Good post Reg, one thing I feel is important to differentiate between the founding fathers and tibetan lamas is that the latter have a very strong tradition in all lineages of passing things on from master to student going right back to the beginning.

I'm with you in that passing things down like that keeps that wisdom a living breathing thing. No argument on the tradition or your point.

It keeps the teachings very alive, and I feel more so than Abe or 'Jeff' Jefferson (sounds like a prog rock star dunnit) can so I feel that they are able to powerfully use the wisdom in fact moreso than other political or spiritual leaders.

Maybe Abe and Jeff would have made good prog rockers...they sure would have wrote some interesting lyrics. They look like they could be rock stars too. I would argue that Abe and Jeff put their wisdom to good use and in their lifetimes made some pretty incredible changes. I don't hold them up to be worshiped but it is worth at least attempting to understand what they had to say and to pass that down too. It's not that I would argue that either type of wisdom is better or more important but that each has value. It's something that reading Trivers (I'm going to post at the top of the page about Trivers because I know you asked me about him before.) would likely help anyone consider. The thing is that we need more than just inner or spiritual wisdom as human creatures because it's a simple fact that we interact with our outside world and while the inner or spiritual knowledge may make us better beings, wisdom that relates to our interaction with the external world is just as valuable. That's really what politics should be all about, at least to me, a search for a wiser or better way for us all to interact with each other and our planet. Due to the fact that is what you would term a core belief for me, it is somewhat insulting to every aspect of my being that a fellow like George W. Bush is our president in this country. I think Trivers explains that fairly adequately though and that is very interesting to me. He does not specifically talk about Bush or politics but addresses our odd habit of indulging in self deception and looks at the how and why of that aspect of evolution. Part of evolution is how each species adapts and passes down its knowledge.  

Tibet for me is where the beliefs and teachings have been truly practised lately, note the difference between how the Dalai Lama responds to China and how Americans respond to acts of aggression from outside. Yes I know that the Tibetans did have uprisings but they were not sanctioned by religion.

I think it is a mistake to look for a purity or perfection in any one source of wisdom. Sure the Dalai Lama is a peaceful being and his reaction is to be commended but due to the fact that part of his reaction is to deny certain aspects of what it is to be a human being it has deep flaws in terms of interacting with each other and our world. Combine the Dalai Lama's wisdom with what we know about natural selection and the end result is Tibet. Will a lion deny what it is and not eat a lamb? You know the story of the scorpion and the frog I'm sure...nothing against the Dalai Lama and his wisdom, personally I celebrate his existence but I do not feel giving myself as a whole to that one school of thought will improve my personal situation or that of our world. I've come to the conclusion in life that to attempt to adhere to a doctrine that denies aspects of what we are is a recipe for failure. We have to accept that our flaws are as important as what we perceive to be our perfections. If not more so because we learn so much from our flaws or failings. So perhaps Bushco, and all the other leaders you mentioned in your list that we now recognize as failures, are helping humanity improve by better understanding how horrifically we can fail.

I think one has to use discriminating wisdom and not lump all of these teachings together that can be confusing and dangerous I'd say.

Well, I don't mean to lump them all together because I think they fulfill different aspects of what we need to navigate this life. My point is that we need to be able to identify wisdom no matter its source and accept it. If we could honestly wage this war of ideas we would, I think, improve our situation.