Well, Phil, that’s such a feel-good statement that it seems hard to refute. HOWEVER, should Darwin or any of his kindred sprits be proven correct, it just might be that personal advancement at the APPARENT expense of group welfare is a bogus argument. If so, robust success of the individual is tantamount to success of the group, and is truly the best way forward.

So what is the basis of your argument?

More importantly, other animals do not act as individuals but as members of their surroundings.  They do not destroy the whole for the sake of the individual. That practice is reserved for humans.

In addition, I would hope humans with all our gifts could be at least as conservative if not do better than our fellow animals. No other species is threatening the globe as we do.

Phil Hoskins

Having said that, most species act as individuals to attain singular and social goals (no, I don’t want to debate animal consciousness), but they are not generally wanton in their actions. Then again the same can be said of the vast majority of humans. It seems we just aren’t too smart.

The goal is not to destroy the planet and certainly you can point to no one individual who is accomplishing that. Granted, a few may be trying through the desire to own it all, or at least through trying to reap all of its bounty for themselves. The rest have relegated themselves to pawn status.

But have no fear. The planet will be here long after humans have been extinguished, the cockroaches will have claimed their own exalted status, and mother nature will continue on. Man will have come and gone.

Rather than rue the human condition, which you really can’t judge with any degree of authority, isn’t it comforting to know that we’re not the pinnacle of evolutionary success? Better luck next time, eh?

Why is it always the common man that must sacrifice while our Political Class feeds off the fruits of our labors like the parasites that they are?

One way to help the poor, and everyone else, is to abolish the Federal Reserve and end its inflationary monetary policy and its meddling in the economy.

Another way to help the poor is jobs. Not government jobs, but private sector jobs. The welfare state is basically dependency training. Again, government policies and treaties such as NAFTA, CAFTA, and GATT have decimated our industry.

But you leftists won’t acknowledge or accept these self-evident truths. You simply think increasing taxes will solve all of our problems. Taxes have been rising for decades, and our problems only get worse.

When will you all realize that the government isn’t interested in ending poverty or helping others. Their main goals are money and power, and they’ll peddle any bill of goods to see that not only is power maintained, but increased.

I think you were reading a different article.  I said nothing about raising taxes, nor not raising them. Re-read my first sentence again and you will see this is aimed at each one of us, unless, of course, you have transcended the human condition and are free of self-centeredness.

Phil Hoskins

The implication is that low taxes hurt the poor and the sick, therefore higher taxes is the way to help them. Typical. Is that all you got?

You suggest that we the people get involved in politics, and yet you have nothing to say about the policies and procedures of our government.

What good does it do to get involved when we’re ignorant of the true causes of our problems?

What do you suggest? The Congress is basically ceremonial and consistently ignores the wishes of the People, and we have an executive branch that has assumed most of the power. The Supreme Court is a joke. A Political tool for elections. Why do you think all their decisions are 5-4?

Your column may be filled with feel-good utopian dreams, but I happen to live in the real world.

If the government isn’t working, simply give it more money and more power. But above all, never question their motives or means.

That’s why we have a Constitution and Bill of Rights. We’re supposed to be a nation founded on human morality and individual liberty, with the rule of law to guarantee this philosophy.

Yes, higher taxes would help IF the money went where needed.

Yes, politicians are part of the problem

But as I keep saying, this was not aimed at the US alone, nor even intended as a politicial statement. We happen to lead the world in greed and self-centeredness as far as I can tell, but are not alone.

I have no intention of engaging with you in some kind of face off. Just at least read what I write first instead of throwing down a bogus gauntlet.

Phil Hoskins

Just be a good person, and miraculously everything will be fine. Our government will see the errors in its ways, and all will be right with the world.

And what of the suggestions I have made? Not a word.

Please, your psycho-babble may work on the weak-minded and the ignorant, but it gets no play here.

There is a small case for invoking the position of the aforementioned elitist, inbred eugenicist – but only in terms of examining our own species’ devolution. In terms of consciousness (more Patanjali than Darwin, I admit) the purely self-serving individual is right down there on the bottom rung.

Such behavior was once considered wholly unacceptable in healthy, functioning communities – the word ‘community’ itself tells us why. Thanks to the triumph of the self-serving, such communities are almost entirely a thing of the past. All of which is just fine if you wish to excercise maximum top-down control of any society.

When an individual is part of a family – which in turn is part of a community, those seeking authoritarian control have a serious fight on their hands – entire communities who know how to stick up for each other are the would-be despot’s greatest enemy.

Families have never been more dysfunctional. Communities have been atomized. Government is at its largest and most self-serving. None of which is a coincidence.

Animals know their nature and simply live it. We humans have the choice to be either more or less than this. The sliding scale currently makes depressing reading.

None. None whatsoever.

Furthermore, subscribing to a system which serves only its own interests is actually harmful to us. So what to do?

We can achieve nothing positive until we get past the ‘anger’ stage. This is only possible after we seriously and ruthlessly address the ‘true causes’ you mention. Unfortunately, this also includes some brutal self-examination – and the root causes of our own ability to be so monstrously mislead.

There are many spokespeople out there demonstrating apparent righteousness in these issues, but who still reduce almost everything to emotionalism. This has the effect of keeping the listener trapped in a reactionary state – a state entirely unsuited to any serious progress being made.

“That’s why we have a Constitution and Bill of Rights. We’re supposed to be a nation founded on human morality and individual liberty, with the rule of law to guarantee this philosophy.”

As I feel certain you know, Griff – the real Constitution and Bill of Rights has to be lived in the hearts of the People for who it was intended. Otherwise George W. Bush’s now infamous comment first broken on this site will sadly be proven correct.