North Korea talks on, off, on, off–again.  Mexico will pay for “The Wall”.  Now he wants taxpayers to.  Cabinet people solidly in today out tomorrow.  More dodge-and-weaves than Stephen Curry.  With President Trump you don’t know from moment-to-moment, much less day-to-day.  As my Grandma might have said, The man’s predictable as a fart in a hot skillet.

On April 12, 2018 PBS’s “Frontline” summarized Donald Trump’s path to the Presidency and hijacking  the Republican party.  This started me thinking about government, about politics!  According to Webster’s New World Dictionary government is “the exercise of authority over an organization, institution, state.”  Politics is “the science and art of political government.”  Its root “politic” implies “practical wisdom; prudent; shrewd; diplomatic; hence, crafty; unscrupulous.”  Why do I feel like shouting, “Lion , tigers and bears!  Oh, my!”?

I’m told the philosophy of politics covers a spectrum reflecting our feelings and beliefs about government.   As I see it, a significant part of this is how we view change in government.

On the Far Left Anarchists cry, “Every man for himself!  Devil for the hindmost!”  My counsel, Careful what you wish for; you might get it.  To the Anarchists’ right, Radicals foment fundamental change in government.  “Kick the bastards out!”  Here lies the seedbed of revolution.  Through human history folks fed up to the chin with a System have rebelled.  We did.  France.  Russia.  China.

To left of center, Liberals or “Progressives” seem to view change in government in light of our Constitution’s pledge to “promote the general welfare.”  The Declaration of Independence not withstanding, these citizens recognize that “all men (and women) are (not) created equal.”  Some are born healthy, wealthy, and gifted.  Most slog along as best we can, earn a living, raise the kids, obey the law, coach Little League, deliver Meals-on-Wheels, go to church.  At the bottom of the ladder causes and conditions kick the hell out of a legion born culturally, physically, or mentally handicapped, disabled, LGBTQ, or who just don’t fit in.  Liberals view stewardship, caring for Earth’s atmosphere, water and resources, as critical to survival.

Perhaps more realistic than Left or Right, Moderates or Middle-of-the-Roaders, approach change in government with a view to compromise.  So long as hard-liners on either side dig in their heels, change remains an exercise in waste and frustration.

Right of center, Conservatives resist change–conserve: to keep or preserve.  If it ain’t broke–often even if it is–don’t fix it.  As the storm builds, thunder and lighting threaten, and sharks circle, stay the course, never abandon ship!  Right Wingers “Lobby” for strong National Defense, little or no taxes, no regulation of business, the least government possible at the cheapest price possible.  When, through avarice, unrestricted Capitalism inevitably implodes: The Great Depression, Mutual Funds and Savings and Loan collapses, the home mortgage/banking meltdown, they run to Government crying for rescue: the New Deal, taxpayers rescuing Savings and Loans, Treasury Secretary Paulson’s proposed $700 bank bailout, saving General Motors and Chrysler.  To me Conservatives seem conflicted.  While shouldering family and civil chores alongside Liberals they echo the Anarchists’, “Every man for himself!  Devil for the hindmost!”

Farthest Right, Reactionaries pine for change, back to “the good old days.”  In The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump a woman is quoted, “I want my country back.”  Sorry Sweetheart, so did the folks who met Columbus.  From Cave Men to the Space Age; from the Chen dynasty to the Mongol, Roman, Ottoman, and British Empires; from the American, French, and Russian revolutions to the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany, cultures who are conquered, overrun, disposed, or absorbed yearn for their country back.  What did the First Cave Man cry when the Second Cave Man tossed him out in the snow?  “I want my cave back!”  Today’s Reactionary motto: “Make America Great Again!”

When were we not?

The “coloring” of America is a fact.  From 1620 to 1776 to 1865 to 1945 to 1975 to this instant incrementally, sometimes abruptly, the Land of the Free changes.  A white sheet becomes a collage: black, brown, yellow, red.  Not just skin color, ethnicity, and language, but Life Style.  GLBTQs are “out.”  Kids have two dads or two moms.  More than half of cohabiting American couples are unmarried.  Single parent families, more often than not a single Mom, are disturbingly common.  Growing up without a Dad, I wonder where in hell are all the Fathers?

In the Big Picture, whether Left, Right, or Center, change is the only constant.  And it is constant.  Without change, if the Universe were suddenly a still photograph, time and existence as we know it would become meaningless.

Again, the quotes may not be exact.  Close enough for an antique mind.

