[Buddha-l] NYTimes.com: Let Us Pray for Wealth

[Dan Lusthaus]

Joy,

>> in many places even trying to set up a Taijiquan school can run
> >afoul of neighborhoods who will employ zoning laws, etc., to drive them
out
> >(I was involved in a court case in Florida along these lines).
>
> And the constitutional freedom of religion couldn't be of any help? I
probably know the answer already, because like everywhere any stick will do
to beat a dog, law or no law, constitution or not.

Good question! Well, there is federal law, then state law, then increasingly
local laws (county law, city law), and the relation between them can become
complicated. That was one of the underlying issues leading to the American
Civil War in the 1860s -- States rights (i.e., ability to make their own
laws, e.g. on slavery, and be free from Federal intervention) vs. Federal
laws (Federal govt. trumps everything). Since the north won the war, one
would expect that the Federal trumps the State, but, in reality, the battle
is not over -- the federal govt. trying to end segregation in the South
during the 1950s and 60s required federal troops, and made certain Southern
demagogue governors (head of a State) very popular and iconic for resisting
the Federal govt. This is one of the major reasons the South now votes
primarily Republican instead of Democrat.. because LBJ -- whom Richard will
remind you had a miserable evil side, prosecuting the Vietnam war -- also
made civil rights his priority. So anti-war democrats got disgusted with the
party, and the southern racists did as well. The Democrats have never quite
recovered since.

But back to local law -- throughout the South there are still many
discriminatory laws on the books, or ways of (non-)enforcing laws that
address discrimination. The court systems down there are completely
complicit. The rest of the country got to see some of that during the fight
between Gore and Bush in the courts in the aftermath of the 2000 election.
The arrogance and irrationality of the court and political system (and their
mutual complicities) were on display. I had just moved from Tallahassee
Florida, the main stage, and even knew some of the players, so none of it
was shocking or surprising - I had seen them do that many times before,
including to me. That was business as usual. It was probably with the rising
shock that they were playing in a rigged game (Dubya's brother was/is
governor in Florida), that Gore's lawyers thought he might have a better
chance at the US Supreme Court, filled with George the First appointees.
They bet wrong (but probably wouldn't have prevailed in either arena).

But the one thing they fear is federal law -- especially federal
anti-discriminatory law, which, if invoked usually uncovers a snake's den of
evil practices, and overturns local will. It's like shining a light into the
dark, and all the vermin run for cover. They literally fear federal
intervention, and will wiggle and twitch to avoid it. They have been
fighting to buttress state immunity from federal intervention, and while
everyone focuses on the republican right-wing Supreme Court appointments in
terms of abortion rights, the real problem -- for several decades now -- has
been a steady support in the Court for States rights and limiting Federal
rights. The issues are usually too complex for sound-bytes, or
decontextualized (e.g., a local question of water rights here, inheritance
law there, etc. -- the Southerners choose which cases to bring to the
Supreme Court very carefully, selecting cases that, in short-sound-bytes,
decontextualized from the larger picture of States Rights, can evoke
sympathy and support from the average person watching a 45 second
explanation on the TV news), so the media gives such cases minimal to no
coverage, but they have steadily been eating away at the power of the
federal govt. to impose anti-discriminatory federal law on the local level.
The South, in other words, is still fighting and at this point starting to
win, the Civil War (which is still very much alive down there, and which
they call the "War of Northern Aggression").

Zoning laws are local, so a neighborhood can get its local representatives
to pass zoning laws it favors (or businesses can lobby representatives to
get what they want). If, e.g., a taiji school loses on the local level, it
can only appeal to a higher level (state court, federal court) under certain
circumstances, e.g., if there is a gross violation of a federal law, but it
is unlikely that a higher court will take on a zoning case. Mounting such
appeal is also VERY expensive, not the sort of thing a taiji school that
can't even run its own tiny business in peace could afford. The Southern
court system is designed to support the boss and the rich, so the laws are
written to tilt in the boss's favor, and if you try to fight back and have
legal merit, they will tie up and delay and create new, expensive problems
that will delay your progress for years, until you run out of money to
pursue it further or die. You cannot win, that is guaranteed, so most people
don't even try. Of course, the real motives for trying to drive a taiji
school out of the neighborhood has nothing to do with zoning per se, but the
application of a zoning law to do something else -- the "any stick"
principle.

We have a messy, complicated system -- or set of systems here.

Buddhist content? Nothing, which is how some people still misunderstand
"suunyataa.

Dan