Now I remember why I hate politics

Obama's Team Responds to Clinton Camp Slams

Do my children and grandchildren have to forever look at such people and think, "These are supposed to be my heroes?"

Is this really all that democracy has to offer?

This is the reason I care about policy thought and discussions. The hope and opportunity for something better than the dishonesty and ugliness that has become democratic elections.

This could change. We would have to expect better. We could expect more reasoned, thoughtful, engaged, substantial discussions and disagreements that appreciated diverse viewpoints, ideas, ideologies, and perspectives. We could expect discussions accountable to empirical evidence and that treated the discussion and the thinking like it mattered as much as it does, no matter how much we bullshit ourselves with this ugly process.

We could expect better. If we had the courage. And the courage to expect more of ourselves as much as we expect more of others.

And if we don't, we only have ourselves to blame for this ugly mess that we call democratic politics.

We expect and reward the cynicism, we will get the cynicism. We expect and reward the more honest and decent route, we will get more honesty and decency.

When push comes to shove, it really is as simple as that.

What we are waiting for is us to expect more honesty and decency. From ourselves. And from our politics.

And when we do that, we can stop being so disappointed all the time with what a sorry spectacle we have settled for in the meantime.

For the most part, he's right

In 2008, be nicer to your neighbors

There was a time in my life when I thought the Dalai Lama's suggestion was the solution to every problem.

I've grown up, now. I've been taken advantage of and taken for granted many, many times in my life, at this point (I am a teacher, after all). I have been mugged by reality, as the old saying goes about being a liberal in one's youth and a conservative in one's old age. I have seen how nasty and aggressive and combative and unrepentant the world can be. I can see how cowardly people can be, hiding behind ideologies or power politics or religion or nationalism or race or gender or whatever, all so they never have to admit when they might be wrong. And what unrepentant cowards and bullies we can all be.

I have seen enough of the ugliness of the world to know that compassion doesn't solve every problem.

But I'm also seen enough of the world to know that compassion and understanding and thought and communication, as frustrating and patience-testing as this road can be, are, generally, far more effective than the sometimes quite reasonable but often and generally less effective route of aggression, pressure, force and the like.

Force is needed at times. And when it is, the least possible necessary force and aggression should be used to check our tendency to use maximum force which both tends to lead to abuses of power and which tends to undermine the effectiveness of even noble efforts. Overwhelming force is needed in wartime to defeat an enemy decisively. But the least possible necessary overwhelming force should be used to assure that as few innocent or even not-so-innocent people die as possible in any conflict.

Israel is a country that, for the most part, regularly defends innocents from the barbarities of terrorism and its murder of innocents. But when Israelis overreact in their hostility to peoples in Palestine who often rationalize such murder as if it is worth a better land deal or out of hatred of their seemingly endless occupation, they have clearly, by any objective standard, undermined the cause of peace that they and Palestinians share, long-term. Palestinians are rightly horrified by the historical legacy of being expelled from their land and their homes and the many human rights abuses that Israelis have inflicted on their Palestinian neighbors, but their support for terrorism has, rightly, inflamed the passions of Israelis, many of whom do not want to forgive the whole awful mess of bloodshed between these two peoples.

It is clear that force has not solved this problem. It is clear that no amount of pressure would resolve this conflict.

What is needed is genuine commitment. And it is this purpose which animates efforts to lead with compassion and understanding, to presume against force as a means of resolving conflicts, and to use the least possible necessary force when no alternatives exist.

The idea that compassion can solve all of our problems is naive.

But it is from compassion that springs understanding of the motives and experiences and thoughts and feelings of others which offers us any additional bit of insight that might resolve problems that have, heretofore, been left unresolved.

I have left behind my naive view that compassion can solve all of our problems. It cannot. And its enemies mock it with genocide, murder, and naked aggression.

But one bit of wisdom from my youth that I will never forget is that it is from that compassion and understanding that new insights, deeper understandings, and more effective solutions to our problems are found. Because if they are not found there, they will not be found anywhere. And that alternative is far more hopeless than the risks that come with keeping one's heart and mind open to new opportunities and possibilities.

And, for that, we owe a debt of gratitude to the Dalai Lama and all of the most compassionate leaders of humanity who have walked this earth.