For example, your hyped-up all-caps citation of 8:12 is “I WILL CAST TERROR INTO THE HEARTS OF THOSE WHO DISBELIEVE IN iSLAM. THEREFORE STRIKE OFF THEIR HEADS AND STRIKE OFF EVERY FINGERTIP OF THEM.”

That verse actually reads: “When your Lord revealed to the angels: I am with you, therefore make firm those who believe. I will cast terror into the hearts of those who disbelieve. Therefore strike off their heads and strike off every fingertip of them.”

Um, where’s the reference to “Islam?” Apparently, some Christian fanatic inserted it before sharing this passage with you, in much the same way that crazy anti-Semites used to make up stuff about infant-sacrifice that they claimed the Talmud contained. What Muhammad (or Allah) is railing against here is disbelief in God. I suspect you’d probably agree with the underlying sentiment.

Then there’s your citation of 8:39: “AND FIGHT WITH THEM UNTIL THERE IS NO MORE UNBELIEF IN iSLAM.”

Um, except that what the Quran actually says is this: “And fight with them until there is no more persecution and religion should be only for Allah; but if they desist, then surely Allah sees what they do.”

Again, either you’re misrepresenting the text or you’re blindly following someone else who’s making these misrepresentations. If you have to tell lies to make your case, your case isn’t worth making.

Take a look at Baciles criminal background….christian my ass !

Unfortunately most people dont get . They just blame those who protest this abuse but have’nt a clue why…probably ” Fox News Twisted Views ” listeners and “Mush Lamebrain” dittoheads dummies !

Makes me sick to my stomach….sicker yet that they will probably not be punished for this film

Not to mention the fact that The Bible calls for execution by stoning or burning to death for all sorts of things including mixing types of cloth, eating shellfish, being a disobedient child, or being a rape victim. Yes, if you want to see a “take everything in The Bible literally” person squirm and than parse, spin, and invent things out of thin air point out the verses regarding rape. The Bible very clearly says to execute a woman for the sin of being forcibly raped, yet they will invent things to try to deny it.

The fact is that if you Christian Right morons ever actually read The Bible you would be calling for libraries to ban it because it has so much violence and sex in it. So you people who are so busy trying to save children from the threats of Mighty Mouse, the Teletubbies, Spongebob Squarepants, Dr Seuss, old Looney Tunes cartoons, and The Muppets are actually trying to force all children in public schools to have to read what is in fact one of the most violent and bloodiest books ever written – The Bible.

The fact that you would make such a ludicrous argument simply proves that you have no idea what you are talking about. No Christian who has actually read The Bible would dare make comparisions between their book and another one. Any intelligent person should also realize that Islam, Christianity, and Judaism are all based upon a common foundation. In fact, it is likely that many of the most violent passages in the Quoran had their origins in the Old Testament. Obviously you hadn’t read the Quoran – or were even somewhat familiar with the beliefs of Islam – because if you had, you’d know that the only difference between Islam and Christianity is that in Islam Jesus Christ is merely a great prophet and teacher (considered likely the second greatest within Islam) and not the son of God. The only difference between Islam and Judaism is that Islam rejects the concept of a Messiah (obviously the only difference between Christians and Jews is that Christian believe that Jesus Christ was the Messiah and Jews believe that the Messiah is still coming). Other than that, the religions are very similar in what they believe. In fact, the Quoran actually tells its followers (unlike The Bible) specifically to respect other people’s faiths especially the Jewish and Christian faiths. Moslems who actually understand their religion understands that it was designed to build upon existing faiths – many observant Moslems actually know more about Christian beliefs than most Christians if for no other reason that they have actually read The Bible and studied the life of Jesus Christ (who as noted, is one of the top prophets and teachers in Islam).

Yes, Islam like Christianity is an evangelical religion (that means their followers are supposed to try to convert others to them), but both religions actually call for their followers to convert others through reason and kindness. Not by the sword.

Its not the religion which is the problem, its the “followers” who use religion for their own purposes to justify slaughters or hatred. It doesn’t matter which of the Abrahamic religions you are talking about – they all have plenty of blood on their hands. Ironic given that the actual beliefs of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are actualy extremely similar and Jesus Christ taught peace. Is it really worth killing someone over whether they believe that Jesus was merely a great prophet and teacher or a great teacher and the actual Son of God? Obviously not.

