What the Buddha Might Say About The Tea Party Movement

With the popular emergence of the Tea Party and the conservative strains of the Libertarian Party comes this false sense that we all could live our individual lives without any connections or involvement at all from local, state, or federal government.

In fact, many libertarian ideologies seem to verge on anarchy–this idea that every individual can and must make it on their own and has the right to do whatever it takes to be successful, even if their efforts undermine the basic principles of moral law or the rights of others.  The emerging motto of the Tea Party is the old “Don’t Tread On Me”.

My feeling about these emerging conservative movements is that they either choose to ignore or quite simply take for granted the many ways that a host of government services make our everyday lives not only better, but just plain livable.  The greatest weakness of  both of these political ideologies is what we might call “the fallacy of autonomy”.

One of the greatest aspects of the Buddhist tradition is an everyday awareness of our interconnectedness–the idea that none of us could possibly live dependent on ourselves only.  We wouldn’t be  able to do much more than wake up in the morning if we could not depend upon the previous hard work of others (for example, who baked the Poptart you threw in the toaster this morning?  Who picked the ingredients that made it possible for the baker of your Poptart to bake it in the first place?  The box of Poptarts wasn’t baked in the  cereal aisle of the grocery store, so who were the many people responsible for getting it there?)   This awareness of our interconnectedness, the Buddha says, should lead us all to a profound sense of gratitude.

Here is an essay (which I did not write) that highlights the many ignored (and often under-appreciated) ways we rely on the way our government–local, state, as well as federal–makes it possible for us to make our safe ways through each day.

It’s not news to say that there are ways that the government, on all levels, could make aspects of our lives more pleasant if they just butt out in particular ways, but those who are asking the government to butt out completely may not know what they are asking for.

Here is the entire essay,  written by someone who uses the handle “Radical Texan” and posted on the Democratic Underground website:

This morning I was awakened by my alarm clock powered by the electricity generated by the public power monopoly regulated by the US Dept of Energy. I then took a shower in the clean water provided by the municipal water utility. After that, I turned on the TV to one of the FCC-regulated channels to see what the National Weather Service (of the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric  Administration) determined the weather was going to be like (using satellites launched and maintained by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration). I watched while eating my breakfast of US Dept of Agriculture-inspected food and taking the drugs which have been determined as safe by the Food and Drug Administration.

At the appropriate time as regulated by the US Congress and kept accurate by the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the US Naval Observatory, I get into my National Highway Traffic Safety Administration-approved automobile and set out to work on the roads built by the local, state and federal departments of transportation, possibly stopping to purchase additional fuel of quality level determined and tested by Environmental Protection Agency, using legal tender issued by the Federal Reserve Bank. On the way out the door I deposit any mail I have to be sent out via the US Postal Service and drop the kids off at the public school.

After spending another day not being maimed or killed at work thanks to the workplace regulations imposed by the Department of Labor and the Occupational safety and Health Administration, enjoying another two meals which again do not kill me because of the USDA, I drive my NHTSA car back  home on the DOT roads, to my house which has not burned down in my absence thanks to state and local building codes, fire marshall’s inspections during government-overseen construction (and possibly since), and the vigilant watch of my city and county Fire Departments. I find my home has not been plundered of all it’s valuables thanks to the cooperation of the city, county, and state Police Department.

I then log on to the Internet (which was developed by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Administration) and post on freerepublic.com and Fox News forums about how government involvement in healthcare is SOCIALISM which is BAD because the government can’t do anything right.

On Glenn Beck’s attacks on Jim Wallis

Here’s Jim Wallis, leader of the Sojourners, and a wonderful example of  a person of faith who puts his faith in action every single day, rebutting Glenn Beck’s attacks on him.

It’s sad that Glenn Beck’s microphone is bigger than Jim Wallis’.  Wallis has been doing the work of changing unjust social and political structures through his keen prophetic voice and insightful understanding of Scripture for more than 40 years, but in spite of all of that, he may go down in the minds of many people with the labels Glenn Beck has pinned him with–Marxist, socialist, communist.

Jim Wallis is, assuredly, not any of these.  He’s a modern day visionary and a man who, just like Isaiah, Jeremiah, Amos, Micah and other Hebrew prophets, speaks wisdom and truth to power.

