Footnotes to Plato from the foothills of the Superstition Mountains

Irreconcilable Differences

Accept that there are differences among people that are nonnegotiable and irreconcilable.  We are not all the same at bottom.  We do not all want the same things.  We are not equal physically or intellectually or morally or spiritually.  For example, bellicosity is as it were hard-wired into some.  They like fighting and marauding, raping and pillaging.  Don't make the mistake of projecting into others your attitudes and values.  That is a characteristic and lethal error of pacifists and others.

Do you value peace and reconciliation?  Do you aspire to live and let live?  Well, jihadis don't.  Are you kind and forgiving to the woman caught in adultery?  Well, a majority of Egyptians want the adulteress stoned to death.  Do you admire those who are reasonable and conciliatory?  Do you take such traits to be evidence of strength?  Well, a majority in the Middle East do not.  They takes such traits as evidence of weakness. 


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