Volunteering, at any level, is almost a certain path to more work. Ask me how I know.
So, you remember that consolidated Constitution three of us put together? Well, we distributed them and…but I’m getting ahead of myself.
When we reconvened in the Constitution Chamber, I found out the truth of the fights. They did, indeed, happen. Most of the breaks were on the Blue side while all the concussions were on the Red. Casts, bandages, black eyes, and a wired jaw were clear indicators that the standards of civility were more in the traditional “canings are allowed” vein.
The first order of business was a shuffling of room assignments to try to avoid placing people in uncomfortable situations. That took the better part of the first hour as, basically, lines were drawn up and people picked sides — ironically arranging us as Red, White, and Blue camps in that order (or Blue, White, and Red if you started from the opposite end). Actually, it was more an even split between Reds and Blues, but those with arguably less militant convictions getting placed in the middle dorms as a sort of buffer. As a result, I ended up keeping my room in the Blue side of the White third.
I have to say, it was like trying to negotiate new roommate assignments at a college residence hall. I was expecting to walk in the footsteps of Adams and Jefferson, and I ended up with the RAs separating the Biffs from the Eugenes. Constitutional Conventions…am I right?
Anyway…
Once that silliness was over, the smoke-filled-cloakroom deal that had been negotiated was resolved and voted on. By a draw of colored dice (really…apparently they have a lot of low-tech randomizing stuff available), it ended up the Blues getting the hall the next two days, the Reds the two available days after that (it was actually three days, but since the first was on a Sunday, a recess day was voted in), and the Whites would get the next two. After that, a posting would be made when the PoC, with the staff as witnesses, made a new drawing.
Next order of business was me. Because of the consolidated Constitution the group of three distributed, we were voted to be the leaders of a committee to “…with the aid of the experts on-site, to distill the issues and to simplify new elements for inclusion into the new text up until such time as the final document is adopted.”
I don’t know if I waited for a full second before I rose in protest about my lack of expertise, followed by the others, but it was for naught. We stupidly showed “initiative” and now we had to pay for that. On the plus side, every inch of whatever document we all come up with in this hall will have our three sets of fingerprints all over it. So….there’s that. History.
Another quick dice draw assigned each of us to head the committee within each of the groups as well as a reconciliation committee that sort of sat outside of the partisanship. I got the lucky Blue die, so my job was a lot more palatable than I’d feared it might be. (George got White while Martha got Red).
Since many delegates were going to have to change their accommodations, we recessed early for that to happen and so we heads of the “Text and Intent Committee” could try to figure out what we were going to do with the mess we found ourselves in — sort of a TIC-talk (I didn’t come up with that, but we, then everyone else, sort of called it that from here on out).
George, Martha, and I sat together at dinner and got acquainted. Between the three of us, George was decidedly liberal-socialist, Martha was fiercely Independent, and I was sort of the one in between. G & M had high-earning jobs while I was just getting by as an instructor at the local 2-year college. We made a point of not talking about the committee until we gathered together in my room.
We all had concerns about the splitting the country scuttlebutt, but agreed that the best thing we could do was just ignore that and pretend it wasn’t an issue. Figuring out what, exactly, our job was took a bit more time. Since we had to start somewhere, we decided to take a top-down approach. We’d start with broad principles, both for new discussion as well as dissecting the existing Constitution, and worry about refining them as we went. Given what was likely to be very different priorities with each of the three delegate factions, we figured that it would be a lot more efficient reconciling the broad strokes instead of spending too much time with the fine details.
We aren’t stupid, of course. We know that everyone here has come in with their own resolutions to add or remove to the current document. No matter what we suggest, most of them are going to resolve away. To that end, we’ll just gather them together, categorize them, and delegate them out to either an expanded committee or to subcommittees as the case may be.
Truth is, we have no idea what’s going to happen. I guess I’ll find out tomorrow. Fun.