Whatever happens I will create no more problems.
I will create no more pain for myself.
The Power of Now
Eckhart Tolle

If we don’t look into hope and fear, seeing a thought arise, seeing  the chain reaction that follows, if we don’t train ourselves to sit with that energy without being snared by the drama the we’re always going to be afraid.
When Things Fall Apart
Pema Chodron

Practicing mindfulness I can recognize what is happening in the present without grasping or aversion.  I can practice mere recognition of what is going on within me and around me without judgment or reaction.  This helps me to keep stability and freedom alive within myself.
Touching the Earth
Thich Nhat Hanh

The thought manifests as the word;
The word manifests as the deed;
The deed develops into habit;
And habit hardens into character;
So watch the thought and its ways with care,
And let it spring from love
Born out of concern for all beings.  .  .  .

As the shadow follows the body,
as we think, so we become.
The Dhammapada
(Sayings of the Buddha)

 

 

Having expressed my disdain for President Trump’s wall, I should confess that despite being a longtime, hardcore Liberal I’m troubled and confused that millions of folks enter America illegally and remain here openly and notoriously–often for decades!  Some even thumb their nose at American, “Yada!  Yada!  Yada!  Can’t catch meee!”  On TV one actually flipped us the middle finger.

My position is simple: The Rule of Law.  Do the crime, do the time.  Fish without a license, don’t feed the parking meter, exceed the speed limit, you pay a fine.  If I break into your home and steal your laptop to sell to feed my kids and get arrested the judge says, “Go to jail.”  Armed robbery or murder it’s prison or worse.  But sneak into American?  It’s just go back home.  That’s all.  No hard feelings.  Just go back to your own home.

And what’s this “Sanctuary” nonsense?  Cities and states where do-gooders frustrate Immigration Control and Enforcement (ICE) agents, making our law officers, American citizens, not the lawbreakers the bad guys?  Is this crazy or what?

Kids illegally brought to America by parents (DACA) are victims.  Let ’em stay.  Much as it pains me to say, but to fair to other adults who crawled under the fence, their parents should have been, or be, sent home.

Hundreds of millions, “troubled masses yearning to be free,” would love to become Americans but respect our borders and laws or play by the rules, jump through the hoops: They fill out papers, wait–sometimes years–study our Constitution, laws, and history, are interviewed, pass a test, and pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America.  As you coddle a handful of criminals, what do you tell these folks?

A word to non-Mexicans who refuse to do it right: Scrape up airfare to Juarez or Nogales, climb the fence, lay low.  As things are, you may well enjoy the rights and privileges of real Americans the rest of your life.

Without borders and laws, laws you enforce, you don’t have a country.

What I’m missing here?  Seriously, someone please explain!

*  *  *  *  *

After I wrote this Raelene and Karen had their front yards landscaped.  For four days three or four Hispanics never stopped chopping, digging, cutting, hauling, carrying and planting.

While the huge majority of Americans bust our butts to “earning a living,” my sense is, wither gainfully employed, on the dole, or sleeping under a tarp, too few Americas are willing to pick the oranges, pluck the chickens, gather the eggs, slaughter the hogs, dig the trenches, scrub the toilets, wash the windows, make the beds, flip the burgers, wash the dishes, cut the lawns, trim the shrubs, do the “back-breaking” tedious work crucial to our lifestyle.  Not to sell American workers in any way short, but without dirt-cheap and slave labor, within and without our borders, this country, corporate and consumer alike, would go belly-up like a carp in a dry streamed.

Most quotes are from memory.  They may not be the exact words.

Regarding the internal workings of a biological cell: Things there are not only stranger than we imaging but stranger than we can  imagine.

– – – Biologist J.B.H. Haldane

An independent reality in the ordinary physical sense can neither be ascribed to the phenomenon nor the agencies of observation.

– – – Nels Bohr, Father of Quantum Physics

Past present and future are a stubbornly persistent illusion.

– – – Albert Einstein

The “father of Western philosophy”, René Descartes hypothesized “mind-body dualism”, that mental and physical action carry on in parallel but distinct courses.  Philosopher Gilbert Ryle scoffs at this notion as “the ghost in the machine.”  In The Second Creation  Robert P. Cease and Charles C. Mann  conclude, based on the findings of Quantum Physics, Descartes–as I see Ryles too–does appear mistaken, “not because there is no ghost, because there is no machine.”

Physical constructs are free creations of the human mind and are not, however it may seem, uniquely determined by the external world.

