Back to roots

Toward the end of Diogenes' recent retreat, Master Dorje advised him to give attention to those who pay attention to him, or as Rinpoche Dorje put it, "those who have ears to hear." Dio quickly saw the wisdom of that advice. "I'm neither a newsmaker nor reporter," he said. "Everything I work with has become common knowledge, reported broadly by all kinds of media. What I can contribute is opinion, insight and thoughtful commentary, and as the Master said, many--perhaps most--people cannot or will not hear those things. If I am capable of changing anything, it can be only a few minds--yet a small number of minds might bring about great change if they work together. So I will not seek huge audiences, but welcome them if they come; and in the meantime pay attention to those who do me the honor of hearing my words."

Now I must point out here that Diogenes has not gone soft.  He remains committed to action that will bring about the downfall of the Great Pretender, and urges his readers to join him in that effort, and to urge their friends, both on and off Facebook, to do the same. This is the way ideas are spread.

On April 19, shortly before he became aware he was having a concentration problem, Diogenes published a post here consisting of a list of headlines taken from major news media and asked readers to vote on which one they would like him to consider. The "winner"was, "Mr. Trump Plays by His Own Rules (or No Rules)," by the NY Times editorial board, published April 18.*

The board, saying the Trump administration is "filled with people who seem determined to wring every last dollar and ounce of trust from the American people," cites one startling and troubling statistic: "The Office of Government Ethics received 39,105 public queries and complaints about Trump administration ethics over the past six months, compared with 733 during the same period eight years earlier at the start of the Obama administration." What this means, of course, is that corruption has become a way of life in the Trump administration. But it also means that people are listening, inquiring, watching, and like us are waiting for the moment to act to bring down the House of Trump like the flimsy and rotten construction it is.

It's often stated that the United States is a nation of laws--that is to say, rules--that govern all of us. Let me say that again: All of us, top to bottom. And being a nation of laws, universally applied and universally observed, is what lets our society and our government work, indeed, exist. An old joke pointing out the difference between the Soviet Union and the United States went like this: "In the Soviet Union, everything is forbidden except those things that are expressly allowed. In the U.S., everything is allowed except those things that are expressly forbidden."

We have a body of elected representatives called Congress that is charged with making the rules that govern the nation. We may not agree with Congress, and they certainly haven't done their job very well over the past several years, but we agree to abide by the social contract we have with Congress that is embedded in the Constitution. Every American citizen is protected equally by our laws, and every citizen must abide by them. Nowhere in any federal oath of office is there a clause granting the oath taker the liberty to break our rules. To allow such a thing could well lead to chaos and anarchy--and the Trump administration is skating dangerously close to that edge.

*Link to the NYT editorial: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/.../mr-trump-plays-by-his-own-rules-or-no-rules.html

--Richard Brown