When you get down to the root cause problem of the fighting between religions it ultimately comes down to land – that was the case when the Ancient Isrealis were battling the Ancient Babylonians and its still the case today. People have been fighting over land and profit since the beginning of recorded history even in many cases where people believed in the same religion. There is no religious conflict between Christianity and Islam (or between Judaism and Islam) – it is a conflict over land and oil money. Its not a conflict over God, its a conflict over Mammon.

Besides being very stupid you are also very naive. The people pushing this “Islam is violent” line are just trying to justify an act of naked aggression to grab oil from the Middle East. Or simply to sell their guns and bombs to people around the world.

Drinking and jumping through fire doesn’t make you anything more than someone who drinks and jumps through fire — or if your coordination is off, it may make you a (literally) flaming drunk. Go away. Pagans may be tolerant, and notoriously bad a showing up on time, but we aren’t idiots.

Edward Homberg –

While past accomplishments and sacrifices are deserving of praise and respect, they also make the descent into craziness and evil even more poignant. Mr. Klein, as he is now, appears to be a potentially violent man with a lot of strident and bizarre views. This is a shame.

As for your quoting the Quran, I don’t know enough about it to know if your quotes are accurate. I do know that the Christian bible (parts of which are also common to Jews and Muslims) has some real doozies in terms of violent quotes — and the vast majority of Christians wandering around aren’t stoning anyone. Nor are the vast majority of Muslims — especially those who are not living under the duress of religious fanatics (like the Taliban).

As a Pagan, I don’t care what scriptures say. We don’t really have scriptures ourselves. If those who participate in organized religion take comfort in them, fine. I also don’t care that much about historical misdeeds, which are bloody and practically beyond count. They were bad, but they are over (although some grievances may remain to be settled, preferably without bloodshed). What I and most of the people I know care about is finding a way to live morally and ethically and helping others who so desire to do the same. As soon as one engages in the whole, “Well, THEY do it!” whining, you are no longer trying to change anything — you are just acting like a spoiled brat.

Military service makes you an honorable hero. It does not necessarily make you an oracle or always right.

George Lincoln Rockwell, Richard Miles, and Edwin Walker, all three nutters (the first one being the head of the American Nazi Party) all served in the US military with distinction in WW2.

And the Bible is full of hate, wrath, and destruction, too. Read the Book of Revelations.

” AM I NO LONGER YOUR FRIEND BECAUSE I SPEAK THE TRUTH ” GALATIANS 4:16 THE BIBLE NO HATE FOUND !

The return on this conversation just headed south.

God so loved the WORLD that he gave his only begotten son, so that none shall perish but have ever lasting life. I’m quoting this just by memory from reading the Christian Bible, but I know all religions value Love, Family and Life.
Why can’t the world get this Godly message through their heads if you assess you are Godly. Even the Golden Rule would be the least of these beliefs.
Just stop hating people, is that even possible? Religion, Media/Tech and Politics are ruining the world. It’s a sorry, sorry day that we can’t look past surfaces and realize we are all equal in the eyes of God. Good is good and Bad will always be bad no matter your feelings. And do know that judgement will someday come, so as the song says come on people you got to love one another right now.

I assume that you are acquainted with Circle Sanctuary and Circle Network News? Every issue they have blurbs on how Pagans are hassled and/or persecuted under the heading of the Lady Liberty League. Selena Fox has done a lot of good work, helping people who being pounded on by bigots (and sometimes the government) retain their rights to worship as they wish.

I agree with you 100 percent on the Native, indigenous religions. They develop to help people live with each other and their environment. The problem emerges when you get one group that tries to force its ideas on all of the others.

Stay strong, and Bright Blessings!

aadila — Tantrum much? That’s all I have to say on the subject to you. And if you think that the majority of people who regularly post on this site don’t understand that all of us, by using resources, have an impact on this planet, and work to minimize this impact and work to make things better in our dealings with people, why do you come here? I have apparently pissed you off and I apologize for that.

It’s Friday. Hopefully cooler heads and hearts will prevail next week.

It is beautiful here today. I hope that it is lovely where you are, too.

