Conservatives since Ronald Reagan have been very adept at convincing Americans that people who are down on their luck and who find themselves in the least well-off position that Rawls asks us to consider are simply not working hard enough, are lazy, or in some other way gaming the system. I remember having a conversation with a clerk at Zumiez, a skateboard shop in the Maine Mall. He told me about his past struggles with unemployment and how he resented the prevailing attitude that those who accepted unemployment benefits or other public assistance were simply lazy, preferring to sit at home and collect their checks rather than look for work. He said before he got his job at Zumiez, he collected about $200 a week in unemployment benefits. His rent was almost $600 a month, which didn’t leave room for much else, even food. He desperately wanted to work, and luckily he found a job. But as we know, millions of other Americans haven’t been so lucky.

The paradigm that conservatives have been using to scare middle-class white voters for the past 30 years, and that echoes even today with the demonization of our first African-American president, is the concept of the “welfare queen.” This is somebody, probably a member of a minority, who would prefer to sit at home collecting a check instead of getting a job. This tired conservative strategy to get votes, continued with vigor in the Tea Party movement, is that the government is taking your money (white, middle-class, hard-working, people) and giving it to Those People (lazy minorities or illegal immigrants). As the political battles over collective-bargaining rights in Ohio, Michigan, and Wisconsin have demonstrated, teachers, police officers, firefighters, and other public-sector employees have also been lumped into the welfare queen’s family by conservative politicians. These valuable public workers have been rebranded as lazy, greedy underachievers who bilk the taxpayers out of their hard-earned money. As long as conservatives, and this would include every single current GOP presidential candidate, can continue to convince potential voters that there is one group (the true hard-working Americans) who have been duped by another group (the lazy minorities, illegal immigrants, and public employees), the strategy will continue. But this ignores the wisdom of Rawls’ thought-experiment, and provides conservative politicians and voters with a lazy intellectual justification for cutting social programs.

I would counter that most Americans, in fact the vast majority of them, want desperately to work and actually feel some shame in collecting unemployment benefits. Yes, there will always be folks who work the system to their advantage by cheating. Cheating exists at all levels of our society and, I would argue, is much more prevalent and devastating in the upper economic classes. (Take just one example: Richard Fuld, the CEO of the now-bankrupt Lehman Brothers, received over $483 million in compensation during the eight years between 2000 and 2008.) But one can’t make the logical leap, as conservative politicians have done, that the existence of cheating implies that everyone who needs help in our society is a cheater. Our social safety nets, the ones that fiscal conservatives are so eager to do away with, were wisely created to help our citizens survive the vagaries and whims of global capitalism. Tea Party aficionados love to rail against the evils of socialism. But do you know what really let us down these last ten years? Capitalism. Capitalism let us down. The kind of unbridled capitalism that conservatives love to talk about. The kind of capitalism that completely devastated the world economy. We had unrestrained, unbridled capitalism under George W. Bush, and look where it got us. We are still feeling its painful effects today.

All this a precursor to say that we seem to have lost one of the most vital elements of our, or any, society: compassion. Tea Party politicians are eager to complain about the supposed shredding of our Constitution under Barack Obama. But I fear that another document has been shredded: the social contract we have with each other. I see this in Washington, and I see this right here in Bath, Maine. In ten years, we have devolved from “United We Stand” to “Leave Me Alone.”

Conservative politicians have been very, very good at dividing us. But actually, we have divided ourselves. We have been too quick to believe their rhetoric. One of the great weaknesses of human nature is that we very quickly make up our minds without all the facts. Why do we automatically assume the worst about our fellow Americans? Because it’s the easiest position to take. Then we don’t have to think, or to open our hearts to the suffering of others. We believe in the value of our hard work and success, and don’t understand why others just can’t follow our lead. But life is uncertain, and nothing is permanent. We could be rich and successful one day, and need public assistance the next. Why? Because one of the cruelties of capitalism is that it always, always puts profits over people. Capitalism is not intrinsically patriotic. Capitalism goes where production costs are lowest and profits are highest. It’s true that capitalism has created great prosperity for our country. But capitalism and greed need not be synonymous. We can have capitalism without the unrestrained greed that toppled the world economy and caused millions of Americans to lose their jobs and their homes. All we have to do is remember the wisdom of John Rawls. What kind of society would we want to live in, knowing that we could one day be the ones on the very bottom? In such a society, we are all Those People.

