard Business School would sort of have a certain level of understanding of thing. But you know, they have an outbreak in Harvard Business School, you know, and it's like, what do you think is going to happen. If, if, if you play around with math so you can play around with not getting faxed people going to get sick. We ask our health care professionals to do a lot. And right now, and depending on location, they're so overwhelmed. But something else we have really have to ask them to do is in light of all this misinformation. We ask people to believe accurate information. It's got to come from a reliable source. So if it's just a TV commentator who's barking back at, you know, a Fox News person that's saying the other thing. Nothing I think really sticks with that. But if you're, if your personal physician has the time to talk with you even for a short period of time about the vaccine somebody that you've learned to trust over the years. I mean, that might be a really effective way to deliver the message. But, you know, having said that, we are asking our health care professionals to do so much now. And we're in this, again, this crazy situation where some health care professionals are resigning in the face of mask mandates, which is to me is. I really can't understand that people who understand who have been trained in health care and understand public health care won't take the vaccine, even though they want to treat people that are vulnerable to getting the vaccine, getting the infection. So, but if we can get the health care professionals that have worked with individuals over a period of time and gain their trust, communicate the fact that this is not something we have to worry about. Something for everyone's good and your own good. And that that one might be an effective way to deliver the message. I hope so because I certainly remember taking the salt vaccine as a little kid and there, there was literally no issue. There was like a notice that was must have been given to each kid in school that we had to take home, which said that you have to show up at elementary school at this time on this day and take this vaccine. And we all went and we all did it. And it was a new vaccine at the time if I remember right. And, but it was considered the miracle, you know, that would help to avoid such the debilitating diseases, you know, and I don't know. Obviously, we don't have the coherence of voice in terms of the only three news channels. We don't have the kind of coherence of the federal and state governments that you had in the public health authorities. I think there's probably a logic between them that was pretty uniform or sort of. Everybody was on the same team pretty much. And so now it's everything is that, you know, a left right or Democrat Republican vision to it. But unfortunately, we, we, you know, we can't see past those things to what I think is what is essential is that are you are we making a ground. We don't war the back for the virus to propagate itself or are we not. I mean, because every game we play that is not attacking it is virus must love, you know, I mean, maybe anthropomorphizing it a little but you know the virus is like I'm looking for an angle, you know, where's my angle here. Okay, that's your thing. Great. Leave that here have a little bit of me. Yeah, I think the virus has a social media site. I think, I think, I think the virus has put it out a lot of this information. Please don't do that. Billions of followers. So, you folks have done just a marvelous marvelous job of connecting the doc between the politicization of things that before this were always public health is public health right education education. They were managed in ways to serve particular elite groups, particularly groups that have been identified as white dominant white male dominant white supremacist. We want to call it but how do we move the needle away from this politicization that people are identifying with as if this is my politics this is who I am this is what I believe in. This is my position. How do we disconnect that. One thing is just, you draw it as clearly as possible, kind of the connection. Again, it kind of talked about earlier about taking the temperature down, but, but make it a more clear that that what's happening here. And take a step back and think about what you're saying and what intellectually and you, you know is true. And what you how you've been behaving and what you've been saying and are you acted at the school board meeting when you threaten the principal. Is that really the person you want to be. So to try and try and separate the emotion from the, from the, from the rational thinking. And now I think it's a drumbeat that just has to be repeated that remind yourself so what's happening here look around what's happening. Is this the America you want to live in. Look at the videos of these school battles. Is this where you want your kids go to school is this is you want your kid watching you behaving like this. Is this role model you want to be just trying to kind of. I mean I really think it's, it's, it's stressing and kind of disappointed as it seems to be and maybe as possible as it sometimes seems to be, but they're not give up the idea that try to get people to be more rational, try to get them to recognize that they're being manipulated some degree out. Maybe conspiracy theory. I just see Vladimir Putin sitting back and just laughing that 15 years ago he said you know I know the way to destroy democracy. You know, to polarize at the break community, get to break the idea that we're all in this together. And if I can, and the way I can do that is to inflame people on get them get them afraid get them angry. And the rawest kinds of emotions. So let's start building websites on every social media platform with every kind of disguise possible. And let's start sending out kinds of material that we know is going to generate that kind of response. And, and that's, we know that's happened. And I just think he's sitting back there having a vodka. Yeah, I did it. I did it. One thought that came to mind was, you know, like when people buy things, there can be an emotional aspect to them buying a card all that. And I was thinking back to a book called the secret of closing sales, right, which was like the different approaches to closing people, or getting a sale on a car or something. And so on the vaccine, you know, one of the was the little questions approach into switches, you know, so would you prefer a large ICU room or a small I see, you know, would you prefer a into baby pink or blue? You know what I mean? You get people like saying my God, I don't want any of that. Well, we have the vaccine and yellow and blue pens, which would you prefer? I'll take the blue pen. Okay, great. We have vaccines in your, you know, your school color needle or something like that. And then the other one that is like, apparently effective to it. There's a song called walk the moon has shut up and dance with me, which is like, you know, they say everything you say. Yeah, shut up and get the shot. Yeah, whatever. Yeah, shut up and get the shot. I said that at these little clinical things trying to get people informed. And you should see the people behind the desk. They love to say it. They would really love to say it. You know, they have to stay in that sort of format, you know, We're big sports fans. I like that idea of, you know, support your school, support your NFL team, you know, get the bear. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, biking needles, you know what I mean, you know, or whatever, you know, I mean, just, I don't know if it's even feasible, but you know that idea of making it sort of part of your stuff, you know, being who you are. We talked identity, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, you know, we're talking about how the community was being destroyed. And maybe that's a way to create a more of a mini community. Yeah, you know, maybe that's, maybe that's one possible solution to say, Okay, maybe we can't getting really hard to identify a national identity to which everybody believes they belong. There are a lot of smaller circles that are still pretty significant in terms of numbers. And maybe if we pitch to those groups, that might be one way. Yeah, yeah, you know, the, I'm trying to think of the 49ers, you know, the 49ers. And the other thing is, of course, you know, I have my little booster thing here. You know, like little necklaces and little rings and then the little things around, you know, all that I boosted whatever, you know, all that marketing stuff that if it was turned towards this maybe would be part of what we'd have to do. I mean, there's a lot of effort that's going into marketing already. But it's just like, maybe there's some of that all that stuff that we get when we see a Ford commercial or something like that, that would be part of this, you know, virile person getting a shot or something like that beautiful lady getting a shot or something. I don't know. I don't know. I just think especially young people, you know, Yeah, I do think it is important to do not let the misinformation lie to call it out. And I think that that's, that's important when you become aware of things that are being said about fetal tissue being in vaccines, which is not true. The risk of getting aluminum poisoning from a vaccine, which isn't true, but don't let those things lie that to call them out and expose them and to address them. Yeah, I was thinking that you've given us a lot to think about, and kind of brought us back around full circle to the center of this being, who do we want to see ourselves as who do we really want to be, what kind of attitudes and behaviors do we really want to model, and can we do that for the benefit of others, even if it may raise some questions. Lots to think about. We'll be back in two weeks. Folks, come join us again, send us your questions, send us your thoughts. Thank you, and thanks so much for joining us. Thank you. Thank you.