– – – Albert Einstein

View this fleeting world like this:

Like stars fading and vanishing at dawn,

Like bubbles on a fast moving stream,

Like morning due drops evaporating on blades of grass,

Like a candle flickering in a strong wind,

Echoes, mirages, phantoms, hallucinations, and a dream.

– – – The Buddha

Thoughts to ponder.

Two and a half millennia back, China started building a wall to hold out uncivilized nomads to the north.  Eight centuries later Hadrian’s wall bisected Britannia to protect Roman occupiers from invasion by native Celts.  In 1961 the German Democratic Republic built a wall to corral capitalists in and, more important, keep their people out of West Berlin.  Today, despite repeated insistence Mexico will pay, Donald Trump wants billions of American taxpayers’ dollars to build a wall along our southern border to keep folks he views as brown-skinned riffraff out.

Apart from walls being archaic defenses, Trump’s notion of one between the United States and Mexico is dumb!  At the beginning twenty-fist century, it’s like quarrying stone with hammers and chisels, hauling it on ox carts, and hoisting the blocks by muscle power–Whoa!  Hold on there!  Sweat equity!  Is that it?  Mexico’s share?  Donald, you clever devil!

Between satellites, fixed and rotor wing aircraft, drones, motion detectors, regular and infrared cameras, guard towers, and control rooms like those monitoring electrical grids, gas and oil pipelines, water and sewer systems, and air and railroad traffic worldwide, augmented by boots on the ground, America can guard her southern border with sophistication and efficacy exceeding and probably cheaper than some stupid wall!  Donald!  Get a grip!

The history of border walls testifies to the failure of border walls.  We go around, over, through, and under them.  Border walls are monuments to fear, fear of strangers.  And we’re all strangers.  Quoting the Swamp Sage Pogo Possum–remember?–“We has met the enemy and he is us.”

How many of us possess the wisdom, depth of character, and courage to do what this man did?  And virtually zero publicity.  https://voxpopulisphere.com/2015/12/11/10733/

With 5% of Earth’s population, American civilians own nearly half its guns.  We are 25 times more likely to be killed by a gun in the United States than any other country.  Some say easy access to firearms accounts for the lopsided numbers.  Others argue, “Guns don’t kill people.  People kill people.”  Failing to recognize the implication for America’s values and culture, gun advocates say we commit more murders because we have more mentally ill and murderous people.

The strain and complexity of human life trigger and exacerbate mental illnesses, and mental illness lies at the root of all murder–in war and peace.  Nevertheless and thankfully, worldwide the number  of people who kill others is miniscule.  While America’s efforts to understand and treat mental illness fall shamefully short, the average American is no crazier or homocidal than a neighbor in Europe, Asia, Africa, or South America.

Despite the shocking numbers, we are not more murderous either.  Humans have always slain each other: Cain and able; the Crusades; the Spanish Inquisition; Conquistadors massacred Central and South American natives; Great Britain colonized half the globe by force or arms; Stalin annihilated millions of his own people; Hitler’s “Final Solution”; Hutus wiped out 70% of Tutsis; suicide attacks, and truck bomb rock Europe; ISIS beheads infidels; Mexican drug-cartels murder hundreds; Bashar al-Assad methodically massacres Syrians, adults, children, babies!

Americans murder more because guns are easy to get, simple to use, quick and reliable.  For premeditated killing a gun is quicker and more certain than a knife, baseball bat, or poison.  Far too often, guns trigger a permanent solution to a temporary grievance.  Say, I’m some hot-head or just having a bad day when the neighbor’s dog craps on my lawn.  Not owning a firearm, I charge down the front steps, kick the mutt in the ribs, punch the neighbor in the nose.  With my 44 Mag handy, I just step outside and blow pooch and owner away.  When some jerk cuts me off on Interstate 5, without a gun, I shake a fist flip him off, call him a “stupid son-of-a-bitch!’  “Carrying” the ol’ 38 Special, I roll down a window and waste the dumb bastard.  Gangs who once “duked it out” now shoot it out; today drive-by shootings are common as fender-benders.  When was a six yer old girl accidentally killed by a rock from a drive-by stoning?  At the point of “ending it all” pulling a trigger is quicker and less problematic than hanging from the balcony, leaping from the thirteenth floor, or slitting my wrists.

No NRA!  Get a grip!  Americans do not murder in such alarming numbers because we are crazier or more murderous.  We murder because we have so damn many guns!  More guns than people!  For a single murder or to massacre a kindergarten class, the tool of choice is a gun.