HUMAN EXPERIMENTATION
Inhumane medical testing is another example of human evil. Most were cloaked in military necessity or medical advances. The Tuskegee Institute lied to black patients and denied them treatment for Syphilis.83 Nazis conducted several experiments on prisoners including 1,500 pairs of twins and artificially inseminating nearly 300 women.84 Japan conducted barbaric chemical and biological research on humans in its Unit 731 top secret program.85 USSR and North Korea intentionally poisoned people, while South Africa forced 900 people to have sexual reassignment surgery.86 87Lastly, over 200 million women and girls throughout Africa, Asia, and the Middle East have been subjected to female genital mutilation according to the World Health Organization.
LEGAL INEQUALITY
In history, many have treated the minorities among them unfairly, but some implemented laws to keep them oppressed. The United States had Jim Crow laws, South Africa had Apartheid, and Australia had laws regulating its Aborigine population. Some minorities have only been given partial rights. The Ottoman Empire, for instance, allowed non-Muslims to practice their religions but they could not have full citizenship rights unless they converted. Today, India and Pakistan still have caste systems, and Russia, Iran, and many countries in Africa and Latin America have discriminatory LGBT laws. Legal inequality also exists for women, with over 150 countries that have laws limiting women’s rights.
COMMUNISM
Most will probably disagree with the idea of communism being a human flaw. But think about it logically, we believe that treating people fairly is a moral good. Communism’s expressed purpose is to treat one class of people better than another class of people. If we want equality, then treating groups differently should be frowned upon; whether it’s oppression or preference. The dangers of communism are increased by the fact that it is cloaked in benevolence.
Their plan to help the poor is to take over the means of production so the revenue goes to the government rather than individuals. The proceeds are then used to provide for the people equally. They say this will result in a better quality of life. The problem with this plan is two-fold: (1) the government is not set up to run industries, and (2) the current owners are not willing to just walk away.
People go into business because they have an idea or a particular skill. They put in a lot of time and nurture their business like it’s their baby. The government doesn’t have the same industry knowledge or passion for the business. Also, if someone builds the business and is told to turn it over, they won’t do it voluntarily. This will lead to oppression as the government will have to take the business by force. The same goes for all other property they want turned over to the government.
Take a look at current and past communist countries: China, USSR, Venezuela, Cambodia, Cuba, and Angola; did any of them lift people out of poverty? Of course not. They had, or continue to have, a few wealthy people and lots of poor people. The difference between communist countries and their capitalist counterparts is that their poor are poorer and the capitalist countries have a middle class.
This is why communist countries have more oppression. If you allow so much power to be concentrated within the government, it’s natural that people will start to resist. In communism, the whole system is held together by control; without it, the system falls apart. It’s also an ‘all in’ proposition. It cannot be successful if some of the people are practicing and some are not. Because of this, the government is obliged to oppress freedom. Some will say that the wealthy have too much power. This is true but they do not make the rules that govern us. They don’t decide if you can own a gun or set tax levels. Any power they have is dwarfed by that of the government. They have to comply with government regulations while the government answers to no one.
UNITED STATES
Since most of the discussion throughout this book will be about the United States, it’s important to highlight its history here. The US has committed many of the terrible acts listed above, this is not unique. When US history is viewed, however, it tends to be viewed more harshly than that of other countries. Much of the negativity is centered around slavery and its treatment of Native Americans. In addressing these issues, it’s important to look at them in relation to the rest of the world at that time.
When discussing slavery, most people lay the blame at the feet of America. For my entire life, I’ve heard blacks say slavery existed in America for 400 years. They were wrong on both accounts; the length of enslavement and the simplicity of blaming America.
The transatlantic slave trade began in the 1480s, when Portugal first bought and kidnapped black Africans and took them to Europe where it was fashionable to have them as pages or servants. There is little account of slavery among African tribes being common. However, we do know that it became a lucrative business for them and most of northern and western Africa participated. Spain and Britain quickly joined Portugal in transporting slaves to the west, including its territories in North America and the Caribbean.
Before all of this, Arabs carried slaves from central Africa across the Sahara Desert. The Arab slave trade, the longest in history, lasted 1,300 years, more than three times as long as the Atlantic slave trade and began 700 years earlier.88 It is important to note that when the slaves arrived in North America, there was no United States. For over 150 years, the slaves were in land occupied and controlled by Britain, France, and Spain.
The entire slave trade was controlled by the Portuguese, the Spanish, and the British. All of the slave ships were owned and operated by these three countries. When Britain ended the slave trade in 1807, the same year the US ended the practice, it continued in Brazil and Cuba for another 53 years. History books fail to point this out. They all say that the slaves were transported to ‘America.’ They may mean the continent, but the country is implied.
