What Should the Democratic Party Stance Be Regarding the Police?

At the start of the Democratic convention, The New York Times reported that Biden made a statement during a discussion that “most cops are good; the bad ones need to be identified and prosecuted.”  It that quote is complete and not taken out of context, it shows an unfortunate lack of understanding by Biden of the policing problem.

This is not primarily a matter of good cops or bad cops.  Of course, as Biden said, most cops are good and the bad ones must be identified and prosecuted.

But the problem goes further.  It goes to the institutional racism present in many police departments.  It goes to methodologies of subduing a possible suspect that go beyond reasonable force.  It goes to the virtual free rein given police officers as they go about their jobs.

I would not argue for defunding or even reduced funding for police departments.  They have a valid function to perform and they need the dollars and manpower to do it.  But how they go about that function must be cleansed of all racism and toleration of excessive force.

There is a valid reason why the police are often considered the enemy by people of color.  The police must serve and protect all citizens equally so that this conflict between the police and those they are sworn to serve and protect ceases to be.

If Biden has gotten boxed into defending the police status quo because of progressive calls to defund, that shows a lack of analytic thinking on his part and his staff.  There is a middle ground.  As I stated above, I am not for defunding the police, but I insist on effective, practical police reform. 

Making America Great Again? Trump Fails His Own Test

We of course are familiar with the Trump slogan and the red MAGA caps.  Trump certainly claims that he has.  But has anyone in print or otherwise bothered to systematically ask the question, “Has Trump made America great again?”  Not to my knowledge.  And so that is what this post will assess.

In doing so, I am not going to get into the philosophical discussion about what made America great or whether it was no longer great, as Trump claims, under Obama.  That’s another article.  This is just taking the phrase at its most simple, straight-forward Trumpian meaning.

Has America become stronger militarily?  Have we become stronger economically?  Have we become more respected among the world’s nations?  Have we become stronger geopolitically.  Has the average American citizen become better off financially, more secure?  Is the average American citizen closer to obtaining the Rights due him under the Constitution?  Is the average American citizen more physically secure now?

These are all stated components of Trump’s goal of making America great again.  Sadly, both for the country and for his followers, just the opposite has occurred in almost every area.  Trump has failed his own test.

Weaker Militarily:  While Trump has increased the Defense Department budget, military strength is only partly a numbers game.  It has more to do with effectively being able to deploy troops as needed and defeating the enemy.  While troops have been deployed effectively, though no better than before, our record of defeating the enemy has actually gotten worse.  Whether in Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq, or Iran, our position vis a vis the enemy has either weakened under Trump or stayed pretty much the same.  Trump’s bluster aside, we are not stronger militarily.

Weaker Economically:  Even before the pandemic we were not stronger economically.  The stock market may have been going gang-busters, but the economy was growing at a slow pace and the average American had not felt much of an improvement.  Yes, unemployment was down, but most of the new jobs created were lower paying than the ones that were lost.  And of course because of Trump’s disastrous handling of the coronavirus, his total lack of leadership, the American economy is now, despite the once-again soaring stock market, in a very weakened state.

Certainly on the world scene, we were even before the pandemic not stronger economically;  China is the big bully, and while Trump stood up to China, America lost more than it gained in the trade wars.  Since the pandemic, we are way behind other countries in economic recovery. 

Less Respected:  America has probably never been so little respected among the world’s nations as under Trump.  He is a laughing stock to most of the world, and by association, so is the country.  We are not even respected by our allies.  Trump’s failed response to the pandemic has made matters worse; the greatest nation in the world with its great health system and capacity is at it’s knees, the virus is winning.  It’s probably safe to say that we aren’t even feared by anyone, except in the sense that Trump is so unpredictable that he capable of doing almost anything if his ire is aroused.

Weaker Geopolitically:  Our strength and respect in the world militarily, economically, and politically is has made America strong geopolitically.  Under Trump, there can be no question that America is less strong geopolitically.  In addition to the factors already discussed above, Trump’s “America First” perspective has resulted in a shrinking of our presence and impact around the world, which has in turn made us weaker geopolitically.  We are no longer either in actuality or perception the leader of the “free” world.