2. Grapes of Wrath

3. Swimming Holes

4. Best Coast

5. Flight of the Conchords

6. Eat More Kale

7. Idle Parent

8. Jet Pens

9. Swim Naked

10. PUTS

“When we act impulsively, we do so out of habit. A thoughtless reaction. There’s no reflection involved. And the word impulsive suggests that it is not skillful. We often regret what we have done. Somebody asks us to come and help in the garden. And we find ourselves saying, ‘Yes, I’d love to!’ And immediately comes that sinking feeling that we really didn’t want to do it. And that we don’t have the time. We would prefer to be doing something else. It scratches on the mind and we think of excuses. It can lead to fibbing. ‘Woke up feeling terrible. I’ve got a job to do. Someone I must see. Forgot all about it.’ Of course, we are prolific in our apologies. But it leaves an uncomfortable feeling. That’s the dread of being found out. The shame of it. There’s a Mullah Nasruddin story. He is tired of his neighbor asking for the use of his donkey. So on the next request, he tells him the donkey is being used by someone else. Just then the donkey brays. And when his neighbor raises his eyebrows, he asks, ‘Who are you going to believe? Me or my donkey?’ We all want to be spontaneous. It suggests skillfulness and joy. And we think that spontaneity should arise spontaneously! But it’s hard work to train ourselves towards a genuine, unaffected naturalness about what we do. Consider sport! How many times do tennis players practice their shots? And in the immediacy of the game their strokes are spontaneous. Not that they are always as accurate as they would want them to be. Consider performance artists whether actors or musicians. Although their performance seems so natural, there has been an enormous amount of practice beforehand. So it is with virtues. We need to consciously develop them – goodwill, generosity, patience and so on. And then every so often we shall surprise ourselves at our spontaneous, wise and joyful response.”

I recognize myself in Bhante Bodhidhamma’s words. I am the chronic promiser. I promise to call, to write, to send the package, the card, the email, the thank-you note. I promise to pick up someone else’s children. Call me if you need me, I say. We should get together some time, have dinner. I’ll cook. But like the man with the braying donkey, I usually get found out. I want to be perfect first, and only after I have attained perfection will I be ready to help others. Reading this essay made me think of Mary Oliver’s poem The Journey, which touches on the the notion that the only person you can save is yourself. There is a constant struggle within me between selflessness and selfishness. There is a Buddhist idea that we can’t save all beings until we save ourselves. But an equally forceful Christian idea is that by saving others first, we simultaneously save ourselves. What do you believe?

Zhaozhou: “The oak tree in the garden.”

Click here to read Mumon’s comment.

“It’s spring and the daffodils are out. So I am hoping there is a sense of joy in the air for you. Joy is one of the Illimitables along with love, compassion and equanimity. And just like them it can be developed without boundary, limitlessly. Often in a rushed and overly busy day or in a slow, dull one, our attention fixates on the downers. But notice that there are times when some form of happiness does arise. Often if we are used to excitement we miss out on the sweetness of a quiet joy. Excitement is the subtle enemy of this joy for it is an expression of that desire to be happy in an overly emotional way. Quiet, peaceful joy often arises, but because we are so used to joy as excitement we miss it and fail to appreciate it. Perhaps it comes when, after some engagement, you have a quiet cup of tea; or while walking from here to there in a park or along a quiet street; or stopping and resting from what you are doing for a moment. When you notice this calm joy, say to yourself, ‘I am feeling a calm joy’. Sit with it and appreciate its qualities. And notice how you feel gently energized by it, not just physically but mentally. Then when you are settled in it and have drunk your fill, offer the cup to others and to all beings. ‘May you be joyful and may your joy increase!’ After all, a joy shared is a joy squared, for now you are happy because others are happy. Then there’s the power of ‘positive thinking’. The Buddha is very much into this practice. Even when you feel down, you can note that. Offer yourself a blessing: ‘May my unhappiness decrease. May my unhappiness come to an end.’ After a little while, offer the same blessings to all beings. And then as it were, put it to the side. And start offering joyful blessings to yourself, something sympathetic to oneself.  As you begin to lift, offer it to all beings. This is a much better strategy than one offered by self-pity and resignation. ‘I am depressed. I am so depressed. May all beings be depressed!’ Or at work: ‘I’m bored. I’m so bored. May all beings die of boredom!’ So throughout the day, train yourself how to lift the heart with goodwill intentions of joy and see how you feel at the end of the day.”

2. Broken Bells by Broken Bells

3. The Qur’an: a new translation by M.A.S. Abdel Haleem

3. Earth Balance vegan buttery spread

4. Food Rules by Michael Pollan

5. PocketMod

6. sauteed collard greens with olive oil, garlic and balsamic vinegar

7. Narragansett tall boys

8. Gardenburgers

9. Riverview Sauna Spa

10. Food,Inc.