A View on Buddhism

[Compassion First]

I'm sure some of you have run into this before, but I've not seen a good article on the subject, at least from a Western point of view, so I thought I'd bring it up.

Here in Pennsylvania, we have a Senator (Rick Santorum) who is up for re-election, and he is bombarding us with Television commercials. I watch less than an hour of Television a week, but feel that I am over-saturated as it stands. Perhaps Wu Ming understands the dilemma to some degree. He is a party-line republican who doesn't seem to have a mind of his own, unlike his other republican counterpart, Arlen Spector, who is quite the wildcard.

The democratic candidate is a man who seems to have scandal follow him wherever he goes, and seems to follow the philosophy of "the ends justify the means".

So here we have a classic case of "choosing the least of evils"........

But, in all honesty, choosing evil is not something any of us should be forced to do. So yet again, for something like the 20th time now, I will not be voting in the General elections.

The experience that opened my eyes to the wrong of "choosing the least of evils" was an experience I had with voting for Tom Ridge, who won the office of Governor. He promised, during his campaign, to be "tougher on crime"....he never specified that he would be tougher on criminals, but that is more precisely what he meant. We had the tradition here in Pennsylvania, for more than 25 years previous to Governor Ridge, of sentencing criminals to death, but never actually having our governor sign the death warrant. Thus we had several hundred persons living "on death row".....what we had all thought was essentially a "real" life sentence. Juries even began sentencing people to death, when they wanted to ensure that the person being sentenced would never have the possibility of ever being released.

Suddenly, without any due process of legislation or jurisprudence, Governor Ridge started drafting death warrants, and signing them. It took the state and penal system by surprise, to say the least. We didn't even have a working method of execution. But finally, we re-obtained the technology of death, and executions commenced. They still are going on, clearing the backlog from the Ridge days. (Our present governor has not signed any death warrants)........

In short, from my point of view, I am an accomplice to murder, and the Karma from that cannot be good.

One can see, then, how choosing the least of evils, has the capacity to implicate you in the Karma of the suffering of many many people.

For even if you do not know the future actions of the politician you are voting for (and lets face it, few of us do), you are assuming that you are a good enough judge of the character, intellect, and position on issues of the candidate, in order to make a judgement that not only will affect you, but can affect everyone within that candidate's jurisdiction. If you are that clever an individual to discern the hearts and minds of the candidates, you would do mankind a better service by running for the office yourself. If you really aren't, but feel that you are, you are suffering from delusions of pride. In either event, what are you doing voting for someone else??

I think it would be wise for all of us stateside to seriously examine our motivation in voting, and consider taking responsibility for the candidates we vote for who win.

It's always funny, but when a candidate who turns out to be a nightmare gets elected, it's difficult to find anyone here in the US who will admit to voting for him or her. But that's the joy of "secret ballot" isn't it??

I think it sends a much more compassionate message if we Buddhists in America "conscientiously object to voting for evil". It takes the burden of Karma off our shoulders, anyway. Or is this just taking an easy escape?
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If I do not go to Hell to help them, who will? -- Ksitigarbha

[Tara's-child]

Absoloutly...but I myself find the Democrat caniditure the "lesser of the evils"...even if this isn't so true at times

Good point, Tom-la, very good point...
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When I give, I give myself.-Walt Whitman

[tYrocinY]

[Compassion First]

Well, Ed-La,

Truthfully, what do you think......

Does not participating in choosing evil free me from Karmic responsibility in the case of the deeds of the elected officials, or, am I weaseling out of something that I have a Karmic responsibility to participate in?

By not participating in elections do I still acquire Karma from that process in some way?

I keep thinking on the Tibetan addage "For one's own sake it is better to have as few interractions as possible. For the sake of the community, it is better to have as many interractions as possible."

And of course, where does one's priority lie?.......of course, working with one's own afflictive emotions and delusions must come first, or we are useless to our fellow being, but do we have a Karmic obligation to serve the community at all? Or is it enough to just "do no harm"???

