[demecleze]

Yes he is wrong about much. Humans everywhere as groups wage war for profit. That is the point of war, to secure land, influence, trade, security or whatever.

No one fights a war with the goal of loosing something of value.

Plus the people there are very cruel and hard hearted. As evidenced by the dull knife beheadings. Hammarabi actually warns us of this in his law code.

I would say the US values life more than the middle east, but I think that we do value our enemies lives in about the same contempt.

My whole point of being annoying about this is that his essay points out a truth of our existence on this planet. That groups of humans struggle for dominance and that is the way it has to be.

We all resent it (yes even Bin Laden himself). Wish there could be peace, but we know our destiny lies in War. And we know not how to change it.

I am of the opinion that truth such as that should probably be left unsaid, and even when it is studied only in an academic setting. But this is at odds with my belief in free speech.

So I am perplexed.

[edfrank_1998]

You said:

"My whole point of being annoying about this is that his essay points out a truth of our existence on this planet. That groups of humans struggle for dominance and that is the way it has to be."

That's the nature of the beast at any level. I think the difference is our "dominance" is a dominance that permits an individual to think or do pretty much what he wants (within societal limits established as laws). Opportunity dominance, if you will. Other systems of government and society don't like or want that (see WWII and Hitler or any number of current demagogues).

Our republic is different. In a sense, our message is "Knock off the foolishness and let's make some money." And the individual has an opportunity to share in that.

Groups struggling for dominance within our republic could be call political parties, among others. We manage to hold our elections without warfare, for the most part. And we don't impose our system on others without provocation or reason. We left governments in Europe pretty much the way they were after WWII (active monarchies remained and republics like Germany restored). We didn't arbitrarily impose our system on everyone. I don't think Churchill would make that distinction.