 to Think Tech Hawaii. Good afternoon, good evening, good morning wherever you are. Thanks so much for joining us. And today we have the great good fortune of having with us a couple of truly experienced nationally recognized experts in conflict resolution in times with more conflict than most of us can remember in areas where it really has severe personal implication. We've got Ben Davis, former professor emeritus from University of Toledo School of Law. Now visiting professor at Washington and Lee School of Law, Dave Larson, who is professor, full professor at the Mitchell Hamlin School of Law in Twin Cities in St. Paul. And both of them, David now and Ben previously, chairs of the American Bar Association section of dispute resolution and recognized national leaders in dispute resolution, conflict resolution. Well, David, Ben, lots of really, really thorny issues on the plate. We've got abortion, we've got voting rights, we've got guns, we've got religion, we've got the environment and much more. Is there any area where the lessons of dispute resolution that you've come to learn and teach and master over the last few decades might have some applicability, some benefit? David, wanna start us off? And I tend to have a pretty broad definition of dispute resolution. I was thinking about this a little bit. And when I think about dispute resolution, I think about problem solving. So on the one hand, what we can talk about is in these divisive times, is it gonna be possible to reach some kind of consensus that we're gonna be able to move majority of people along in a particular issue? That's one way to think about dispute resolution. Another way is to think about it simply in terms of problem solving. And I think we're entering a period of time where we are gonna see people going to the abortion issue, having to travel and having to seek kind of alternative options because they're gonna be prohibited from any kind of access in their state. And so then the question becomes, what's gonna happen if you are low income, you aren't able to travel to Illinois or Minnesota or California or a state where that's still gonna be possible? What are you gonna do? Well, one thing dispute resolution can do is encourage conversations and encourage solutions. And I think there are gonna be solutions. I think there's going to be foundations. I think there's gonna be resources available for people to travel. But the question is who's gonna be able to access that? How are they gonna know about it? So one thing we can do is encourage conversations for information purposes. In that sense, not really bringing the parties that are on different points together at the moment, but what it is doing, it's solving a problem for a particular individual when resources are available and they just don't know about them. They don't know how to access them. So people that are skilled and they're having conversations and drawing out interests and drawing out needs, I think can be a real benefit in this environment to help people along the long a path that they really need to travel, but they just don't know how. I would hitchhike off of that to maybe think about it this way. I've been struck by the number of people who I've had contact with who are feeling kind of gloom and doom with all these things happening at the same time, they're depressed. They're not in the clinical sense of depression, but in the sense of down. And I think that one thing that really in my dispute resolution experience that helped me was to reading this sociologist to describe that feeling of contradiction between what you're experiencing externally and internally as something called depressive overload. I was really shocked when I saw him use that term. I think that with the whole range of things that we're all dealing with, it's both depression and overload at the same time, where we're just sort of kind of sometimes feeling paralyzed. And so part of, I think that consensus building is the kind of thinking of things, thinking of ideas, thinking of things that you think might be some way of resolving that contradiction and seeking affinity with other people who are doing that. So the idea of the foundation, the idea of these groups that are trying to help people with travel, I think there's a doctor out in California is getting ready to put a boat up out in the Gulf of Mexico so that women in Mexico could go in federal waters, okay? But those kinds of ideas, I know I've been seeing that there's been some internal stuff in the wide administration, I just saw that they are sending out guidance under the emergency care rule, and Pala passed by under Ronald Reagan that said that abortion care is emergency care that hospitals are required to do, feeling which they may lose Medicare money and things like that. So that's somebody who came up with an idea to try to adjust the reality from this situation with regards to the abortion being banned in a number of states, okay? There's another thing that I would also say is that there is a lot of effort to make us all fearful right now. In other words, if you are a person who thinks that women's right to choose girls, this whole terrible story of this 10-year-old girl who was raped in Ohio is emblematic of that process, which is where the story comes out and then sort of the right wing machine starts to deny it and say that it's been made up. And I mean, really even going up to the attorney general of the state of Ohio saying he hadn't heard anything about this, right? So to make it debunk it. And then what happens is finally there's a guy who actually gets arrested for the rape of the 