I know, Ed-La, that these questions cannot be answered simply, even by one who has thought them through as often as you. I do feel, however, that your views are unique, and are frequently more abstract in many ways than my own, and that is why I beg you for your input on this.

I also wish to thank you for your years of service, defending my rights to vote, or not to vote, as is the case. More importantly, my right to be as crazy as I am, without imprisonment. It does mean something to me.

My father died of a service-related illness shortly after I was born. He had served in the Army for 8 years. Alabama's Redstone Nuclear Missile Arsenal. Such is the nature of the root of my love/hate relationship with the US military.

108 Thank you's nonetheless.....

-Tom
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If I do not go to Hell to help them, who will? -- Ksitigarbha

[tYrocinY]

[tYrocinY]

I am going to say that this one should be left up to the individual.
:wink:
My delusions and I shouldn't interfere in these matters.
Great topic, though.

[Compassion First]

Ed-La.....

Well.....thank you just the same.....

I appreciate the fact that you spent 2 days considering the matter, anyway....

I've not managed to sort much else out, but at least I've become comfortable with my position, I think......

--Tom
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If I do not go to Hell to help them, who will? -- Ksitigarbha

[tYrocinY]

[WuMing426]

I do know what you mean, being in PA as well. I feel a bit differently. I've "held my nose" and voted for Specter a couple of times, and hated myself for it.
My actual position is more libertarian than is represented by either entrenched party, and feel that the Dem-Rep "choice" is actually the illusion of a choice. It's my observation that regardless of which lever you pull, we only get more of the same. So until enough people are willing to commit to a viable third party, we get crap. And the reason they fight so hard for the vote isn't so they can do anything, its' all about the benjamins.
And that is my cynical rant for the day.
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A society will be judged by the way it treats its most vulnerable members- the animals. -Gandhi
Everything comes to pass, nothing comes to stay. -Matthew Flickstein
One who hates the feline is one not to be trusted.- Chinese proverb

[tYrocinY]

[Compassion First]

Arlen Specter comes up with the most marvelous quotes from time to time......his most recent "specterism" came from a question from a reporter about why he did not support the senate majority's bill which would strip virtually all rights from "enemy combatants," including the right of "writ of habeas corpus" which has been guaranteed to all persons living in states deriving their legal system from English Common Law since the Magna Carta, ca. 1200 or so.....

Senator Specter said, "I'm willing to turn back the clock 500 years in the name of party loyalty, but 800 is totally out of the question!!"

It's good to have limits, I guess.........

What is significant here, though, is that the senate passed a law that the judiciary committee warned them was blatantly unconstitutional, primarily because the senators believe their constituency harbours a blood-lust for anyone named "enemy combatant"......and perhaps they are correct in that belief.

After the vote, the chair of the judiciary committee, again, Arlen Specter, said, "There you have it, we just passed a law that is completely unconstitutional....it happens sometimes. Good thing we have the courts to clean it up."

Now, I know our system is designed as a fail-safe check-and-balance against flagrantly crazy legislation, but what it is not, is expedient. How many will suffer in the interrim because the entire senate ignored their oath to "uphold the constitution" and opted, instead, to "appease their constituency".......Our founding fathers would not be pleased......not by a long shot. In the days before the civil war, men were accountable for their consciences, and likely would have been removed from office for such flagrant disregard. Now we applaud them in this "ends justify the means" society.

I am not sure who first coined the term "the great experiment" as a euphemism for American Democracy, but, so far, the experiment has only proven that the further we get from our founding concepts, the more multiplicitous our leaders seem to become.

And normally it does not affect me, but I just now realized that instead of studying suttras, I am ranting against an evil that I am powerless over.

Therefore, my apologies, 108 times, to all........
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If I do not go to Hell to help them, who will? -- Ksitigarbha