Conservatism

Strong vine!
If you see it spring up, 
Take care!
Pull it out by the roots.


Shambhala Pocket Dhammapada, Ch. 24, p. 91

On the eve of the U.S. Republican Convention in Tampa, Florida, currently worrying about the possible flooding by Hurricane Isaac's passing, I am thinking of conservatism. You know, the kind of conservatism that preaches that LGBTQ people are less human. The kind of conservatism that preaches that evolution is an evil lie. The kind of conservatism that preaches that climate change is a myth. 

I also consider these words attributed to Gautama Buddha.

Conservatism requires something to conserve. In American politics, this conservation is most fundamentally the conservation of hereditary wealth. This isn't much of an advancement from Euro aristocracy. Funny thing is that the Europeans, sickened by millennia of aristocracy, have surpassed Americans in their remedies of social and economic inequality.

The vine of egoistic biological reproduction, heredity and wealth is deeply rooted. What does it take to pull it out by the roots. Mao tried. Lenin tried. Their efforts became corrupted by the same smothering vine, reborn. Bureaucrats as aristocrats.

Struggling, evolving America was a place where the roots of heredity paled compared to the success of personal achievement and personal contribution to the greater good. The pioneering spirit of the early Americans, eventually corrupted by conquest and wealth, inspired the Declaration of Independence and the original U.S. Constitution.