Democracy and Our Built-in Shit Detectors, Part 3

“Following your feelings will lead you to their source. Only through emotions can you encounter the force field of your own soul.” Gary Zukav

Good advice if one remembers that we have ego feelings – feelings arising from our identification with the ego’s nightmare, usually being fear based, anger and blame, and spirit feelings – feelings arising from our identification with spirit’s happy dream, feelings of compassion, love, gratitude and joy. Following the feelings that arise from identifying with spirit is what I think Zukav is talking about.

That’s where the built-in shit detectors I’ve been blogging about come in. From a centered place of IDing with spirit, we are able to distinguish between It and the ego’s BS. When encountering the ego’s BS - shit, we don’t have to be annoyed, angry or upset – tho that’s what tends to happen to me, so that’s what I’m working on – we simply need to know its shit and not take it so seriously.

My problem is, as a Poli Sci major, who joined the Peace Corps and loves American democracy, I see what now passes for intelligent political discourse as so much shit. That’s what happens when one has a personal, political memory that goes back to Eisenhower. I grieve for the Republic; I fear for its survival, as hypocrisy and monstrous lies pass for truth. Here are a couple of examples.

A bill to regulate so called, ‘internet cafes’ that are really online gambling establishments, with 800 now operating in Florida, each raking in an estimated $3 mil a year, was endorsed by the Florida Sheriffs Association and the Florida Chiefs of Police, but was defeated. Among those that voted against regulating these gambling establishments were, according to the St. Pete Times, two Republican legislators, Rep. Peter Nehr and Sen. Mike Bennett, both of whom own ‘internet cafes.’ Is that shit or what?

How’s this for hypocrisy, while railing about big government intrusion into private lives and gov’t. raising the cost of health care, Florida passed a law requiring woman to get and ultra sound before an abortion. Does that raise the cost of health care? Is that a gov’t. intrusion into private life?

More hypocrisy, while insisting the gov’t can’t force people to buy health insurance, Florida just passed a law requiring Medicaid recipients to join an HMO – one of which used to be owned by the governor.

There are too many of these to list here. Suffice it to say, I pray that the stink from this shit will trigger the shit detectors in the people of Florida, so that next elections, we can vote these folks out and perhaps find a few who’s shit doesn’t stink as much.

Well, OK! Can you tell from the tone of my comments how centered in spirit I am, and how I’m not taking this shit so seriously?