Average American Weaker Financially:  Trump in his Inaugural address talked of the forgotten men and women who suffered greater economic inequality.  Yet as mentioned before, despite the lower unemployment rate before the pandemic hit, the average American was not stronger financially, was not more secure financially.  The huge increase in wealth resulting from the stock market boom and the bulk of benefit from Trump’s tax cuts went to the top layer of American society.  And now the pandemic has resulted in a huge downturn in the economy and with it the financial status of millions of unemployed American workers.

Average American’s Physical Security Not Improved:  Trump made a major issue out of what he saw as the crumbling physical security of the average American from crime, especially in our cities, and the threat to our physical security from illegal immigrants.  Again in his Inaugural address, he said that “this American carnage stops right here and stops right now.”  

While he has sent more money to the police, our security is pretty much as it was before Trump.  While Trump has enacted draconian measures against illegal and other immigrants, that has not improved our physical security.   The reason why nothing has really changed is that Trump does not understand and so has not addressed the real factors that continue to make crime a major issue in the inner city.

Average American Not Benefiting More From His Rights:  Despite all the fuss about the 2nd Amendment Right to bear arms and the Right to Life, and in general talking about Rights in connection with the pandemic, we are further from our basic Rights now than previously.  The most essential element of our Constitutional rights is to be free from government intrusion, except when necessary to protect the greater good.  

But under Trump, an even greater percentage of our citizenry and many in the halls of government seem to have no concept of the greater good, of the American social contract.  It’s all about me, my rights.  And they’re angry about it.  There is a lack of understanding that no right, even the 1st Amendment, is absolute; the exercise of one’s Right can never damage the greater good and in certain cases cannot negatively impact another’s Rights.  And with regard to the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness noted in the Declaration of Independence, we are far from protecting that Right, certainly for people of color and the poor.

So even judged on Trump’s own terms, how he would define what would make America great again, he has failed miserably.  Worse, he has taken a large portion of Americans and Republican politicians down his dark path and so damaged, perhaps irretrievably, our democracy.  Ironically, in his Inaugural, he spoke of “ignorance stifled dreams.”  Truly, ignorance has never had a higher place of honor in our country than at the present moment.

The Universality of Spiritual Truth

I have been a practicing Buddhist for 25+ years.  During that time, my practice has deepened, I am one with the true Buddha nature inside me (well, almost), and I share my faith and knowledge with others through my Buddhist blog, www.thepracticalbuddhist.com, and through the several books I have written.

It has been reaffirming for my faith to learn that the mystical traditions of all three Abrahamic faiths and great religious thinkers all basically teach the same thing as Buddhism: that suffering is universal and that we suffer because we have fallen away, out of touch, with the divinity that is within each of us; consumed instead with the ways of the world and the lessons it has taught us.  And that is is our responsibility, and possibility, to reconnect with that divinity and thus end our suffering.

Most recently, I found that reaffirmation in reading an article in The New Yorker, about Søren Kierkegaard, the 19th century Danish anti-establishment Christian thinker.  The article notes that he said that everyone is in despair and that if someone thinks they are not, they are lying to themselves.  Interestingly, in a recent video of mine, “The Mind - Suffering Connection,” I begin by noting that many viewers will say that they don’t suffer.  After asking them some questions, I say, “You may be in denial, but you suffer.”

Kierkegaard says that only by acknowledging our suffering can we begin to understand that suffering is “defiance of God,” or in modern theology, defiance of the divinity that is within each of us.  And that we can be freed from that despair or suffering only by giving ourselves over entirely to God.  The Zen monks who taught me put the same point this way, “by surrendering your ego-mind to your true Buddha nature,” or in the language of 12-step, “by turning your will and your life over to the care of your true Buddha nature/higher power.”