Blessed Be! Thank you for being a pagan voice of reason. I walk the path also, and though it have found peace within. I was raised fundamentalist southern baptist. I stayed in trouble for daring to question well everything. I studied religion as a part of my Sociology degree and there is so much Dogma! The native beliefs of peoples before the intrusion of the “major” religions are in balance with nature. They believe in a creator and to respect that creator you respect all its creations.
I sometimes worry that the religious nuts from every tree are going to bring an end to this world. This man helped with this film to cause trouble. It seems many “religious” people want everyone to follow them and only them. They all believe they are right and if you are not of their faith then you MUST change. I have to hide my beliefs from many people including family here in Alabama. The ones who claim to be open and loving and most like “god” are the worst! Thankfully this is not the burning times……………………………..

No.

I said the only thing I can do is halt the violence in my own heart if it takes me an entire lifetime. Does that mean bend over? No. Does that mean going hungry? No. It means stopping the violence in my own heart. There are monks who burn themselves to death with gasoline to make this very point and I hope their deaths are not in vain. They did it for others to wake up. What are you seeing when they burn?

Where I take issue with your view is that, one, you don’t seem to understand what I am saying, and two, you are not taking responsbility for YOUR violence. It’s not just your view, Coral. It’s the bulk of humanity. Everybody is going around talking about violence like they don’t contribute to it. Like war is just something that monsters do (i.e. anybody but ME). That there is two sides to it and I’m not really part of it. That this is an external phenomenton that “I” don’t have any part of or responsibility for. It is this kind of thinking that gets my “guns blazing”. And yes, I am at war with myself to quell my own violence. I am devoting my life to it like my head is on fire because it is that important.

If you flip someone off in traffic, that’s violence. It goes out into the world. When you deface public property with grafitti, this is violence. It goes out into the world. When you call someone a name or think any kind of violent or destructive thought because you don’t get what you want, or think you need, you are contributing directly to the violence in the world. When we get outraged at an insult to our religion or values, this is the seed of violence. When we get angry, no matter how slightly, this is the seed of violence.These mechanisms are subtle but real.

So I don’t think it makes sense to say violence is due to hunger, or scarcity of resources. These things happen because we are chilling our houses to 68 degrees and burning up the planet. It is because we drive instead of walk five minutes, but God help us if gas goes to $10 a gallon because then we have to walk. It is because we go to the grocery store and stock up on packed, processed goods instead of investing heavily and urgently in permaculture and sustainability. It’s because we put our recylables in a bin for a massive diesel truck to pick up, and think, oh that helps. We take more than we give to the world. It is not enough to just point at the Bushes, Saddams, and Mugabes of the world. I am pointing directly to where the violence in the world begins: right in my heart. In your heart. You personally. And everyone who reads this.

I didn’t say if you think peaceful thoughts it will stop wars. I observed that quelling the violence in your own heart is the only thing you personally can do to stop violence. Who are you kidding? You can’t stop a war. You can’t make me less violent. It depends on me. We can’t make Netanyahu less violent. It depends on him. There is no mystical mumbo jumbo or religious bullshit in my thinking here. It is pure common sense. I am not talking about buddhism. I am talking about killing.

Not once did you take owership of your violence. And I don’t mean to pick on you at all, I am just pointing out that this is the most common response in the world. Hey it’s not me! Nobody gives a shit about their own violence and thinks everyone else is to blame. And given our survival as a species depends on it I think it is worth offending your sensibilities to point it out. I hope you can forgive me for being so blunt.

Also, as GDWilliams points out with his (or her) comment regarding authoritarianism, a lot of people are hard-wired (at least within current human society) to WANT absolutes so they won’t have to puzzle out solutions on their own.

What is unfortunate is that one on one, or in small groups, even those who may back the blanket pronouncements of religions, etc., are often very reasonable and willing to make exceptions that are right in front of them (e.g., not condemning — and even defending — the gay adult son of a neighbor who they have always liked, even if the church they love says otherwise). The problem occurs when people who are reasonable and are willing to make “exceptions” still support blanket, harmful “rules” simply because they think it’s important to “uphold standards.”

If we could find a way to get around this behavior, I think that a lot of the hate would simply wander away.

I agree with you that changing people’s hearts and minds is very, very important. In my work, one of the things I try to do is help stakeholders who feel embattled to come up with ways of addressing disputes that do not involve picketing, lawsuits, and other typically unproductive behaviors.