10-year-old girl, right? So, but that part where it is not told. And so in the space, there's the debunking part, but then the actual, after the fact, information of what it was true is not performed. Furthermore, apparently the attorney general of Indiana is trying to look into sort of going after the doctor who did the abortion. So again, intimidate, make you fearful. You know, they're not complying with hippo and not complying with paperwork stuff. Paperwork games are another kind of game that is being played to kind of catch people in a spot. So these are all to make you feel fearful. I understand that there have been letters sent to law firms down in Texas telling them that the state is, you know, if they're gonna pay for their employees to go out of state to get abortions, they would be suffering criminal liability. It's all about creating fear. But at the same time, the thing is, is that you have to combat that. I think one of the things that has been really positive in a weird horrible way was to see the video from U of L.D. in the hallway of the 18 or 19 police officers who did nothing. So the so-called to get, you know, what to address a bad guy, you need a good guy with a gun kind of thing. Literally that's blown up by what we saw there in that horrendous situation that kind of myth-making of the sell guns, really, is nonsense. Now, does that mean that we're gonna move to banning these weapons of war? I think that there's gonna be something. Remember, we did ban Tommy Gunn in the United States and these AR-15 type weapons are starting to be described as weapons of war and especially Highland Park and all that. I think that there is a possibility of moving things that way. You know, the one thing that I think moves people is, if you talk about children and the risks of children, I think that crosses political lines. And to the degree that the assault weapons are now killing children and they're killing increasingly, that's the kind of reality that I think can pull people at different ends of the political spectrum together because that's the commonality they share. They want their children to live and they want their children to be healthy. So it's tragic that it takes that kind of event to pull people together, but the fact is it did happen and now the opportunity is there for people on opposite ends of the spectrum to say, we can agree about this. We can agree that given the fact that we now know that in any place, anytime poor neighborhoods, wealthy neighborhoods like Highland Park, this can happen, we really do need to do something now. And before the show started, we were talking about the fact that when you look at public opinion, that public opinion is now in favor of banning assault weapons. So that momentum is building and what it takes is for people to get to their elected representatives and push the fact that our community who you represent now believes that it's time. Maybe we didn't think so a few years ago, we think so now. So we have a responsibility as citizens to actually communicate with our elected representatives, let them know how we feel and what we want them to do. And going back to something that Ben said a little early about the press of overload, I think a component of that is isolation. And the dispute resolvers I know are great communicators and they're conveners of small groups, they're conveners of large groups and they have that talent, they have that skill. So people with that skill have the ability to kind of cut through some of this isolation. And I think that can have a very beneficial effect on this depressive overload to kind of put the word out and make an effort to say, okay, I'm able to do this and I'm gonna put it on my shoulders to take some responsibility of trying to pull people together to have conversations to break through this isolation because I think given my background and my skills I can be helpful. So I'd like to see people in our community start to step up in that respect. Yeah, yeah. I know that David is particularly strong in technology mediated dispute resolution. So I wanted to also suggest that part of that getting away from that isolation can be virtual in the sense of connecting with people, sharing with people, using these social media in a respectful way, if I could say it like that, with towards others. If you're a congressperson, they usually have a Facebook page or something, getting on that Facebook page, asking them things, entering into the dialogue with the people that are there in a manner that stating what you're thinking of, but also that is respectful. You don't know. No flaming was the old term, it's just, but trying to change the dynamic in that space from one being just in silos to being one where there are other views that are being heard. It helps people to feel that they're not crazy. Ultimately, my personal view right now is that what I would really hope was for two things to happen. One would be a federal wall that would enshrine Roe, Obergefell, Lawrence, and Loving and Griswold as well as a Voting Rights Act being passed. And my theory personally is that you basically get the filibuster exceptions for those two things with a promise to reinstate it afterward, okay? And then you get it through now because there is an effort that is aggressive to go farther in terms of repression right now during this period. Like this Life at Conception Act that's been trying to get out. The people who are happy with Dobb or Deppel are eager to do things at the state level, at the federal level to enshrine the repression. And so I think prior to the election, it would be good to have the battle lines being drawn so to speak. And then I'll just make it a trilogy. The other piece of legislation I'd like to see is a assault weapons ban. I mean, I would really like that to happen. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And basically what happens is that there's a vote in the House, there's a vote in the Senate, right? And you see who votes which way. And it makes it very binary. And if somebody votes against these things and they're up for election in November, you vote them out. That's one thing that politicians are really focused on besides money is not losing their job more than anything else. And so I was amazed to get a letter back from my congressman apparently more rapidly that some other people on the list have gotten because, and it was right after I put in a post that said, well, I think, I can't understand how any Democrat, independent or Republican who was self-respecting could vote for any Republican who had not broken with Donald Trump. Boom. And based on what we're seeing in the January 6th here, right? Apparently I got a letter really quickly back in the Congress, you know? So it's like, they hear you, you know? And they fear for their job, especially everyone on the House side. And I'm talking also like the governor's races and the Senate races or whatever structure there is in different states is to identify with somebody who is appropriate with what you want to have and vote them in. And if there's somebody who is a retrograde kind of person you vote them out or you do your best to vote them out. You know, and kind of basic conflict resolution to speak resolution, you sometimes have to start small and you try and get agreement on something and then try and build on that. Well, we did get gun legislation. I mean, something did actually happen. I think for many of us, me included, I'm a little disappointed in the scope of that. But nonetheless, it happened. And subsequent to that happening is when we had Evaldi and worse things happened. So it's been demonstrated that there can be some consensus. The subsequent events would indicate that it wasn't enough. And maybe we can capitalize on that early momentum to say that you were able to do step A, we in light of what's happening and the fact that it's not getting better. We really do need a step B, can we do step B and kind of moving people incrementally and encourage them based on what they've been able to do already to continue moving forward. I think that's what conflict resolvers are good at. And I hope we can do that. We can look at the interests. Like for example, why did Cornyn lead the Republican side of the negotiation for the gun? He's up for reelection as well. And the Evaldi happened in his state. So he has to sort of look good, so to speak, to hopefully get reelected. There are 33 members of the Senate who are up for reelection this fall and making them all focus on these various topics before the election and making them have to stand up and do something I think is good. And of course, there's all the members of the House also. And I might be hopelessly naive, but I believe that people have a basic humanity. And on the one hand, yes, I encourage people to use leverage in the sense that you're not gonna get reelected. You're gonna lose your great job if you don't do this. On the one hand, use that threat, but I also like to appeal to people's soul and say that, look, let's step back and take a realistic view at the facts and then the number of mass shootings we're seeing and the pace at which it's accelerating. Don't you wanna be a part of stopping this, of slowing this down? Don't you think that's the humane, responsible thing to do? I think you have it in you. Now, maybe you've had it pushed back by people pushing an agenda on you, but now's your time. Now's your time to rise up and do the right thing. All right, well, I agree with you that both positive levers and negative levers can be used. Okay, that there's the fear of loss and the opportunity of gain, right? That just trying to speak to the interests underneath of every politician. Somebody who was a president of France once said that a politician's promises only bind those who believe, right? That's where I come from with the sort of actions that are the only thing. And while I'm in my head thinking that the leverage point is before the election, not some promise after the election. When we get our majority as the Democrats are saying or when the Republicans say they'll get their majority after the election, I'm not convinced that any promise is binds anybody, but me for believing them. Okay, so, but I agree, using positive leverage if it works or negative leverage is certainly, is a way to try to move the ball. I think the spewers always are good communicators. I think that's, at the end of the day, that's where we hang our hats. And one thing I think we have to take responsibility for again is the fact that it's gonna be harder to vote come November, that it's getting more difficult to do absentee ballots. I mean, and that's kind of a stunning move. This is all happening pretty quietly. People don't see this. It's not publicized very much. But some states are saying if you have an absentee ballot for it to be counted, you have to actually deliver it in person, which is the opposite of an absentee ballot. If you have the public person delivered, you might as well cover the person to vote. So it's ridiculous, but that kind of legislation is being passed. So as communicators, what we have to do is get the word out that understand that even some of the things you're able to do last time, you're not gonna be