WHY BOTHER WITH THE DEBATES?
U.S. Vice President Joe Biden and GOP Vice Presidential candidate Paul Ryan meet this Thursday at 9 pm Eastern/6 pm Pacific time for a 90-minute debate. Should anyone bother watching? If so, why?
Many people within the so-called New Thought Community appear to be scoffing at politics this election year in the United States, expressing little or no interest in hearing what the candidates for the highest offices in their country have to say about the issues of the day.
“They’re all just lying anyway,” one such observer was recently heard to say. “Nobody can actually tell the truth, and the whole game is rigged, so what’s the point of giving it any energy?” Of course, if you think that life is rigged against you, it is. And if you think that life is rigged in your favor, your experience will reflect that.
This is because like is rigged. It will show up for you pretty much as you expect it to. And when those expectations are held by, and spread across, an entire group, they have even more power in the lives of humans. As someone once said, “Wherever two or more are gathered…”
I do not hold the thought that everything that is happening in life on earth is the working of some system or cartel that is plotting against us. Do I think that too many vested interests control too much of the political and economic power on our planet? Yes. Do I think that there is nothing—absolutely nothing—that anyone can do about it? No.
The people of Egypt have proven that. The people of Libya have proven that. In 1776 the people of the United States proved that. Can they prove that again? This remains to be seen. But part of the process is to take part in the process—however imperfect it may be.
Vernon Howard, the American spiritual teacher, author, and philosopher whose work created the New Life Foundation and who celebrated his Continuation Day 20 years ago, said, “You are slaves to whatever you don’t understand.” There is no question about the truth of that. And that is the best reason to have an interest in the debate between Paul Ryan and Joe Biden if you are a citizen of the United States.
Even if both men wind up skirting the truth, the Fact Checkers who have proliferated in abundance since the advent of the Internet will let us know this very quickly, and that alone will tell us something about them, about their positions—and about ours.
We can’t understand that to which we pay no attention at all, deciding in advance that we already know all there is to know. And we cannot change what we refuse to take part in.
Yes? Make sense?
