by Lumpy » Sun 13 Apr 2008, 16:30:50
This really comes down to "natural law". The world is based on it. Here is an example -- GreatGrandma in our family loves all animals. Over the years the word got out amongst all the strays in the town where she lives. She was buying dry dog and cat food by the huge sackful, and the animals figured out when to come around, species by species. The dogs in the morning, the cats in the afternoon, and the SKUNKS in the evening.
Now at first this was a pretty neat scenario ... Momma skunk with her cute little skunk-lettes (whatever they are called), eating on GreatGrandma's back porch, in a residential neighborhood. But then it became two Mommas plus babies, then three, etc ... (In addition to all the stray cats and dogs at other times during the day, remember.)
Then all at about the same time, GreatGrandpa died, GreatGrandma began living on a fixed income (which made the cost of dog/cat/skunk feeding much harder on her) and the neighborhood starting noticing an incredible number of skunks around.
Animal control was called in by a neighbor, and they trapped the skunks and set them free back to their natural habitat, to eat whatever they would have been eating, if it weren't for Grandma's cat food kibbles out there for them.
Not surprisingly, however, after at least 4 generations of skunks heading for GreatGrandma's house for their meals, the skunks seemed to have either lost their urge or their smarts to hunt for their own food. And so they came back.
This time when animal control came (called by another neighbor who was understandably concerned) they caught around 35-40 skunks, and shot them all.
So GreatGrandma felt pretty bad for a long time. She says herself that if she had never "taught" those skunks to depend on her for food instead of finding their own natural way, two things would have happened:
1. Their population would have been controlled naturally by the amount of food available to them in the wild.
2. They wouldn't have ended up having to be trapped and put to death.
In other words, natural law would have prevailed.
I remember when I was about 7 years old, reading my first National Geographic. There was this photo of a group of well-meaning missionaries who had gone to Africa to help the "poor, ignorant natives". They started by bringing them clothes -- which they did not need in their society. The photo showed the missionaries beaming, as they handed out bras and shirts to the women, and several women from the tribe off to the side, trying to figure out what to do with the bras. Most of them decided they were some kind of head-dress, and had donned them accordingly.
The article talked about the goals of the missionaries to bring not only salvation to the tribal members, but also "a better way of life, based on that of the greatest nation in the world, the United States of America."
Obviously that article left a big impression on me.
Now look what has happened in the ensuing decades. Instead of being left to pursue their own ways of life, society after society has been "squared pegged into round holes" in our attempts to share the wonders of the West.
I love my country. But I think we should have left folks alone in the first place to love and continue their own way of life, rather than imposing ours on them -- which proved unsustainable without our ongoing presence, aid/interference -- which has now peaked.
GreatGrandma should not have started feeding those skunks, and she knows it. She is a loving wonderful woman -- but she sees where she went wrong, even though she had the best of intentions when she started out with those feedings.
She had to accept that she was in great part responsible for what happened to them -- because she took away their ability to live on their own for so many generations.
You can complete the metaphor yourself.
Lumpy
"A government big enough to give you everything you want, is strong enough to take everything you have." Thomas Jefferson