able to do this time. And if you wanna change course and you wanna have your vote count, you need to know what some of the limitations are. And hopefully as good communicators, we can help spread that message that you need to think a little bit ahead. That's not gonna be as easy as it was last time. And you may feel very strongly based on recent events that you need your vote to count. And you have to be aware of these limitations. Great, I mean, switch your rules as to where your polling places were. Well, you've always, I always voted down at this church or something like that. Not a lot of that in Ohio, switch rules on where your polling places was. Yeah. Having a plan, having a plan ahead of time of how you are gonna get to where you need to be to vote with whatever is needed. I mean, the effort is put basically to make voting more onerous so that fewer people show up. But yeah, so I just kind of contended this theme as conflict resolvers, we have skills. And I think that we can use our skills to actually assist people in times when it's getting more difficult to accomplish things like voting. And I think we need to take some responsibility for that to say that we can't stand idly by because we actually may be able to be helpful here. And that will require some effort on our part. We have to think a little bit about how can we get this message out about the fact that your drop box for your absentee ballot is no longer there. You can't drop it off anywhere. And now you used to give the ballot to your child to take in for you. You can't do that anymore. You can't have anybody deliver your ballot for you anymore. We have to be able to get those messages out. It might be by convening people face to face. As Ben says, I might be able to do it online but also might be writing the op-ed pieces just writing shorter pieces and major newspapers or even neighborhood newspapers. Neighborhood newspapers that you pick up in the grocery store. Those kinds of things can be effective communication devices. And I think we have to be a little creative about how we can get our word out. Yeah. And one of the things about the conflict resolution people is they don't do conflict avoidance. They get into the middle of conflict and try to find solutions. It's like when there's these horrible situations in the world and then some diplomat shows up and it's a hopeless, right? It's hopeless. But those diplomats who show up and say, okay, let's say, let's take a five minute break everybody. And oh, look, everybody stop shooting each other for five minutes. Let's make it 10. Okay, and these hopeless situations, that's a say they can resolve them all the time but finding way, so to speak. And I'm also a person and I think Davis too is on the whole is generally optimistic in terms of not despairing about things but just trying to find pragmatically ways to move the ball forward. And in a reasonable manner. Because one thing I worry about with that with many people is the feeling of isolation and defeat of it's hopeless to try to do anything. I've kind of felt those feelings and heard those feelings from different people. And there's a long history of this country of things that are not so good happening. And I think it was Cheryl and Eiffel said that when you look at the long history, for example, a black American, all the history dreaded Scott and all that. One thing you never saw for black Americans was I'm saying, we're giving up, all right? So you just can't give up. You just have to keep working towards that more perfect union that Madisonian protection of all our rights and finding the way to get with others to reach that. So that brings together an understanding of what raises the question maybe for next time. What are the best sources if as one famous author put it, conflict is a dark room with the door closed and you got to open the door, let in the light to see where solution might be and what it might look like. What might the light or solution look like for any of the areas that you've talked about in our last couple of minutes. I want to make a pitch for David and the section of dispute resolution of the ABA as a space of conflict resolution, skills being encouraged and developed and light being brought. I think it's one of those light spaces that you're describing of providing different programs and knowing who is doing what around where that's something that could help with people being able to do things. So to start with that as a particular space. And the resource and David. Yeah, you know, I still read newspapers. I still look at media. I think a lot of people look at media but now it's shifting towards digital. But the fact is digital media is really accessible in lots of ways. That's one of the positive things is that we could all be newspapers now, we could all be mini multinationals now. So I think as Ben said, thinking how we can use digital media respectfully is a very vital way and very realistic way to get messages out. So I encourage everyone to think about social platforms that they're on, ways they can engage and ways they can engage effectively. Thank you both. Great discussion, great insights, great ideas. Folks, thanks so much for joining us. Come back in a couple of weeks. We will be here again with more difficult conversations to make with trouble. Thanks for joining us on Think Tech Hawaii. Thank you so much for watching Think Tech Hawaii. If you like what we do, please like us and click the subscribe button on YouTube and the follow button on Vimeo. You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn and donate to us at thinktechhawaii.com. Mahalo.