Recently in Human Nature Category

I always try to showcase unpublished writers, specifically those with political or philosophical outlooks similar to the WP team.

Without further ado, I present guest blogger William Johnson:

A very simple truth about humans, human systems, and humanities development is...that there is no system that can be exercised or imposed from any outside source or structure, no matter the theme, onto humans or any human population that can rival the effectiveness and resulting productivity of any human construct that is created from within. Humans, and Nature, are dynamic and sometimes random beings. To exercise and focus the commonality from within is of greater respect and utility of that same nature, than it is to attempt to overwhelm it and rigidly orchestrate it. In hubris or lust of power, to rend that which is Natural into something that it is not, demands an all consuming endeavor to try to compensate for its inherent frailty.

In this knowledge, when the Natural order is subjected to an unrealistic ideology, the seed of the tyrant is found. In this knowledge is part of the why they need to be invariably inevitably cruel, murderous, and despotic despite its propaganda or original beneficial intent. When healthy systems are forced, from within or without, to be something different, or distanced from what makes them healthy, it will first be stressed and eventually decay into nothingness. If the cause for the distress is ideologically driven, if the cause for the distress is linked to mans pursuit of some goal then the injected disease will be progressive. Because unrealistic/unnatural ideologies are dependent on people that are compulsive/obsessive to only a small collections of ideas, though developed to a great degree, when challenged, they will not react dynamically, they will react by concentrating on their core beliefs. By trying to regroup to this small unhealthy collection of beliefs, they will continue to distill this internal dysfunctional. When these people are in positions of political power, they will, when challenged, react with a continuation of a distillation of an incomplete, incompetent, unsustainable, and overly rigid mindset, which in turn will lead to ever increasing aggression, irrationality, suspicion, desperation, misuse of language and facts, lying, propaganda, and manipulation by multiple means to achieve fewer and fewer ends.

The ongoing pursuit of an unsustainable, ideologically driven social order will demand an ever increasing amount and breadth of brutality to sustain its power structure.

"Do the ends justify the means?" is a question debated for centuries. A battleground of moral equivocation and effectiveness. There exists a number of seductive groupings of ideas and belief systems that claim to be able to cure all of mankind's failings if only they could be fully manifested. Yet, when an ideology claims to be able to dispel some injustice or all tales of woe but is not actually capable of curing the problems despite its propaganda's assurance, then the "ends", being unattainable, are proven to be no longer the point. It's the Means that are the point. The Means to pretend to fix some problem, while never genuinely fixing or even trying. No utopia of any Socialist or Communist regime has ever conquered poverty, or given decent health care to its citizenry, or given justice to those needing it. Nor were they ever able to dissuade human greed or lust for power. But they continued to expound their virtue to do so "at any cost" and continued the requisite absorption of power and wealth to fulfill the illusion to do so. So the question is forced to be "Do the means justify the means?"

One can only respond with "....wait, what?....no..."

And unless we all answer the question the same way we will suffer the same fate so many others have suffered before us.

Received via e-mail:

Well, there is good news and bad news about my Christmas decorations this year.

Good news is that I truly out did myself this year with my Christmas decorations. The bad news is that I had to take him down after 2 days. I had more people come screaming up to my house than ever.

Great stories.

But two things made me take it down. First, the cops advised me that it would cause traffic accidents as they almost wrecked when they drove by. Second, a 55 year old lady grabbed the 75 pound ladder almost killed herself putting it against my house and didn't realize it was fake until she climbed to the top (she was not happy). By the way, she was one of many people who attempted to do that. My yard couldn't take it either. I have more than a few tire tracks where people literally drove up my yard.

Kind of feel like I gave in to the man by taking him down but my neighbor did confirm to near miss accidents on the busy street next to my house. I think I made him too real this time. So it was fun while it lasted.

See below the fold for a picture of his Christmas 'decorations'.

I came across this in the comments to the Ayn Rand piece I linked to yesterday. It is fitting, reminding us that great leaders aren't always the ones we'd like as neighbors or colleagues. I've taken one liberty with this one, changing the formatting to make it a little more readable.

The first candidate slept until noon, probably because he drank an entire quart of brandy every night. He began his career at one end of the political spectrum then switched to the other end. He used to smoke opium. He presided over one of biggest military disasters in history. Twice, he was booted out of office.

The second candidate cheated on his wife. He listened to astrologers. He chain smoked, talked compulsively and drank between 8 and 10 martinis a day. On top of all that, he was suffering from a debilitating illness.

Candidate three was a decorated war hero and an astonishingly successful leader of singular determination. He had a sweeping world view, ambitious goals, a plan for reaching those goals and the determination to follow that plan. He never committed adultery. He didn't eat meat, didn't smoke, and seldom drank, never to excess.

Three different people, three different lifestyles. The first two had personal lifestyles that would have been abhorrent to most people. The third sounds like someone most folks would get along with.

Care to hazard a guess as to who they were? The answers are below the fold.