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<p class=MsoNormal><font size=4 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
14.0pt'>Thanks Ted; I don’t think this is the end of our developing world
history, but I think you make a very very important point about the stability of
a given society. This has certainly weakened Ed’s generalism at the very
least.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=4 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
14.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=4 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
14.0pt'>Michael <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>Michael, Ed et. al.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'> <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>Social Science, like Political Science, is an oxymoron... but I think
that "morality," and certainly not sexual morality, may have
little to do with the survival or demise of a given society. Some very
brutal and dictatorial societies (ancient <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place
w:st="on">Egypt</st1:place></st1:country-region>) survived for millennia, but
not because they were "moral" by the standards of morality you appear
to follow. In fact, I think a good case could be made that some societies
fall in part because they are "moral," meaning, from my moral
perspective, less violent and brutal. Other societies survive by doing
whatever it takes to survive, "moral" or not. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'> <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>Success in warfare is one of the most critical variables
in maintaining the survival of many societies throughout history, and
the more ruthless and vicious the warriors and the tactics employed, the
more the society has the means to maintain itself against external threats, or
to conquer other societies. Thus the willingness to kill
"enemies," to wipe out or assimilate entire
other cultures without compunction, may be a very important variable
to maintain the success of a society, but I trust this does not fit your
definition of how a "moral" society functions. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'> <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>Societies not structured around the willingness and the technology
to wage all out brutal take no prisoners warfare may be at a disadvantage
in competing with more war oriented societies. Why did the invading
European culture dominate the native cultures in <st1:place w:st="on">North
America</st1:place>, ending in genocide for many of the native cultures?
One dominate variable: superiority in warfare. This may have had more to
do with war technology and the numbers of Europeans invading (small pox
blankets were a clever tactic, a form of biological warfare), than a lack of
willingness on the part of the native cultures to fight and kill. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'> <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>But I doubt it had anything to do with the European rejection of
homosexuality based on Biblical or Judeo-Christian moral superiority, or any other
moral or religious principle that rendered the European
culture morally superior. In fact, I think the European culture
invading North America, based on this vaunted Judeo-Christian moral
tradition, was morally despicable, that their treatment of native cultures
in North America ranks among the most horrendous and cruel examples of human
inhumanity to other humans in the history of the human race. And that the
Judeo-Christian tradition was in fact employed as ideological/religious
justification/rationalization for the hideous, cruel, monstrous conduct of the
Europeans against the native cultures. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'> <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>QED <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'> <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>Ted Moffett<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
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