Nature's Laws
In the previous article I made reference to suspicion and deception as two of mans most basic survival skills, concepts hardwired into the brain of Homo sapiens thousands of years ago. To this day, as animals who can reason, man/woman has attempted to refine those skills into more socially acceptable concepts--without much success I might add. In that attempt to refine we've developed the concept of togetherness, language, culture, religion, empathy, sympathy, compassion and love. Still, we remain the most blood thirsty, corrupt specie on the planet. We have all these skills that other warm blooded animals don't but we go on warring, murdering, rapping, stealing, lying. It seems to me that the only reason why we do not do more bad things is because of our self-centeredness and not because of concern for our fellow man. In other words--I don't want my family killed so I won't kill your family--a sort of quid pro quo. What kept us safe during the Cold War? One thing and one thing only the assureance of mutual destruction, not necessarily because we didn't want to kill Russians, although there was some of that, but mainly because we didn't want them killing us.
I like to think of those skills we've developed (because we can reason out cause and effect) as diplomacy. The tact we use to accomplish a mutually agreeable plan of cooperation. Diplomacy is more or less a recent contrivance evolving from the coming together of those skills. While admirable and something we humans should strive for it isn't natural, if it was we'd have perfected at least a small amount of civilized behavior by now. So where does this leave us with respect to Iran and the very real possibility Ahmadinejad is still smoozing us when it comes to enriching uranium (in other words-building a nuclear weapon)? Lets be frank and take the pragmatic approach. Since the beginning of human nature the alpha dog has always been in charge. Might and the ability to instill fear in ones enemy has always been a part of our culture, why? Man has used the alpha dog approach to protect its tribe, culture, state, country. Along the line people recognized the need for a collective temperament in order to avoid annilating one another. Some of those people were even killed because they proposed such a thing. Today we are faced with Iran (there will be others to follow) and diplomacy is hard at work trying to resolve a potential crisis. I am concerned though that the diplomacy scale will dip to a point where those that do not like us, and heretofore have been afraid of the US, will act out their new found strength in ways detrimental to the American way of life.
We must be strong and appear strong while we test diplomacy. And when diplomacy fails the US must act on that strength.
HAVE WE DONE THE RIGHT THING?
I'm concerned that our collective political heads are once again in a hole in the sand. Reading from Newsweek, op-ed pieces and hearing commentary on TV about President Obama and his administration got me to thinking of a conversation I had with a friend last August. It went something like this: Friend, "...I'm convinced Obama is our man." And my friend was right, not that he was my choice but that he is the one now sitting in the Oval Office. I replied, "I'm sure he's a good man, well educated and certainly intelligent, but--" My friend interupted, "But what?" "I think Senator Obama is naive." I went on to explain that I thought his campaign platform overestimated his ability to calm the masses and bring peace to the world. And that Senator Obama underestimated those that wish to do us harm. The conversation tapered to the point of us agreeing to disagree.
This illustration has nothing to do with the present state of America's economic woes, but more to do with America's safety and security. You don't have to be a think tank member to know that there are a number of calamities that could befall the U.S. that would have a far worse effect than a serious recession and that, fellow Americans, is another strategically placed terrorist attack.
The point of this is are we ready or are we loosing our edge? Are we distracted by the economy, and mezmerized by Obama's Kennedy-like popularity.
The idea of trying to mend our reputation with the rest of the world is to me an insult. The ugly American label may well be deserved by the ugly Americans, but to categorize the majority of America, as Obama did recently in Europe, as arrogant, dismissive and derisive was an insult and an ignorant one at that. That kind of leadership mentality plays well with those that hate us and fuels the fires of governments that want to see the U.S. collapse militarily, economically, socially and religiously. The next step will be a level-the-playing-field philosophy that will be introduced in subtle fashion. The proponenants, I believe our President to be one, will favor equalizing everything--it's only fair, right? Wrong! That's a big wrong and the reason is obvious, the U.S. is the only country I trust to carry the big stick, not Argentina, Iran, Saudia Arabia, China, N. Korea, India etc.
Do you believe this is Obama's ultimate intent--global equalization? Is it a wise strategy or not?