When told about this, most say it’s a distinction without a difference. This is not consistent with conventional belief. When a country is controlled by a foreign power and the people rise up against it, that country is considered a new nation. For example, Mexico won its independence from Spain. When we look back on history, we don’t say that Mexico controlled the slave trade or conquered the Aztecs, even though the land where it took place is now Mexico. If this is the case, why is there no distinction between Britain and America?
The bottom line is viewing slavery as solely an American problem is short-sighted and simplistic. In no way is this an effort to excuse the US. The point is that no one should be excused. Yet somehow, African tribes, Arab nations, Britain, Portugal, Native Americans, and Spain all get a pass. Take colonization, North America was controlled by five European nations: Britain, France, Portugal, Russia, and Spain. The biggest colonizers were Spain and Portugal, who controlled the early slave trade and all of Latin America. Spain also controlled Central America and the Gulf of Mexico, home to New Orleans. Take a look at the interesting way in which Spain was recently received.
In June of 2018, New Orleans celebrated its 300th anniversary. This, a city founded by French colonialists, ceded by them to the Spanish Empire, re-taken by the French under Napoleon and eventually sold to the US. At the celebration, New Orleans Mayor, LaToya Cantrell, presented King Felipe and Queen Letizia of Spain with the key to the city saying, “New Orleans would not be where it is without Spain.”89 To analyze Spain’s treatment adequately, let’s go to the logic board:
Again, Spain is honored, France is forgiven, and the US, the country that never held a colony, is left being viewed as the oppressor.
NATIVE AMERICANS
The pre-colonial accounts of Native Americans are difficult to express with any detail. The problem is two-fold: (1) there are many Native American tribes, and (2) we have no definitive evidence.
Because there were so many tribes, 567 recognized by the US government, they cannot all be viewed in the same way. There were many different languages, customs, and cultures. Some were aggressive; for them, warring was a way of life.90 While
others were more communal in nature. Because of this, their interactions with the Europeans were different. There were tribes the Europeans respected and some they viewed as savages, as referenced in the Declaration of Independence.
As far as evidence is concerned, all of the accounts are one-sided. Written evidence comes primarily from the Europeans giving us often exaggerated accounts of bloodthirsty natives attacking with impunity. Conversely, there is nothing written from the long period prior to colonization. What we get, therefore, is the account of the natives themselves. This, undoubtedly, is also a skewed view. This is how we get the common narrative that indigenous people were passively smoking peace pipes, enjoying life, then Columbus came and killed half of them; President Jackson sent the rest to reservations. This is an incomplete story. It can be surmised through archaeological finds that the tribes did have conflicts. As Bamforth states,
“Intertribal warfare was intense throughout the Great Plains during the 1700s and 1800s, and archeological data indicate that warfare was present prior to this time. Human skeletons from as early as the Woodland Period (250 B.C. to A.D. 900) show occasional marks of violence, but conflict intensified during and after the thirteenth century, by which time farmers were well established in the Plains. After 1250, villages were often destroyed by fire, and human skeletons regularly show marks of violence, scalping, and other mutilations. Warfare was most intense along the Missouri River in the present-day Dakotas, where ancestors of the Mandans, Hidatsas, and Arikaras were at war with each other, and towns inhabited by as many as 1,000 people were often fortified with ditch and palisade defenses. Excavations at the Crow Creek site, an ancestral Arikara town dated to 1325, revealed the bodies of 486 people–men, women, and children, essentially the town's entire population–in a mass grave. These individuals had been scalped and dismembered, and their bones showed clear evidence of severe malnutrition, suggesting that violence resulted from competition for food, probably due to local overpopulation and climatic deterioration.”91
So here we have evidence of warfare, genocide and violence. Then there are the cases of pillaging of settlers, horse stealing, and kidnapping of children.92 This was a practice of just a few tribes and was mostly a response to tensions with settlers, but imagine your child being ripped from you. Or worse, being killed in front of your children and having them raised by your murderers.93 Several tribes also participated in the enslavement of black Africans, as indicated in the section on slavery.
This doesn’t negate the fact that the role of the US was devastating and morally corrupt. But the narrative that this was America’s intent from its beginning is simply not true. In the Northwest Ordinance of 1787, article 3 states, “Religion, morality, and knowledge, being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged. The utmost good faith shall always be observed towards the Indians; their lands and property shall never be taken from them without their consent; and, in their property, rights, and liberty, they shall never be invaded or disturbed, unless in just and lawful wars authorized by Congress; but laws founded in justice and humanity, shall from time to time be made for preventing wrongs being done to them, and for preserving peace and friendship with them.” 94
Because the government’s actions took a turn for the worse doesn’t change the original intent. These terrible acts were due in equal parts to Native American raids, cultural differences, and American ‘Manifest Destiny.’ Many tribes did not have the same views on economy and property as the Europeans. They looked at the land as communal. One should take what he needs, without excess, but without borders. This view caused conflict with the settlers.
