As many of you have so adroitly written me, there is numerous examples of man egregiously and grossly harming one another over the course of history. It also didn’t help my cause that I blogged an article talking about how people would rather hurt someone that has more wealth than they do even if it cost them to attain this outcome. As one of my friends explained to me today, people in his office were complaining about how some people have an office and other people have cubes. The proposed solution, by the cubers, was to take away the offices from the other group. This solution of course offers no advantage to the people proposing this, yet at the same time it obviously harms the people with offices. Look for further commentary from me on this subject matter in the future, but for now I am going to think of a quality retort without further dampening my point. Irregardless of man’s true nature, I find Farah’s attack on libertarianism to be baseless and ill-conceived. More to follow on this topic in the coming days from me.

Here are what other people are saying

From Paul aka 2Pac

"Re: human nature.

I am not familar with Joseph Farah, but I do not see how the doctrine of Man's innate goodness can survive even a cursory reflection on, say, the Middle East; or on Rwanda, circa 1994 (see the atlantic monthly); or on the bloody history of the entire twentieth century, during which various utopian ideas about deploying the force of human will to establish heaven on earth produced instead a legacy of torture, cruelty and pitiless slaughter unparalleled in all of history.

Even leaving aside the religious aspects of this question (toward which you are mysteriously disdainful), purely as a matter of evidence it seems to me that an empirical man cannot honestly countenance an idea so overwhelming opposed by the bulk of mankind's history.

I do not say this to unfairly disparage the ideas and principles of classical liberalism (now referred to, strangely, as libertarianism), which ideas and principles, as I have stated before, constitute among the most noble and successful intellectual traditions ever devised. But it is to succumb to the syndrome of ideology to face the mountains of evidence of mankind's inclination toward savagery and deny what that evidence tells us, simply because we do not like the inferences likely to be drawn from it. Nor should we give in to despair, and call Man a monster, irredeemable and uneducable. Instead we must face the duality, the paradox, and face it with humility."

My brother quickly called me out on this issue and offered this observation.

"I would have to agree with Joseph Farah reagarding his comments about men not being inherently good and needing a higher authority. Take for instance many countries where there is little or no government such as countries in Africa, areas in Southern Asia, and societies throughout histroy that failed to establish a sound body of government or law to regulate its people. Most early societies without law experienced savage lifestyles and were buried by time only to be remembered through history books. Most present lawless areas are wartorn or infested with prostitution, murder, and theft. Here is a short article about some of Chris Shugart's journeys in Thailand describing the lifestyles of citizens of Thailand. There are many people in this world like Nik Kozy, inherently good people that will further elevate society, but unfortunatley the average guy isn't Nik Kozy and only hangs on by trying to avoid run-ins with the law, a law written in the first place to control the average man who is in fact inherently bad."

I will give me philosphy on the actions of man sometime soon, so keep reading. Also further discussion would be appreciated. Look for a comments box to be posted in the very near future for every article that is posted. As for Nik Kozy, he is not the average man, in fact who knows what he is other than an alum at my brother's college.