Kimberly Emerson

For most of America’s history, we have been dominated by a two-party political system. I, like many others, sometimes wonder if introducing another party or two into the mix might be a good idea. With two parties, everything that’s bad for one is good for the other. With three parties – or more if you want – bad news for one could be good news for somebody, but you never know who.

Being my liberal self, I’ve hoped for some years that the Green Party would be the next breakout success, but at the moment, the closest thing to a change in the status quo is the Tea Party. How close? Depends on who you ask. Personally, I’ve always equated them with the Republicans, but more and more, the Tea Party has been trying to position itself as an independent entity. More of a libertarian approach than conservative.  An article I read today tried to explain what defines this group. (Check it out for yourself here.)  The article starts with the idea that Tea Partiers say they believe they should have the right to do what they want, as long as it doesn’t infringe on anyone else’s rights.   The author points out, however, that most of the Tea-types don’t really want economic freedom, they want karma.

Ah, karma.  A wonderfully balanced principle.  Do good things, and good things will happen to you.  Do bad things, bad things will happen to you.
Apparently, what’s got the social conservative end of both the Republicans and the Tea Party in a twist is that actions have been separated from their consequences.  In our modern times, economic safety nets paid for by all hard-working Americans are footing the bill for careless people’s mistakes.

I love the concept of karma.  When you take the long view, I do believe that you reap what you sow.  You’ll notice, though, that the idea is case-specific.  You can’t control, nor will you ever truly know, the balance of karma in someone else’s life.

…And this is where bringing karma into politics gets a little dicey for me.  How do I vote for people to get what they deserve, when I can’t ever be sure what it is they deserve?

The other day, I wasn’t paying as much attention to the traffic as I should have and made a left turn on a straight green light, when I had no business doing so.  I sailed through the intersection, only aware that there hadn’t been a green arrow afterwards.  I then said several prayers of thanksgiving and vowed to be more present when driving.  According to strict karmic principles, I should have been plowed into by several cars obeying the signal allowing them to go straight.  That would have been fair to me – ignore the light, get into a messy accident.  But it would have been incredibly unfair to all the other drivers, also suddenly in messy accidents, who were going along on their merry and perfectly legal way.   Did anyone get what they deserved, exactly, out of this encounter?  How would it have been possible for me to learn a lesson without causing unearned distress to others?

Some of you are probably thinking, “You’re being too nice.  Some people just obviously cheat the system.  Why should they be allowed to get away with it?”

Why?  Because it makes my life easier.

No, really.  The programs we’ve set up to help people make the world a nicer place for me.  Not because I’m using them at the moment.  It is nice to know that there’s something around if I get desperate, but I’m lucky.  I’ve got family who would kill me if I were in trouble and I didn’t ask them for help.  But not everyone in the world has that.  A lot of people, particularly in today’s economy, live one paycheck away from homelessness.

Now you’re probably saying, “Yes, and these entitlement programs haven’t solved the homeless problem.”  If you read and retain statistics like that, you might even add that some 82,000 people are homeless in Los Angeles County on any given night, and as many as 250,000 might be sleeping on the streets for at least part of the year.  (Check out these statistics and others here.)

This is all true.  However, I just finished reading (okay, listening to, but still) a book called At Home by Bill Bryson.  For people like me who enjoy the history of day to day living, it is fascinating.  Somewhere in passing, he mentioned that in the mid 1800s, there were approximately 100,000 “street arabs” in London.  It was a not particularly nice description of homeless children, who had no families and made their living begging or stealing.  (A little prostitution thrown in there too, probably. )  Forget the fact that no kid deserves to be homeless.  That 100,000 figure only included children.  The adults were extra.  As well, the population of London at the time was about 2 million – one-fifth the population of today’s L.A. County.  Even if you were lucky enough to have ample food and shelter, that many people added up to a lot of suffering going on outside your window, every single day.

London in 1850 had charities, had churches, and had families.  It didn’t have a government safety net in place to take care of its poor.

I like the idea of society taking care of people, so that none of us falls too far.  Not just a nice humanitarian idea, it’s also a gift to my middle class lifestyle to keep suffering at bay.  If I pay for a few people along the way who don’t deserve it, well, I may have to live with that.  As I discovered during my absentminded driving, even karma gives us something we don’t deserve, every once in a while.

Kimberly has made a sincere attempt to be a better driver, but you might want to keep driving defensively, just in case.