He wrote, as the monks taught, that the responsibility of choice - to believe or not believe, to act or not act - is always individual.  This is beyond difficult: to overcome our training, our life experience.  But it is possible and the responsibility is ours to do so.

He also said that life can only be understood backward, but it has to be lived forward.  In Buddhism, we learn that we do what we do because of our learned experience: the emotions, judgments, cravings, and attachments that form our ego-mind.  This is the past that for most people not only explains their current lives but controls their future.  Only if one frees oneself from the past, from the intervention of the ego-mind, can one move forward in a way which is one’s best interest, free of the burden of the past.

The last point I will make in this comparison is that Kierkegaard says that as one begins the spiritual path it is complex and then becomes more and more simple.  That is the experience I have found in my Buddhist practice.  As the practice deepens, as my connection with my true Buddha nature deepens, life becomes more simple because I am not pulled this way and that by the past, by my ego-mind.  Instead, I know that life is just the way it is. There is no obsession with future; only the present moment is real.  And I know I will be safe regardless what life throws my way because I have returned home, and will always return home, to my true Buddha nature.

And so how sad, how proof-positive of the fallen nature of man (including the men of organized religion) that instead of focusing on these universal truths and the fact that all religions at their core teach the same thing … and that we thus are all one … man and organized religion has used religion as a divisive instrument, a way to control their followers and gain and maintain power by creating an us v them world view.  How opposite of true spirituality is this!  How perverse and dark.  Our religious leaders are an obstacle to our spiritual growth, not the light they should be.

In Trump We Trust

It has been apparent for most of Trump’s presidency that regardless what he does or says, regardless how outrageous, how unprofessional, regardless whether he is fact-checked and shown to have lied, and certainly regardless what the mainstream (non-conservative) media say, Trump’s core base of support believes him, and Congressional Republicans either aggressively support him or stay silent.  So much so that one could say that his base believes in him.

A new poll published in The New York Times verifies this fact, but shows that his infallibility among his core base is weakening.  The poll shows that the vast majority of all Americans trust medical scientists and the CDC to provide accurate information about the coronavirus.  90/83% of Democrats, and 75/71% of Republicans.  

In interpreting this data, since Trump’s core base is usually said to be about 31% of the electorate, and self-described Republicans have recently wavered between 25 - 30%, one can say that virtually all Republicans are in his core base, meaning they have strongly approved of his performance.

The poll verifies that the trust of Trump among Republicans is still high.  Although Republican say their trust in medical scientists and the CDC is high, their trust in Dr. Fauci, who has openly contradicted Trump on many occasions is only 51% while their trust in Trump’s providing accurate information about the virus is 66%.  Their trust in information from the national news media is a dismal 7%.

Since medical scientists, and the CDC, routinely dispute Trump’s statements about the virus and the government’s response to the virus, it indicates that for a large percentage of his base, they believe in him regardless what their mind tells them.  The explanation for Fauci getting a much lower trust score that medicate scientists, is that he openly, albeit tactfully, disputes Trump’s statements, often right after Trump has said something, and on the same stage.  He’s in Trump’s face.  Many in his base don’t like that.

The good news in this otherwise bleak report is that a good chunk of Trump’s core base (34%) do not trust him to provide accurate information.  This is in sync with various national polls that show that Trump’s support is slipping within his base.  For example, in a recent Economist/YouGov poll, his“strongly approve” job performance rating is 65% of Republicans.  And given the importance that the pandemic will have in people’s decision making process come election time, this will hurt Trump even as he tries to stoke the fires of his base.

The election is still more than 4 months away.  But the facts on the ground and the polls give one a reasonable basis for hope that the election will be decisive and not a cliff-hanger.

Will George Floyd’s Death and the Protests Finally Lead in a National Discussion of Racism in America?

Over the years, I have written several posts about the necessity for this country to have a serious discussion about racism in order to free not just Blacks* but all Americans from this terrible curse at long last.  For example, in April 2019, I wrote a post, “We Need a National Discussion on Race and Racism.”