When the settlers found a desired piece of land, they took ownership of it. In their minds, there was no issue in doing so because no one owned a deed and the US government gave land for free as an incentive to encourage expansion.95 For many Native Americans, the concept of land ownership didn’t exist. If they wanted something on that land they were within their right to take it. This is where the cultural clash came into play. It was not a case of right or wrong, just different philosophies. It does beg the question, how is it so easy to say the Europeans stole land that the Native Americans didn’t believe they owned?
The bottom line is that US history is no different from world history. The examples described above show that people have warred, attacked, subjugated, and otherwise harmed others for millennia. There are countless more instances, but the samples above were chosen to show that these acts were not limited to any specific, country, religion, or race of people.
Look at the Code of Hammurabi. These are Babylonian laws, from the 18th century BC, concerning: adultery, slavery, slander, theft, contract disputes, and more; 282 in all. Ignoring the specifics of the laws, their existence shows the human condition. These laws would not have been needed if our nature inclined us to do the right thing. Meaning, as far back as 3,700 years ago, ‘civilized’ societies were dealing with the same human flaws we deal with today.96
History illustrates two key realizations relating to equality: (1) You cannot police human nature, and (2) equality is impossible. Once you understand that the flaw of man is universal, you begin to appreciate the difficulty—no, impossibility—of policing it. In a fight for equality, you must discourage behavior that causes inequality and punish it when it happens. These laws exist. People do what they do because they think they can get away with it or they don’t care. Murder is against the law, yet we have thousands of murders each year. One cannot regulate human nature.
The first problem causes the second one. In this politically charged climate, people debate which system of government is best, some prefer socialism, others prefer capitalism. The truth is, both would work fine if human nature wasn’t flawed. Everyone would be equal and no one would show preference or desire more. In fact, you wouldn’t need to have leaders to enforce the system. The inherent flaw of man makes this theoretical example impossible to implement.
Someone will always want more or be inclined to cheat. As long as this is a possibility, the sharing system cannot work. Think of the conquerors discussed earlier. Genghis Khan or Alexander the Great should have been complacent. They were wealthy leaders with lots of land and power (This, by the way is already unequal). Yet, they attacked other kingdoms to amass more. The kingdoms they defeated were not treated fairly. Conversely, the conquerors did not offer them an opportunity to be co-monarchs.
Knowing this, we should focus on what we can control. Instead, many believe that tinkering with the system will solve the problem. History shows us, from draconian enforcement of laws to anything goes, from monarchies to oligarchies, from capitalism to socialism, it’s been tried in some form. In every circumstance one of the following took place: (1) it failed, (2) inequalities arose and people rebelled, (3) there was internal strife and the system was attacked, (4) an external force conquered them. Capitalism isn’t perfect, it’s just the best of all of the systems we have.
Human nature is unchanging and eventually one of these things, or a variation of them, will put pressure on a society’s way of life. This means there will be inequality in every society, even in a utopian one. Perfect is often the enemy of the good, and many of us spend too much time trying to fix everything rather than improve what we can.
Take the climate change crowd for example. They truly care about the planet and want to improve conditions, which can be a noble thing. However, making improvements is not the same as ‘saving the planet.’ The planet is millions of years old and has gone through an infinite amount of changes. Whatever your views on fossil fuels and other man-made causes of global warming may be, thinking that a few thousand people choosing not to have children or banning plastic straws in America is going to make a measurable impact is not just foolish, it shows an excessive level of self-importance.
The same logic can be applied to achieving equality. Man has committed millions of permutations of atrocities on othe
r men, yet some believe they have the answer. As it says in Ecclesiastes 1:9, there is nothing new under the sun. I chronicled this brief summation of history in this chapter to show that they are being a bit presumptuous with their simplistic solutions and generous with their belief in the intrinsic good of mankind.
Finally, another advantage of looking at history is that it gives us context. Once we accept that people are not inherently good and those human flaws cut across all diversity categories: race, ethnicity, class, religion, national origin, and gender we can better assess how our system of government performs.
This is critically important as we will see in the next chapter. Some like to take the shining beacon on the hill and reduce it to an oppressive, racist nation. This is a blatant blurring of the truth. There have been missteps and atrocities along the way, which we will discuss. However, our forefathers knew they were not perfect. Their goal from the beginning was not perfection but to form ‘a more perfect union.’ In that respect, the achievements of America were greater than any other nation in history.
The problem with those who operate with the lack of context or understanding is that they try to judge every generation by their own and since they have knowledge and advancements that weren't available before and they think that they're superior to the others, they want to dismiss any good that was done because of prior bad acts.
We Want Equality Page 3