Les Faits de la Vie

Your Tax Dollars at Work, The Nature of Man


Your tax dollars are helping to fund this $3.4 million museum honoring terrorist Yassar Arafat.

When the notion that man is basically good acts in concert with the notion that there are no absolute truths to be had [except that man is basically good, perhaps]?; strange notions abound. Today's Jewish World Review contained two must-read articles. First Caroline B. Glick [click to read] reminds us of what the Palestinian Authority is actually buying with the aid we send them. If that isn't enough evidence to begin a serious discussion on the depravity of man, Dennis Prager [click to read] points out some pretty inescapable 'facts of life.'

Prager writes: "Since the Enlightenment, the secular world has had to believe in man (or "humanity") because if you don't believe in G-d and you don't believe in humanity, you will despair." Indeed the evils that beset the world cry out for an explaination. The Bible is clear about human weakness and strongly asserts that the answer is G-d. Secularists have marginalized G-d, but need to cling to the theory that mankind can perfect itself.

Prager further explains: "I did not write that man is inherently evil. I wrote that he is not basically good. And, yes, that does make the world sad. So do disease, earthquakes, death and all the unjust suffering in the world. But sad facts remain facts."

"A distinguishing characteristic of liberals and leftists is their aversion to acknowledging sad facts." Sadly, this aversion leads to the embracing of national socialism schemes where it is believed the external catalysts for human bad behaviour will be eventually conquered after much suffering. It also leads to the lionization of 'victims' such as Arafat and the Palestinians.

But the fact remains that, other than differing world views, the only observable difference between the Palestinians and the Jews who were forced out of Baghdad in the 1950's is that the Baghdad Jews were assimilated and the Palestinians were not.

The facts of life would seem to say that the Arab nations were all too quick to exploit the dark side of human nature [by keeping the Palestinians in camps], while other solutions that involved meeting basic needs and assimilation were sucessful in promoting healing.