History Repeats Because Man’s Nature Remains the Same
I grew up in a suburb of the Eastern San Francisco Bay area. When I was in junior high school, my brother and I were walking home from the library at night when a carload of high school students decided to accost us for who knows what their reasoning. They surrounded us, and it quickly became apparent that we were about to receive a pummeling. Instead of just being a victim, I decided to be an aggressive victim and I struck first and landed a resounding blow to the nose of the main antagonist. I can’t say I won the fight, but I didn’t lose it either. Contrast my black eye to his broken nose. I’ll have to admit that I scared my mother half to death with the blood all over me, but it was none of mine.
As a libertarian/conservative type of person, I look for examples of articulate liberals who can argue their causes without the rancor of the Michael Moore crowd or the air-head entertainment crowd. I’ve found just the right person, whose writing I immensely enjoy. That would be Los Angeles Times columnist Al Martinez. Since Al and I don’t agree on much of anything politically, his work offers me the opportunity to refute his liberal viewpoint. Take for instance Al’s recent column History:Doomed to repeat it and repeat it wherein he bemoans the fact that humans have not learned from our violent past and we continue to engage in violence. That’s correct enough, but drawing a moral equivalency between John Endicott organizing the genocidal slaughter of the Pequot Indians and Pres. George Bush ordering the invasion of Iraq is a good example of liberal confusion. Al writes:
Despite all our benign and beautiful characteristics, humans are a violent group of creatures who clump together for mutual assistance and protection. We identify our groups culturally, racially, nationally and religiously. Violence is part of the nature of mankind, specifically males. And, no amount of wishing that it were otherwise can change that fact.
To the peace loving portion of our human nature there is no difference between the micro attack on my brother and myself and the macro attacks that result in genocide or the killing of 3,000 by flying planes into buildings.
As to the correctness of the decision to invade Iraq, the intelligence communities from all the main players in the world were in agreement that Saddam Hussein had WMD’s. Why did they think that? Could it be because Hussein had already used WMD’s on the Iranians and his own people? Could it be that he played a cat and mouse game leading the world to believe that he still maintained a WMD program? When we invaded Iraq, the threat of Iraqi WMD’s was not known to be non-existent. In retrospect, Saddam Hussein screwed-up and miscalculated Pres. Bush and the Congress. Now that it appears that there was no longer a viable WMD program in Iraq, liberals suddenly have forgotten that the liberal politicians vigorously supported the invasion of Iraq and it is now only Pres. Bush’s fault that we are in a war.
And, if we want to throw stones at our own intelligence community for being bamboozled, let’s remember that it was the liberal politicians (the Democratic Party) who gutted our intelligence community funding and set-up the deplorable condition of our current intelligence capability.
Man is a violent animal and when he attacks or is preparing to attack you, you can choose to be a victim like sheep led to a slaughter. Or, you can be a victim that strikes back. Anyway you look at it, someone is going to be hurt or die.
I wish the world could be as good as Al thinks it should be. But, good thoughts and dreams don’t necessarily relate to reality. Man has evolved technologically, but not emotionally. He is still beset with powerful overriding insecurities and fears made even more threatening by relatively new world wide lethality.
As a libertarian/conservative type of person, I look for examples of articulate liberals who can argue their causes without the rancor of the Michael Moore crowd or the air-head entertainment crowd. I’ve found just the right person, whose writing I immensely enjoy. That would be Los Angeles Times columnist Al Martinez. Since Al and I don’t agree on much of anything politically, his work offers me the opportunity to refute his liberal viewpoint. Take for instance Al’s recent column History:Doomed to repeat it and repeat it wherein he bemoans the fact that humans have not learned from our violent past and we continue to engage in violence. That’s correct enough, but drawing a moral equivalency between John Endicott organizing the genocidal slaughter of the Pequot Indians and Pres. George Bush ordering the invasion of Iraq is a good example of liberal confusion. Al writes:
In 1637, it was John Endicott, governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, who organized an army to slaughter the Pequots. Today, it's George W. Bush, president of the United States, who gathered an army to invade a sovereign nation in the name of a nonexistent threat; it's an effort that brings new pain to a world already screaming in agony.
Despite all our benign and beautiful characteristics, humans are a violent group of creatures who clump together for mutual assistance and protection. We identify our groups culturally, racially, nationally and religiously. Violence is part of the nature of mankind, specifically males. And, no amount of wishing that it were otherwise can change that fact.
To the peace loving portion of our human nature there is no difference between the micro attack on my brother and myself and the macro attacks that result in genocide or the killing of 3,000 by flying planes into buildings.
As to the correctness of the decision to invade Iraq, the intelligence communities from all the main players in the world were in agreement that Saddam Hussein had WMD’s. Why did they think that? Could it be because Hussein had already used WMD’s on the Iranians and his own people? Could it be that he played a cat and mouse game leading the world to believe that he still maintained a WMD program? When we invaded Iraq, the threat of Iraqi WMD’s was not known to be non-existent. In retrospect, Saddam Hussein screwed-up and miscalculated Pres. Bush and the Congress. Now that it appears that there was no longer a viable WMD program in Iraq, liberals suddenly have forgotten that the liberal politicians vigorously supported the invasion of Iraq and it is now only Pres. Bush’s fault that we are in a war.
And, if we want to throw stones at our own intelligence community for being bamboozled, let’s remember that it was the liberal politicians (the Democratic Party) who gutted our intelligence community funding and set-up the deplorable condition of our current intelligence capability.
Man is a violent animal and when he attacks or is preparing to attack you, you can choose to be a victim like sheep led to a slaughter. Or, you can be a victim that strikes back. Anyway you look at it, someone is going to be hurt or die.
I wish the world could be as good as Al thinks it should be. But, good thoughts and dreams don’t necessarily relate to reality. Man has evolved technologically, but not emotionally. He is still beset with powerful overriding insecurities and fears made even more threatening by relatively new world wide lethality.
posted by Paul Coambs | 10:57 AM
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