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By Root 1597 0

of the world is to change human nature, and history says this will not happen. The one commonality in all history is the unchanging qualities of human nature. No matter where we study the past, we can count on one never changing thread: human nature stays the same. We can read the writings of Marcus Aurelius (121-80 BC) and discover his thoughts were not so different from ours today, in spite of the gulf of two thousand years between his thoughts and ours. Cain killed Abel for no good reason according to the Bible, and everywhere we look people are still killing one another for no good reason. It seems people have been cheating, lying, seducing, raping, murdering, stealing, and conquering—among a host of other ills—since the human race started. If this does not change then the ancient Hebrew prophets will be correct, and we will end up the same way we started out, murdering one another.

Human nature is dogged by irrationality. People murder with increasing gusto, massive amounts of money are spent buying propaganda, pornography, illegal drugs, other fundamentally irrational things, more nations are acquiring nuclear weapons, and people ignore the plight of others. Meanwhile, science, empirical knowledge, new inventions, and new discoveries continue to accelerate and better the human condition. The dual nature of human beings is clear in this divergence. On the one hand, we enjoy magnificent rationality and progress while on the other hand we suffer irrationality striving to undo every advance. No human society has ever overcome the dual nature of humankind. The future may depend on our ability to meet this heretofore-impossible challenge.

A Final Thought

Look back over the history that we have covered. From the very start of history to the year 2010, at least one political division has been clear. Governments by dictators, kings, and tyrants who believed the state was everything and the individual was nothing, have been faced down by men who thought the individual was greater than the state, and only by respecting the individual did the government have any right to exist. From Marathon to Inchon and beyond, this has been true. It is still true today, and America is currently the only nation able to face down the tyrants and dictators of the world. America alone holds the future of freedom. If the United States of America fails, that dream of individual liberty fails. If radicals manage to change America by degrading its culture and its government America will fail, and with it individual liberty based on individual rights.

Observe closely what is happening around you. Read history and compare the events of the past to the events of today. Evaluate what the results of failure have been throughout time. Then look around and discern how today’s decisions bring tomorrow’s blessings or curses. It is decisions that make history. Make your decisions in favor of the bright line of liberty for the individual. Uphold the memory of Thermopylae and Trenton. A million ghosts of liberty are looking to you. Learn about the past and then, as you go into the future, demand that the ancient dream of the individual being greater than the state remains alive and well.

Your friend,

AD2

Online Sources

Many of our maps and information for commentary came from THE UNITED STATES MILITARY ACADEMY WEST POINT history site at:

http://www.dean.usma.edu/history/web03/atlases/AtlasesTable-fContents.html

West Point also publishes a wonderful set of books with attendant maps on World War II, Europe, and the Pacific in separate volumes (one book is text and another is a complete set of maps) and World War I. And the UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS LIBRARY Web site at:

http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/historical

Wikipedia can be a wonderful resource for information:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Kursk

will take you to the important WWII battle of Kursk. Type in World War II, and Wikipedia will take you through the entire conflict. The same is true for any era of history from prehistory to the cold war.

The Hyperwar site discusses the US Navy