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From: michaelm@3comvax.UUCP (Michael McNeil)
Newsgroups: net.politics.theory
Subject: Re: Government and stability
Message-ID: <268@3comvax.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 4-Nov-85 23:17:16 EST
Article-I.D.: 3comvax.268
Posted: Mon Nov  4 23:17:16 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 8-Nov-85 04:39:25 EST
References: <1473@teddy.UUCP> <28200189@inmet.UUCP>
Organization: 3Com Corp; Mountain View, CA
Lines: 41

[I don't believe in the Line Eater Monst..]

> >When the white men came and destroyed everything, this may have been
> >bad for the Indian, but, in the long run, it was good for the white
> >man, ...  [Larry Kolodney]
> 
> The long run isn't over yet. If the "white man" engages in a
> nuclear war it won't have been good for anyone ... (well maybe
> for the rats and cockroaches.)
> 
> The "white man" could learn something from those he has conquered ...
> [Tom Tedrick]

Learn what from them?  I have great respect for the achievements of
Native American peoples, but I don't recall that living peaceably
alongside their neighbors was one of them.  A number of the tribes
that the "white man" displaced were *quite* warlike -- towards each
other as well as the whites.  So what are they to teach us regarding
our present dilemma?  Not to develop the knowledge of the universe
that has given us our present capability to destroy each other?  

Sorry, Tom, but Native Americans down in Mexico were already well
along the road to technical civilization that has led us inexorably
to Hiroshima.  Taken to its ultimate, such a "know nothing" philosophy
would argue that we shouldn't have evolved into humans in the first
place -- then we'd *really* be safe, right?  Tell it to the dinosaurs,
Tom!  A better solution would be to *outgrow* this adolescent phase in
our development as a rational species.  No, I don't know how we are to
do this -- but I suspect we must act a whole lot smarter, not dumber.  

-- 

Michael McNeil
3Com Corporation     "All disclaimers including this one apply"
(415) 960-9367
..!ucbvax!hplabs!oliveb!3comvax!michaelm

	And with an awful, dreadful list
	Towards other galaxies unknown
	Ponderously turns the Milky Way ...
		Boris Pasternak