Ten Things I Question

No proselytizing. No endorsements. No political ax to grind.

Just ten things I wonder about:

1. The Buddha teaches us to see things as they are, without the overlay of ego. But if I do, and what I see reflects what I already believe, am I doing it right? Or have I always been seeing things the way they are without the overlay of ego?
2. Vladimir Putin says democracies don’t work. Is the United States his case study?
3. Democracy is chaos. Trump is chaos. Are all the West Wing shenanigans really just the government we’ve wanted all along?
4. The Democratic Party has always been chaos, while the Republicans have always been a bit fussier about maintaining order. But now Dem supporters are urban and suburban sophisticates, while the Repubs find love among Trump’s “poorly educated”. Does switching constituents radically change or simply reinforce old party ideals?
5. Xi Jinping’s father was imprisoned by Mao. As a boy during the cultural revolution, Xi himself was “sent down” to toil in the countryside. Now he’s about to become China’s leader for life. I wonder, is this revenge, or fulfillment of Mao’s vision?
6. Is it possible to fight for political change without clinging to a specifically desired outcome?
7. Raising tariffs on steel and aluminum will make construction in the U.S. more expensive. Making construction more expensive will elevate the value of those buildings already built and owned. I wonder, who benefits from this?
8. Is there peace in agitation?
9. There’s a prostitute from Belarus with ties to Russian oligarchs. She now sits in a Thai jail. In exchange for asylum, she has offered the U.S. 16 hours of taped oligarch conversations, promising they will shed light on Russian interference in our election. Assuming we accept the deal, should she be admitted into the country as a refugee or on one of those Einstein visas like Melania got?
10. I wonder, is Donald Trump only president so he can oppose chain migration and send his in-laws back to Slovenia? Or is that the plot of an old Honeymooners episode I once saw?