However, in some cases when you have total jerks running a company who don’t believe they have any accountability to their neighbors and absolutely zero willingness to sit down with them (fortunately, I don’t have clients like this because they wouldn’t hire ME if they didn’t want to have some sort of dialogue), then as far as I am concerned, the neighborhood has to do what the neighborhood as to do — and if that means filing a lawsuit to bring the company managers to the table, so be it. Notice that I do draw the line at shooting anyone or burning the place of business down.

One of the things that is particularly toxic about the current political climate is that polemics and hate talk are not only tolerated, but celebrated. Certainly, this comes (in my opinion) from a sickness in the hearts and minds of those who do it–and those who allow it or encourage it. Providing examples of more positive approaches to problem solving–including reducing or hopefully, eliminating, the “demonizing” of perceived opponents so that rational conversations can take place and common ground can be sought is very important.

I stand by my belief that reasons matter. If I infer what you are saying correctly, it is preferable to stand around non-violently and starve rather than fight, in one way or another (not necessarily by killing) for a resolution that will allow everyone to eat enough to survive. Many wars don’t involve shooting — they involve driving others to extinction by depriving them of food, water, land, an ability to make a living, etc. That is still violence in my book. In a world of finite resources–especially when some groups seek to control some or all of them–sitting on one’s hands and thinking good thoughts doesn’t cut it, although it does make the resource controllers happy.

So think peaceful thoughts all you want — it certainly doesn’t hurt and probably helps a lot because it causes those who meet you to think about this alternative rather than the usual U.S. “charge up San Juan Hill,” but I stand by my belief that causes matter, and that alternatives to out and out war can work. But unfortunately, there are monsters out there who don’t want peace and who are willing to run over and kill anyone in their way (or sometimes, just for the hell of it). When they emerge in forms that allow them to attract lots of followers, then reason may not be enough to stop them.

I do not believe that there is virtue in allowing evil doers to destroy others, and although I would hope that as humanity advances, we would adopt templates of thought and behavior that would nip that sort of thing in the bud, I stand by my initial comment.

After reading the references you provided, I think those people put the S in stupid.

The number of social scientists researching authoritarianism escalated dramatically after WW2. And the reason for much of the interest came about after the surprising revelation of just how terribly banal (see Hannah Arendt re: “banality of evil”) and normal-seeming the underlying personality was of so many of the lower-ranked Nazis on trial for their exceptional barbarism while working as concentration camp guards or soldiers occupying the towns and villages overrun by the Nazis.

But instead of them all being crazed, wild-eyed psychopaths the way most might expect given the details of the war-crimes they’d been accused of, it soon became evident they were just 9-to-5 working stiffs before the war with nothing really exceptional about them to serve as a warning or indication of the monster inside waiting for the justification (war) and the authority (Hitler) to act out on it. Nothing albeit for that same strong sense or desire to become or be seen as a super-patriotic, deeply righteous protector of what they believed was the moral fibre of their country under attack from “them”, exactly as we now see today being trumpeted by the members of various orgs that the SPLC has listed as hate-groups.

My nature is like any other person: we all have the capacity to kill, even the MLKs, the Gandhis, the saints of our world. What separates them from the rest of humanity is they overcome. I don’t believe it is possible to stop violence in the way that you describe, by looking for data, reasons, causes, as if violence existed anywhere but the mind of every single being. The effort is helpful. It is noble. It may save lives. But it doesn’t strike at the core of the problem.

To stop violence, one must quell the violence that is in one’s own heart. Anything else is a distraction from that critical and decisive action. Trying to fight violence with violence, no matter how subtle, even in a “peaceful” debate, is to perpetuate it. Unless we act from a position of non-violence, total non-violence, we will always contribute to the problem. It is next to impossible to do so in a world surrounded by others who are violent and make no effort to contain it.

I feel that to catalogue the “reasons” for war, is ultimately to rationalize war and try to make of it some sense. Oh sure, there are economic reasons, ethnic reasons, territorial reasons, religious reasons, grudges, vendettas, madness. Millions of dollars go to groups that do just that. The UN tries just that. Humanists, devout, caring people everywhere see the obvious problem of violence. But the interventions are not working.

All the causes of violence reside within the mind. Any word we give to it, any method we use to analyze it, resides within the mind. If our minds have violence, our work will have violence, no matter how subtle, no matter how much we try to contain it.

