We are the step-children of evolution

I was just thinking about freedom, why we fight for
it, if we really can fight for it and why our leaders
alway like to tell us that we are fighting for it.
Maybe the connection between fighting for oil and
freedom isn't so ludicrous after all. It's one thing
for those of us who don't fight because we can't fight
to say that we don't want anyone fighting and dying
for oil. But we do like to sit on our asses in the
light and warmth and watch TV. We like our hot meals
and quick Internet connections. And boy oh boy do we
love our cars, baby. We drive downtown and get coffee
then drive 30 miles east to see a movie because we
like the seats at the cineplex by the mall. When we're
done, we decide to come back out tomorrow to do our
shopping because we're tired. We give not one
consideration to conservation unless bitching about
the price of gas at the pump can be called
consideration. And it can't.

It's all about resources. In Paleolithic times,
everything from good rocks to water and food animals
were resources that were not only worth fighting for,
but were worth fighting for by every member of the
tribe. No one had the luxury of being a pacifist
because the only peace was the peace of the grave.
Freedom was, and is, the freedom to continue living.
So it is not necessarily illegitimate for our soldier
to fight on our behalf for the freedom oil brings us.
And it is thus likewise a bit naive to say things like
NO BLOOD FOR OIL. Because for as long as man has been
alive, we lived and died by resources.

Now, that makes a good argument for the conservative
position, perhaps a slightly more honest conservative
position than most of us are used to hearing. NeoCons
convince themselves that they are really trying to
spread Democracy and freedom to other countries at the
end of a gun. It's a position born out of frustration,
which is why NeoCons are often former liberals who've
"seen the light."

There is freedom to and freedom from. What the human
race needs now is freedom from dependence on fossil
fuels. That isn't going to happen. It's the shortage
and constant struggle to find more oil that makes it
expensive and therefore profitable. Money is a another
resource, isn't it? One created by men to make them
more powerful than other men.

And that is the rub. Where we once fought directly
over limited and very real resources, we now have the
wealthy sending the children of the poor off to fight
for resources that keep them rich and our cars
rolling, but which could be replaced if we looked
around and did the research.

We are evolution's little bitches.

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