Terrorism

I remember in my youth watching a buddhist monk self-immolate in protest of the continuing violence in his country.  This was something different, and something profoundly more self-sacrificial  than simply "protesting," even when there were modest risks associated with "protesting."  Watching him sit in the lotus position, the flames rising from his body, I was inspired to look into buddhism and I have been looking into ever since.  I am not a "practicing" buddhist.  I find the ritual associated with buddhism as silly and counter-intuitive as any other religion, and insofar as it is a "religion" in its various manifestations, it asks for belief as silly and counter-intuitive as any other "religion."  My philosophy of life, however, has been profoundly influenced by my study of buddhism, and continues to be.  By way of disclosure, some thoughts:

First, buddhism is not a theistic religion.  There is no single all-powerful, all-knowing god, nor is the buddha the oriental equivalent of the christ.  While he IS revered, and there are enough gold plated statues to signal that reverence, including the one on our bedroom dresser, he is NOT revered as a God, but more as a founding father of a philosophical lineage.  Those forms of buddhism that DO make of him the oriental equivalent of the christ, and that make the Lotus Sutra a bible of sorts -- the forms of buddhism that subscribe to magic chants that fulfill our wishes -- have succumbed to a form of fundamentalism that misses the entire point of buddhism.  One must transcend one's self, and become, if not self-immolating, then at the very least above the petty dictates of day-to-day desire and fear.  Although it puts a release from "suffering" or a salvation of sorts at the center of things, that release comes through a self-development that ultimately transcends self, looking deeply into the nature of consciousness through meditation.   There is an arduousness, life-long quality, about that self-development.  If you believe that its "easy" to have an empty mind, just try sitting for a half hour, and empty your mind of everything, every transient thought, to include thoughts around the challenge of just sitting with an empty and serene mind.  It's as difficult as NOT thinking about an orange elephant now that I've asked you, implored you, please!  DON'T think of an orange elephant.  Letting orange elephants, especially those with long blue tusks, into the mind is dangerous.

Second, to the best of my knowledge, buddhism has never condoned organized violence.  I am sure I'm wrong in saying this, and I'm sure someone can point out more than one instance.  As a wholly human endeavor, however, it is as subject to human folly and foibles as any other and I can be reasonably certain it would include violence against others,  but I have not gone looking for it and it has not come easily to hand, unlike the biblical and koranic religions, where there are plenty of examples, not only condoned in the "holy" texts, but played out in the historical life of the religion.  Although there are some variants of buddhism that do revere one or another sutra, and would make of it something like a bible, there really is no core, canonical, infallible "holy" book that professes to be the "word" of god, with a capital G, because, well, there is no such god.  At any one point, if one fully understands a sutra, one has gone well beyond the need for it.  They are, after all is said and done, just words, and one should not mistake words for the thing itself, any more than one should mistake the word "moon" for the waxing and waning presence in the night sky.  I can imagine a buddhist country, so to speak, making the five ethical precepts the law of the land -- that one should abstain from harming living beings, stealing, sexual misconduct, lying and intoxication -- but then it's not difficult imagining any country making the precepts the law of the land.

There is a strain of home grown "buddhist" thought that runs through writers like Thoreau, and has found its adherents, but I don't see that, really, as much of a threat.  Here again, I am sure I'm wrong, and somewhere no doubt in the more radical fringes of the environmental movement, I'm sure there has been Thoreau inspired violence, but again I have not gone looking for it, and the daily paper does not deliver to my doorstep.   If I were to list the threats to America, however, I would list "religion" first and foremost.  I am thinking mostly of theistic religions, and even more directly of fundamentalist theistic religions.   By far, in ways that frighten me more deeply than Trumps brand of oligarchic fascism, I am frightened of fundamentalist theistic religions.

First, of course, there is the threat from without.  The GOP is asking us to say "radical Islam" and I will say it, "radical Islam."  Indeed, insofar as it is a theistic religion, I will say "Islam" is a threat to the country.   I am not suggesting, not even for a nano-second, that we do what cruz suggests -- that we "monitor" muslim neighborhoods for potential "radicalization."  In the US, I'm not sure what a "muslim" neighborhood might be.  In Michigan, the state with the greatest number, Muslims represent about 1.2% of the population, with the greatest concentration in Dearborn at 29K.   In New Jersey, Patterson also has a high concentration of Muslims.  I am sure in Dearborn and Patterson, there are predominantly muslim neighborhoods, but elsewhere it becomes more diffuse, particularly in New York and LA.  Perhaps we should then create Muslim neighborhoods so that they might be monitored.  Oh, wait, someone else relocated a particular religious community into "neighborhoods" so they might be more easily monitored, and we probably don't want to be like him!  And besides, how would we know someone is a Muslim?  Short of registration by religion (perhaps when we get our driver's license?) or a very robust surveillance system (we all have accessible cell phone data?), I'm not sure how anyone would know, or that anyone should know, whether or not I'm a muslim.  There's that pesky first amendment, not to mention the fifth and fourteenth amendments, which we ALL know should really only apply to good christians (except, perhaps, catholics).  If you want to radicalize the muslims in the US, if you want to precipitate even more religiously inspired violence to excuse even more religiously inspired violence of counter-jihad, then absolutely do what cruz suggests.