There are two sides to your approach. On the positive side, we discover how to focus our attention on the problem. On the negative side, we find possible inroads, but violence still occur. Always. So we begin to accept small amounts of violence to prevent large amounts, or taken to extremes we derive the concept of a just war, or maybe we just say to hell with it, better them than us. We begin to accept violence as an intractable problem without any solution because nothing we do seems to actually stop the killing.

Looking for external causes is how we bomb others into oblivion because they “hate freedom” in the famous words of George W Bush. It’s how we explain holy wars and ethnic cleansing and police actions. It’s how we explain embargos and so-called non-violent sanctions tthat interrupt the basic conditions necessary for human survival and that too is violence. Sanctions very rarely impact those making decisions for the people being penalized, and almost always perpetuate more misery in the world.

Am I pessimistic? No, not really. I just see a difference between putting a band-aid on the world’s hurt and actually doing something, the only thing, that will make any real difference in the problem. And what is that thing? Don’t answer to me. Answer for yourself. What is something you can do?

In my opinion, the only solution is that we first eradicate every violent thought in our own minds. Even it takes an entire lifetime or many generations to achieve this. Violence and warfare do not make sense, they are not just, and whatever concept we use to point out why someone else is violent, more violent than we, ignores the root of the problem. Any effort to blame circumstances does not address the problem of violence, because some are violent in the same circumstances where others are not. They may be rare, but not every individual will resort to violence to save their own life. So why is that? What causes that? Why would someone die rather than act violently?

At the end of questioning every possible angle of it, I returned exactly where I started: to my own conscience. Until you, and I, and every single person who by chance reads these words, and every single person on the planet, quells the violence within our own hearts, there will be no end to violence ever.

The rest is just a creative description for killing. Killing is still just killing.

Complete with sex change…here strictly to derail the discussion!

So, Annie/Jason…do tell us how the Holocaust never happened!

Then tell us how the Russian people greeted their Nazi invaders with flowers!

Then tell us how Norman Rockwell sided with Hitler!

Then show us your proof that the white man is superior to the black man!

And tell us again how you’ll prove it to us, only if we pay you vast sums of money, showing that you’re into neo-Nazism and junior Fascism for that noblest of purposes…the money!

Then you can give us citations and evidence for all these wacky ideas!

Until then, the tumbrels await for you!

See? I don’t even have to think in dealing with him/her/it…I just cut-and-paste my own stuff!

Bush/CIA/NSA/Mafia Mind Control Victims
Right-Way Law founders in Washington State Prosecuted
Sun Jan 18 18:05:33 2004

Message Board by American Patriot Friends Network [APFN]

http://www.apfn.net/messageboa.....gi.11.html

On my wall as I’m writing this is a little plaque that says, “An it harm none, do what thou wilt.” If this lovely Wiccan thought could be widely incorporated into public discourse and belief, we would definitely live in a more friendly, compassionate world, possibly approaching a utopia.

You brought up lots of good stuff and I will admit that my previous comment came from a great deal of frustration, sadness and anger about this current violent display. The problem as I see it is that the preeminent religions, with hundreds of millions, sometimes billions of adherents, function because they specifically do discourage, if not forbid, critical thinking and the acceptance of the possibility that they might be wrong and the other fellow might be right. Of course, if you use religion as a bulwark against fear, it wouldn’t serve that purpose very well if you had to acknowledge that you might be wrong!

Pagans, ancient and contemporary, seem to have the wonderful capacity to allow others to do their own thing and not feel threatened by them. I am a believer in each person finding whatever path they can to help them get through whatever this is we’re in. Mainstream religions are successful exactly because they exert tremendous pressure on people to hunker down and follow rules, in return for which they are guaranteed certain rewards. Humans are social animals; we’re comfortable in herds and are often more than ready to abandon our natural autonomy for the carrot of protection and maybe eternal life – somewhere. (Personally, I can’t imagine anything worse than an existence of eternal “bliss”. No one I’ve ever asked has been able to accurately describe heaven, only their subjective wish as to its configuration. I am anticipating the great relief of nothingness.)

As soon as the religious involve themselves in promoting their viewpoint to others who don’t want to hear it and actively attack and suppress those who don’t share their beliefs, they have then crossed the line and should be stopped. However, these monotheistic, proselytizing systems operate on the assumption, and successfully so, that a great majority of people are content, even anxious, to be controlled and politically manipulated. It needn’t reach the extreme of Jim Jones convincing 900 people to commit suicide; the example of the Pope, wielding unbelievable power in the world, convincing people to behave in many way that are against their best interests, is only one of many.

