World Gone Crazy

Not really, it has always been crazy when looked at from a rational perspective.  Humans are an incredibly destructive species, particularly to each other.  I have speculated before on why and the likelihood that it is simply the peculiarities of our evolution and our inability to rationally stop doing what evolution has taught us to do–look for reasons to suspect other humans and to do them harm.  It isn’t just the damage to individuals from these universal tendencies that should concern us; it is also the loss of what those individuals would have contributed to humanity’s overall welfare.  How many Einsteins, Shakespeares, Hawkings and others have died with no chance to make those contributions?

You look around the world today and despair that there is really no progress on this most critical of all issues facing humanity.  Whatever else you think of Trump, his desire and attempts to stop “death and destruction” in a number of regions is very admirable.  Russia is led by a completely despicable barbarian with no regard for human life at all.  We see his philosophy at work in Ukraine, but it is no different than what he has done to his own people and in other areas bordering Russia.  The Russian people appear to have a particular delight in barbarism and destruction.

I would like to refer to only a few adherents to the Muslim religion as violent, but unfortunately it appears that large swaths of that group think that killing non-believers, particularly Jews, is not only acceptable, but their duty.  What happened in Israel was applauded by almost every Gazan and many Muslims around the world.  There should be no doubt that the nutjobs in charge of Iran were working to develop nuclear weapons, close to doing so and would have used them with no hesitation, not just against Israel, but against other countries in the region and ultimately the US.  North Korea should have been dealt with as Iran currently is being handled by Israel, and sooner or later someone will have to forcibly remove that whacko from power and eliminate nuclear weapons from his country.

Africa is beset by constant slaughter among tribal, racial and religious groups.  None of this good for humanity; the constant emergence of dictatorial barbarians who seek to advance themselves by attacking others and the need to check that barbarism by violence against the barbarians.  Both kill and injure millions of humans and destroy what provides higher standards of living for large portions of the world’s population.  We seem incapable as a species of coming to our senses and finding a way to stop this.  In many ways it is the fault of these few barbaric leaders and perhaps if we could identify them and stop them before they attain power it would help.

In our own country, in my own state, today we have a reminder that we are not immune from our barbaric legacy.  Once again some crazy person, and you have to be crazy to do this, kills and injures governmental or prominent figures for supposed political reasons.  There is simply no justification for this, but there is an explanation and I will remind you of the recent polls showing that, especially among Democrats, an incredibly high percentage of our citizens think violence and murder for political reasons is justified.  This is the result of decades of those in charge of higher education and even the public school systems pushing radical philosophies and a demand for action, including violent action, to support those philosophies.  This indoctrination has an effect and it creates a counter-reaction that can be equally violent.

It is also the result of largely Democrat politicians and officials calling for resistance, including violence, against the democratically elected Trump administration and against other conservatives.  This implicit and explicit support, including massive amounts of funding from pro(re)gressive billionaires and from China and Russia, has led to Antifa and other nihilist groups engaging in constant violent acts which are never punished.  It has led to the murder of and assault on conservative politicians, including the assassination attempts on President Trump.  Our own Governor, a truly despicable human being, has engaged in the kind of rhetoric which facilitates and encourages this violence, calling conservatives Nazis and facists.

My solution is not just for a very, very hard crackdown on any form of political violence directed at anyone, but to take steps to tone down the rhetoric.  We have become obsessed with politics and allowed it to infest every aspect of our lives.  A good start, which likely would take a constitutional amendment, is to ban all political activity of any type except for a period starting four months before an election.  All elections for any office should be held only once every four years.  We need to de-politicize daily life.  All commentary on the “news” media that is political in nature should also be banned.  A return to journalism that merely reports objectively and completely the facts would be extremely beneficial.  But none of these steps is likely to occur so we will undoubtedly continue to see violence, mass and isolated, everywhere, including here in the United States, almost certainly until we manage to destroy human civilization.