I am not so blinkered, however, to suggest that religiously inspired violence is NOT a threat to the citizens of the US.  I am pretty sure that radical islamic terrorists will not soon show up in Mountain Home and bomb the walmart, but the daily news provides enough evidence to suggest that it is a threat to our own and the safety of others throughout the world.  If the self-immolating buddhist monk inspired a reverence in me, the notion of the suicide bomber inspires nothing but a deep sense of repugnance and sadness.  The buddhist monk did not impose his suffering on others, but suffered himself in the hopes that it might ease the suffering of others.  The suicide bomber is suffering -- to deny it would be absurd -- but in the very nature of the act he or she imposes suffering on others.  I wanted to say "innocent others," but of course the suicide bomber, and those who send him on his mission, do not see the others as "innocent," but rather "guilty" of the deepest infractions against their god, and the bomb blast is punishment for that "guilt" in exactly the same way that the fire and brimstone raining down on Sodom and Gomorrah were punishment for their infractions against god.

The suicide bomber imposes suffering on others as "punishment."  I am pretty sure that our "retribution" against them -- carpet bombing ISIS as cruz suggests -- might make us feel better, might assuage our honor, but it will most assuredly not serve as a deterrent.  Anyone willing to strap a bomb to his chest and walk into an airport is not going to be deterred when we bomb him.  Indeed, if you want to precipitate even more religiously inspired violence, then absolutely do what cruz suggests.  I'm not sure what he believes carpet bombing to be, but carpet bombing areas containing civilians is considered a war crime according to the 1977 Protocol I of the Geneva Conventions.  There is a reason its a war crime, and it surprises me (NOT) that someone so adamantly opposed to abortion, so pro-life, should be willing to bomb children, and by definition you cannot carpet bomb WITHOUT bombing children.  

Moreover, it doesn't work.  Douhet, the original proponent, was wrong.  It didn't hasten the surrender of Germany in WWII.  It didn't break their will, any more than the bombing of London broke their will.  It was only the threat of total annihilation with the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki ... wait, maybe that's what he means?  Perhaps we should create acres of trinitite.  No wonder Iraq wants nuclear weapons.  So they might retaliate appropriately against our retaliation.  Round we go round we go round.  Retribution at this scale never works, unless of course one is able and willing to commit complete genocide.  Nuclear weapons create the ability, but I would hope not the willingness, though my hopes may well be disappointed.   For those who absolutely need biblical authority for the assertion, and an imperative to resist the "heroic" impulse of retribution, one need look no further than matthew 5:38.  Of course, as we all know, christ was a crucified weakling, and it is ever so much more satisfying to ignore the fulfillment of the law and simply exact the law as prescribed in deuteronomy 19:21 and "show no pity" in doing so. Either way, one has biblical authority.  We have not outgrown the heroic age, and it seems our politicians are vying with one another to be the biggest and baddest action hero or, better, super hero, but the reflection of evil is itself evil.  I am suggesting that retribution, particularly the sort of retribution advocated by the GOP contenders, and particularly the sort of retribution advocated by cruz, is hypocritical and itself evil.  Understandable, perhaps, but no less hypocritical and evil in its appeal to the worst instincts of the American people.

Ok, so let me say it, not only is radicalized, militarized Islam a threat, but equally radicalized, militarized christianity is a threat as well.  The real threats are the mutually exclusive forms of mono-theistic religion, whether muslim, christian, or judaic.  In this country, religion represents an even bigger threat from within because it undermines who we are and what we value, not as individuals, but as a nation.   First and foremost, we are not a "christian" nation.  We are a secular nation.  We are, of course, predominantly christian, but the constitutional amendments were in part designed, from the outset, to protect the minority from the majority, and so designed to protect the muslim minority from the christian majority, particularly the sort of evangelical religion that would impose its own versions of biblical values and law, that would impose its own versions of willful ignorance in opposition to both biological and earth sciences, that would reveal to be as "intolerant" as the most radicalized forms of islamic authority.  We have made considerable progress over the course of the last century, but were we to become, truly a "christian" nation with an "evangelical" base, I fear for all those who, like myself, who find evangelical values, with their thinly disguised xenophobia, their thinly disguised racism black and white and brown, their thinly disguised denial of female sexuality and their reduction of women to reproductive chattel by denying birth control and abortion, their sanctimonious and supercilious ignorance and disdain for science and all empirical reason -- I fear, that is, for all those who, like myself, find evangelical values deeply repugnant.   So be it.  So long, however, as we remain a secular nation, I grant you the freedom to live in fear, ignorance and hatred, so long as you tolerate my altogether feeble attempts to rise above it.