Perhaps none of these aforementioned prophets would have ever guessed that their voices would ring through the ages as powerfully as they have.  Let’s hope that just like their’s, Jim Wallis’ voice–however small it is right now compared to Beck’s, or however lost it is in this noisy world–will one day be recognized as uncompromisingly biblical and truth-telling.

Here’s a paragraph excerpt from Jim Wallis’ letter to Glenn Beck:

Private charity, which Beck and I are both for, wasn’t enough to end the slave trade in Great Britain, end legal racial segregation in America, or end apartheid in South Africa. That took vital movements of faith which understood the connection between personal compassion and social justice. Those are the movements that have inspired me and shaped my life — not BIG GOVERNMENT. And my allies in faith-based social justice movements have wonderfully different views on the role of government — some bigger than mine and some smaller than mine — but we all believe social justice requires changing both personal choices and unjust structures. Apparently Beck thinks social justice ends with private charity, but very few churches in the nation would agree with him.

Read Jim Wallis’ entire rebuttal to Glenn Beck:

Jim Wallis: What Glenn Beck Doesn’t Understand About Biblical Social Justice.

Huckabee, McCain, Palin: Only the GOP Can Fix What the GOP Has Done

Jon Stewart had Mike Huckabee on as the guest of last night’s The Daily Show. They talked about how the GOP will bring badly needed change to Washington. (I thought the Obama campaign took out a copyright on change. Maybe not.) McCain said the same thing in his acceptance speech Thursday–that he’ll bring change to Washington, and Palin had the balls to say it Wednesday night. In fact, isn’t that what everybody who spoke at the GOP convention said? How perplexing is this message?

Well, it’s this perplexing (the very last exchange of the interview):

Jon: So you feel like your party is the only party who can fix what your party has done.

Mike: Yeah.

Jon Stewart’s Prophetic Utterances from the DNC

Speaking at a Monday morning breakfast in Denver, Jon Stewart, with his above-the-fray habit of telling the truth no matter who it offends, said this:

I’m stunned to see Karl Rove on a news network as an analyst,” said Stewart, adding “Barack Obama could cure cancer and Fox News would figure out a way to frame it as an economic disaster.”

Stewart has always said that 24-hour news channels have created a false sense of urgency, and I agree. Cable news has turned the daily news (what used to only take 30 minutes at 6 pm) into a constant, deafening stream of all-day, repetitious, dumbed-down nonsense. And too many people, including me, have watched hours and hours of it with glazed-over eyes.

In other prophetic utterances, Jon Stewart has had this to share:

* Fox’s ‘fair and balanced’ slogan is an insult to people with brains

* The cable news networks are a brutish, slow-witted beast.

* Fox News is an appendage of the Republican Party.

We all knew it, but Jon said it.

Obama, Sarcastic Doesn’t Look Good on You

In TIME Magazine this week, Joe Klein wrote an article about the, shall we say, less-than-presidential campaign ads that John McCain has put out lately. Klein also lays out a no-brainer response strategy for the Obama campaign.

Obama’s demeanor will show well on the debate stage; McCain’s feistiness may not. And so Obama would be wise to change course now: challenge McCain to town-hall debates on the Sunday nights after each convention–one before a military audience, another with hard-pressed Rust Belt workers. He’d be wise to make this a campaign about issues instead of ads as soon as possible. It is true that debates often turn on one-liners and flubs, but more often they turn on sustained, vivid demonstrations of character.

But with Barack Obama’s new campaign ad, it doesn’t look like the high road is a part of the Obama campaign travel plan. In the aftermath of Parisgate, Barack Obama could have took that high road. He could have stuck to the issues that matter most: energy policy, tax breaks, economy, Iraq, presidential character, you name it.

But instead, with this new attack ad, Obama has decided to join McCain in the idiot bin. This ad makes some good points about policy but quickly slides into lampooning John McCain. The circus music in the background is nothing but sarcastic.

I hoped for better from Barack Obama. I expected more. But mostly, I trusted him to continue to respect voter intelligence. But, instead, we get to watch this for the next 3 months…

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The Daily Muse 08.05.08

Men in authority will always think that criticism of their policies is dangerous. They will always equate their policies with patriotism, and find criticism subversive. — Henry Steele Commager

The Daily Muse 08.03.08

War will exist until that distant day when the conscientious objector enjoys the same reputation and prestige that the warrior does today. — John F. Kennedy