In the aftermath of George Floyd’s death and the nationwide protests, while the subject of racism is in the air, most of the action agenda proposed has to do with how to reform police departments.  While this is much needed and will undoubtedly be helpful, it does not touch the underlying problem.

This is not just a police issue.  This is a national issue that touches almost everyone and certainly impacts Blacks in all aspects of their lives.

Most fundamentally perhaps, because of its lasting impact, is the issue of the disparity in the education received by Black youths relative to whites.  While there are numerous factors that impact this disparity, and yes, one is what the family provides the child, a major factor is the disparity of education funding received by inner city (and rural) schools based on the residential tax base of the school district.  The other major factor, less often spoken of, is the bias of many teachers against the potential of the very children they are charged with educating.  Can we not all agree in the motto of the United Negro College Fund that, “a mind is a terrible thing to waste.”

There have been numerous studies that have shown what a school with proper resources, and even more importantly proper attitude, can do with children from the worst parts of the inner city.  To quote from one study, “In light of significant relationships that exist between teachers’ sense of efficacy [the belief that they are able to affect student performance] and higher student achievement and test scores, and in order to improve America’s schools, teachers’ low sense of efficacy in low performing urban schools should be seriously reconsidered.”

Another study titled, “Unequal Opportunities: Fewer Resources, Worse Outcomes for Students in Schools with Concentrated Poverty,” by the Commonwealth Institute, found that, “Students in high poverty schools have less experienced instructors, less access to high level science, math, and advanced placement courses, and lower levels of state and local spending on instructors and instructional materials.”

But even if there were a national will to address these issues, that would still leave untouched the underlying issue of the breadth and depth of racism in this country.  That is the legacy of slavery and it still impacts both whites and Blacks.  Economically, it keeps our country from maximizing its potential.  Spiritually, it keeps us from achieving our full humanity.

We must use the opportunity of masses of whites coming together to protest the treatment of Blacks by police, and predominantly white legislatures responding, to focus attention and discussion on the much more difficult issue of acknowledging and undoing the continuing destructive impact of racism in America.  

This may be our last chance to truly transform and reenergize our country so that the statement in the Declaration of Independence becomes based in reality, not just aspirational: that, “All men are created equal.  That they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights.  That among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.  That to secure these Rights, governments are instituted among men.”  Our last chance to achieve Martin Luther King’s dream that all of us will be able to join hands and say, “Free at last!  Free at last!  Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!”

_______________

* I should note that I use the term “Blacks” rather than the possibly more politically correct “African-American” because I don’t approve of these hyphenated euphemisms.  We are all Americans; that should go without saying.  The hyphenated form, by qualifying people, whether African, Latino, or Asian, seems to connote a less than full American.  I also capitalize “Blacks” out of respect for the defined group of millions of Americans, citizens with a powerful history and culture, that it represents.

How Does Biden Defeat This Incumbent President?

What does Joe Biden need to do to defeat Trump in November? And hopefully not just squeaking by but by trouncing him.

First, the President has the bully pulpit, and never has that phrase been more apt than in the case of Donald Trump.  Biden has to figure out a way, in this age of pandemic with social restrictions, to give himself a public presence, to make him a leader for the American people.  He must develop his own bully pulpit.

Videos from his basement don’t hack it!  Yes, he can’t hold rallies and many of the usual things that candidates do.  

But he can hold press conferences … live ones … that reporters will cover.  Certainly on the issue of how to respond to the pandemic, he has ample reason to hold a regularly scheduled weekly news conferences to criticize what Trump is doing or not doing, tell the people what needs to happen and what he would do if President.  Like his plan for the Federal government taking over responsibility for testing and contact tracing … which was announced in a post on Medium and hardly noticed.  There is so much confusion surrounding the virus and opening up, the people would welcome a sane, trustworthy voice on these issues.

