Saving Humanity: Post Three

Considering the fact that we as a species (homo sapiens sapiens) have only been around for about two to three hundred thousand years, a small amount of time compared to the more than 300 million years that life has existed on the earth, it should come as no surprise that we are not yet civilized. Why do I say this? I am seventy five years old this year, and during my lifetime, more than 100 million people have been killed by war, crime, genocide, and the like. This is enough people to form a large nation state. I am being conservative about the figure I just gave you. It is probably much larger. The ability to kill one's own kind is rife in nature. Two males fighting for the right to inherit the female herd will often fight to the death. Notice that I did not identify the species, since there are so many that employ this method. Our closest cousins, Chimpanzees, will go to war with neighboring groups and will kill each other in the process. In a civilization, the right to kill is abridged. The penalty for murder of a human being is generally severe, except where governments do it, or where the government is weak and ineffectual. In order for civilization to succeed, it must be found everywhere in the world, and the rules must be similar and rigorously enforced. Penalties for crime which are too weak or too harsh must be eliminated. In America today, mention of world government is taboo. Its a non starter for anyone running for office. However, anyone who thinks through the options that are there for us has to conclude that the rules cannot be the same without some form of world government to back them up. We are not free in this country when there are countries all around the world where the citizens are enslaved by their governments. Anyone following the news knows that many of these totalitarian states are either in possession of the atomic bomb or are seeking to have it in their arsenal. This is an intolerable situation that cannot be allowed to go on in a world rapidly becoming connected and possessed of a single economy. If civilization does not become viable for every nation state, and if the economy does not equalize for all peoples, we will continue to live in a dangerous world. If anything, it will get worse unless we take steps to make it better. Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin created the United Nations because they had just experienced a war that left more than fifty million people dead, and the cities of Europe in ruins. The United Nations in its present form will not be able to do much to foster civilization. We must agree to do more and to do it soon. If you think that warfare was bad in the twentieth century, think again. The wars of the twenty first century will make it seem like paradise. Civilization itself is at stake. We need to do more, much more, to make it work. Our lives depend upon it.