by Thomas Purcell

Created on: September 19, 2009   Last Updated: November 19, 2010

In the course of my daily phone calls, I came into contact with a rather interesting fellow, a 72 year old Buddhist that for the sake of his privacy I'll call 'Teth'. I had been referred to to him to handle some of his insurance affairs, which turned out to be minor. But we hit it off, and as conversations with me are oft to do, it turned to politics.

It seems Teth was a Tibetan refugee from Chinese oppression and some of his insights on China and its action were interesting in light of now and future changes to America. IN fact although he too, was concerned with many things he was seeing (he felt that he could see how America COULD become another police state like China), it did not bother him the way it bothered many Americans. He said to me, it does not matter whether you support the left or the right, you must learn to accept what will be, right or wrong. He told me a story about the concept:

"Many years ago, when I was traveling, I happened to share a carriage ride with 2 American missionaries in my home country. I asked them what brought them here and they said 'We are missionaries and we are wealthy. We are bringing the word of Christ, and our wealth, to help your neighbors who were burned out of their houses and their goats were run off by the Chinese. Why are you here, Teth?'

Well I said, 'I am here to help my neighbor as well. I have much time on my hands, since my house was burned out and my goats were run off by the Chinese'.

Funny.

But Teth's take on the recent changes to America WAS disturbing him though. Although his view was apolitical, he had a natural distrust of government from his experiences in China. He explained that it really wasn't a right or left issue- it was an issue of 'stat-ism', as he called it, against individual rights. In fact when discussing the Chinese atrocities, unlike the media, he did not think it came from racism, but fear. He felt that the Chinese were very afraid of Tibetans independent way of living- they relied very little on help from government or friends, nor desired it. He explained that to a communist culture, the very thought of individualism was hateful and represented a threat to their government. He relayed another story to me:

Years ago I was a successful farmer in my homeland. One morning I was overseeing my property and doing an inventory, as I had a good season. I had an excess of salt and food, and my goat herd was numerous. I was filled with joy and pride from the hard work I had put in that season

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