He can also use press conferences to announce his policy positions on other important matters linked to his criticism of Trump administration actions or policies.  There is no shortage of weekly items that highlight how Trump is destroying policies that were meant to protect the average person … health care, environmental roll-backs, the post office, to name just a few.  And that would give Biden the opportunity to showcase his own policies, not just to protect the status quo but to improve protections for the average person.

One caveat:  do not in general campaign against Trump the person.  Data show that most people are not as upset about Trump the person as liberals and especially progressives are.  Especially since Biden needs to attract people who voted for Trump, attacking Trump the person becomes viewed as attacking the people who voted for him.  So stick to attacking Trump’s policies.

In taking himself to the people, he has to keep in mind four key audiences:  white voters without a college degree, people of color both Black and Latino, and young voters.  If Biden is to win, let alone win handily, he must achieve a large turnout of voters in all four groups.  Luckily, everything that Biden should be saying, all the policies he should be promoting, he can say to all these audiences.  But he needs to make sure that in addition to talking about the big overarching issues, he addresses the needs of each of these constituencies directly.

One of the ways he can do this is to go and speak to them directly.  Yes, again, he cannot hold rallies.  But he can have news conferences around the country, in different type of locales that emphasize the inclusive nature of his policies.  He can hold these conferences in rust-belt areas, in urban Black ghettos and urban Latino ghettos, on college campuses.  And he should hold them in rural areas to emphasize that Democratic policies are good for rural areas; they aren’t just about helping the urban poor.

What’s disturbing is that either Biden has surrounded himself with a week campaign crew, because none of these what I think are obvious tactics are happening, which is what I think is what’s going on, or the less likely possibility that he just isn’t comfortable doing what needs to be done, other than through ads.  That would be unfortunate.

Whatever.  If he is not by his nature the man for this time, than those around him have to goose him up to become the type of man needed for this time.  The future of our country depends on it, and I am not saying that lightly.  Another four years of Trump would be devastating.   Even a nail-bitingly-close election would be harmful because it would indicate that the country as a whole was still terribly divided, not ready to move forward to do what’s necessary to truly make America great again.

With Rights Come Responsibilities

People on the Right are always talking about their rights and how the government is taking away their rights.  Whether it’s the issue of gun ownership or restriction of movement during the pandemic, people on the Right don’t seem to understand what it means to be a citizen of the United States.  Yes, we have rights.  But with rights, come responsibilities.  Not even the vaunted right of free speech, let alone the right to gun ownership is absolute.

Man is by nature concerned solely with his and his family's wellbeing. That is his biological imperative.  Socially, however, man has evolved into being a member, a citizen, of a larger society. And so, from the most primitive communities to contemporary societies, that driving instinct has been reigned in for the greater good of the community.  

In primitive societies and in many Asian societies, a collective culture developed that enforced working for the good of the group largely through strong social pressure; the individual was of lesser importance. In the West, where the concept of individualism took root, societies have instead depended upon laws to control the relationship between man's individual liberties and rights and his part in the larger society.

There are thousands of laws that control the right of an individual to do what he might want to do.  Whether it's the criminal law, traffic laws, building codes and zoning laws, or product liability law, laws have been developed that balance the individual’s rights against the greater public good; they tell the individual what the limits are of his freedom to act.  Without such laws we would have anarchy.

As our society became more civilized and enlightened, the concept of man's pro-active responsibilities to the larger society developed.  Existing along side his rights, are concomitant shared responsibilities for the community that go beyond the responsibility not to harm others.

In the current political context, there is a uproar on the Right regarding this fundamental aspect of the relationship between government, individual rights, and the greater public good that came to define the American social contract in the 20^th century.  This post will look at several examples.  The most topical is the restriction on people’s movement in the pandemic.  The second  is the ongoing issue of the right of gun ownership.  Other less emotional, but equally deep concerns, are the regulation of business, progressive taxation, and the government's responsibilities towards those less fortunate.

1.  The government has wide power to regulate matters that concern public health and safety.  Certainly in this period of pandemic, they have the power to restrict movement and take other measures to control the spread of the virus, to protect individuals from each other.   Yes, this restricts our normal rights in numerous ways, but these restrictions are necessary for the public good.

