MISSOURI WATCH: BETTER GOVERNMENT THROUGH MEDITATION MAY NOT BE A BAD IDEA

Political observers, pundits and prognosticators in Missouri have completely overlooked the party that promises us not only lower taxes, more responsive leadership and better schools but a totally different concept on how to deal with these problems. I'm speaking, of course, of one of the new political parties on this year's ballot, the Natural Law Party.

Chances are you overlooked the party and its candidates as you were making your ballot selections.

The overriding philosophy promoted by the Natural Law Party is the concept of transcendental meditation, which is a technique based on Hindu practices for seeking serenity through regular meditation centered on the repetition of a mantra. In fact, some of the party's candidates make their living in such occupations as stress management consultants.

Explaining the concept in another way, one could say that transcendentalism advocates dealing with problems by closing our eyes so that the world will disappear. That may be somewhat of an oversimplification and I'm sure the party leadership would object to this definition. Interestingly, some 30 years ago I wrote a political piece that attributed this practice to the incumbent governor, who to this day has never forgotten what I wrote. That shows you how powerful this concept can be.

As we Missourians waded our way through another overly long and overly frustrating election campaign, many of us became discouraged about where our state was headed and why. Instead of talking about what Missourians might expect from their state government through the year 2000, we were served such issues as whether Margaret Kelly had violated some law against holding a political rally in the Capitol rotunda and whether the Democratic candidate had the right to be concerned about how the state's largest university was being run. Critical issues, all, but hardly the stuff of significant political debate.

It seems to me the Natural Law Party may have more to offer than might at first be thought. Oh, I'll admit their candidates are hardly household words and they had about as much chance of winning an important public office as a convicted child molester. But, hey, who's to say their party philosophy is all wet? In fact, the more I think about it, the more appealing their premise becomes.

After all, we Missourians may not be happy with the way our state is being run and our first inclination is to hop on either the Democratic or Republican bandwagon and hope and pray that some of the problems that concern us will be resolved. Most of us have been doing this for years. In fact, many of us even identify ourselves as dyed-in-the-wool Democrats or true conservative Republicans, although we're willing to admit in the quiet moments of reflection that neither party gives us what we're really looking for, namely government that is run like we think it should be.

As traditional Democrats and Republicans we rant and rave when our party proves its lack of exclusivity by giving us the kind of government it thinks we should have.

What we wind up with then is higher and higher taxes, schools that turn out under-educated students, neighborhood crime, decaying cities, campaign contribution abuses, ethical lapses, inadequate highways, crowded prisons, environmental neglect and legislators who spend campaign funds to pay their country club dues.

The awful truth is that we can rave and rant all we want to, but neither party seems to offer any resolution to our complaints. Oh, they promise to change everything if we will just elect them. If these officials had delivered on their promises, after 16 years of Republican governors and the past four years of a Democratic governor, then the same issues wouldn't have been permanently chiseled into the marbled walls of our state Capitol.

Maybe we voters need to change our methods of protest and adopt transcendentalism, which would require us to meditate about our problems, contemplate their solutions and chant a mantra that goes something like this: Uuuuuuummmmmmm. (Note: alert readers will have already noted this mantra is M.U. in reverse.) I don't know if it will work, but I do know that if we ignore the state's problems long enough, they will seem to go away, even if they don't.

This might not solve problems in Jefferson City but it should do a world of good for our mental and digestive systems. If we're Hindus, we won't eat so many Big Macs.

~Jack Stapleton of Kennett is the editor of the Missouri News and Editorial Service.