If I were to ever contemplate adding a religious aspect to my life, it would likely contain pieces of Buddhism and/or Wicca, probably a patchwork of thoughts and behaviors that would be comforting. The point remains that the vast numbers of people who accept and promulgate the organized, mind-numbing versions of religion are the ones who give it a bad name and sadly, certainly obvious in this country, have infiltrated the political system to a disturbing extent. Neither schools or churches encourage, in some cases don’t allow, critical thinking – schools because they want to raise compliant citizens and soldiers, and churches because critical thinkers would soon see through the implausibility of the supernatural myths they’re being fed. It’s too bad that the imagination-driven story-telling that went on around campfires millennia ago had to solidify into “truths” that now allow some people to hate, abuse and kill other people

Reasons and causes DO matter. Wars that occur because one side is taking terrible advantage of another side CAN be averted — if other ways can be found to address the inequalities. Wars are often symptoms (except in cases of “wars of adventure, where some jerk simply decides he wants to, I don’t know, invade a company that didn’t attack us on 9/11). Wars do not have to be inevitabilities if efforts are taken the bring the sides together or pressure is brought to bear (like trade embargos) against those who are doing the oppressing.

Much of the work I do in regard to environmental consulting involves helping residents and other stakeholders understand, for example, what is happening at a contaminated site, or what types of emissions are coming from a facility. I also help the owners/operators of contaminated sites and facilities understand the concerns of residents and other stakeholders. I would say half the time, the residents and facilities are at each others’ throats over what turns out to be misunderstandings or lack of information. But I obviously can’t solve the problem if I don’t know what it is.

While your nature and your religion may not take you past condemning killing — and that is a HUGE step in and of itself — others of us do want to look at reasons and causes because we’d like to see if there are ways to stop the carnage without resorting to additional carnage.

I do agree that certain brands of religion seem particularly subject to abuse — notably the monotheistic, proselytizing ones — and I totally abhor the recent descent we have seen into science denial in our schools and wonder what the heck non-believers (or only luke-warm believers) are thinking, accepting this crap rather than protesting in the streets. If you want to teach religion — you’ve got a church for that. You want to teach science, let’s keep the mythology out of it.

I don’t know, however, if you are going to be able to wean all humans away from some form of supernatural belief any time soon, though. In part because I believe that it is hard-wired into our brains to “tell stories” to explain those aspects of the world we don’t understand. The element that promotes wide-scale belief in religion has to do with intelligence.

I don’t wish to sound elitist, but many people gravitate to the types of pat answers and black-and-white thinking that are common to monotheism because they either aren’t terribly smart, or they haven’t ever been taught or encouraged to consider other beliefs or ideas.

It is very telling that some states that are highly conservative and within the grip of the Religious Right are attempting to get rid of requirements for “critical thinking,” saying that it undermines parental authority. What they really want is to avoid teaching kids how to question religion or civic authority.

I wish that the U.S. could embrace a secular model in our politics and keep it separate from religion — much the way it is done in the UK and some other European countries, for starters. I also think that verbal attacks against atheists and agnostics should be actively discouraged. Of course, I am probably the wrong person to be making such pronouncements, because I follow a rather free-wheeling nature-based religion (Wicca) because it suits my way of relating to the world. As a rule, Pagans (including Wiccans) are notoriously fluid in our religious thought, preferring a more intuitive spiritual path. This drives some ex-Christians who ask me about Wicca nuts, because they are used to doctrine and dogma, and we are short on all of that (and proud of it).

As far as Pagans are concerned, like the old Roman Empire, which used to allow conquered people to stick with their own gods (and maybe add a temple to Jupiter), we don’t tend to care what others believe, as long as it isn’t negative, abusive, and violent. That said, I could conceive of abuses of Paganism by the same types of power-hungry people as built other organized religions if they got a hold of it. The first thing they would do would come up with a lot of rules — and kill off the existing Pagans, who would be protesting the creation of a powerful hierarchy and a lot of dogma designed to control the masses. That, too, unfortunately, is human nature — until humans wise up and stop letting the jerks call the shots.