2.  As for gun ownership, even if one agrees (whjch I don’t) in the Constitutional right to individual gun ownership recently-found in the 2nd Amendment, that right like the right to free speech found in the 1st Amendment is not absolute.  It can be limited when necessary for the greater good.  So whether it’s broader background checks or prohibiting private ownership of assault-type weapons, these are restrictions that meet the constitutional standard.  The NRA’s argument that ultimately pro-gun control advocates want to take away your guns is just fear-mongering.  There is no basis in that claim.

3.  Then there’s the issue of business regulation.  The primary interest of any business is self-interest ... that is its nature as much as it's man's nature.  As we saw during the industrial revolution and the early decades of the 20th century, if business is not regulated, it will show no concern for either its workers or the greater public good.  

Because of this self-interest and the resulting efforts through lobbying and other means to avoid any restrictions, regardless how necessary to protect the public good, I have argued in earlier posts (“What Is the Role of Corporations in Our Society”) that because corporations are a creature of the law and have received many benefits under that law, corporate law should require that part of the decision making process be the impact of corporate action on the public good, whether it be directly or through the environment.

4.  Taxes.  No one likes paying them.  Most taxes, likes sales taxes, are unfortunately regressive … the lower a person’s income, the larger the share of their income that goes to paying taxes.  (With regard to the sales tax, that’s because lower income people spend a larger share of their income on the purchase of necessities and other goods, accounting for the tax taking a larger share of their income.)  

As the United States developed into a more progressive society, it realized that regressive taxes posed an unfair burden on the poor.  A socially fair tax would work in the opposite way … the higher ones income, the greater the share of that income that would be paid in taxes because such people have much more discretionary income and therefore a higher tax would not pose any hardship.  And so when the income tax was instituted, that’s how it was designed … as a progressive tax.

In 1932, the income tax for the top bracket was 63% of income over $1,000,000.  In 1950, it was 91% of income over $400,000.  As recently as 1980, the rate was 70% of income over $212,000.  Today, the rate is 37% of income over $510,000. The rich are paying a smaller portion of their income as taxes to support the greater public good than at any time since the income tax was instituted.

5.  Finally, there is government action to support the poor.  Over the course of the past 100 years, again as society has become more civilized and enlightened, government has taken a greater hand in both directly providing for those in need as well as ensuring in various ways that they have the opportunity to better their position in life. 

This was a fuller implementation of the role of government stated in the Declaration of Independence … “to secure” the right to life, liberty, and happiness.  Programs that were once considered radical or socialist by Republicans, such as Social Security and Medicare, which they fought tooth and nail at the time, are now accepted by most as necessary programs ... not without their problems, but vital to the wellbeing of a large proportion of our citizens and thus the stability of our economy.

In all these areas, the current radical brand of Republicans, egged on by the energy and anger of first the Tea Party and then President Trump, have argued that the government’s role should be reduced or eliminated.  People should be free to do what they think best.  Business should not be regulated.  The wealthy should not pay more taxes.  The poor should have to fend for themselves … if you don’t succeed, it’s your fault.  (Programs like Social Security are distinguished because it’s been earned, and corporate subsidies are necessary because of their importance to the economy.)

Each of these positions is against the balance that our nation has historically struck between private rights, the public good, and the role of government.  These positions violate an enlightened concept of the rights and responsibilities of a citizen.

Republicans wish to take us back to an era where individualism ran rampant and success was limited to the few.  America’s strength in the 20^th century evolved by broadening the base of prosperity among its citizens and creating a more vibrant, intelligent workforce through the intervention of government programs and regulation.

That is where we need to continue heading in the 21^st century to ensure America’s continued strength.  Trump’s policies will not make America great again because they are against the empowerment of people and thus actually weaken America.  Radical Republicans need to be recognized for what they are … hypocrites masquerading as the party of the people.  They are not responsible citizens of this great republic.