The coming Race war?

The coming Race War… or war to save the human race:  It’s our choice.   And it needs to be made very soon!  

[This blog was inspired by today's front-page Washington Post story leading to two full pages of history and concern regarding the growing threat of a race war.]   “Hunting Black men to start a ‘race war’”   https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/local/race-war-murder-hate-crime

We have within our genes the capacity for genocide as well as the capacity for compassion, justice and the Golden Rule.  Our mind can engineer either outcome.   It’s vital for our minds to grasp the fundamental fact that the same technologies used to engineer a genocide can also enable us to create heaven on earth.  It is the concepts we hold dear in our mind that ultimately inspire our heart to love or hate. 


Biology is literally the science of the study of life.  Studying biology can empower either aspiration.  Studying the mechanics of biology alone can result in genocidal bioweapons or biosecurity threats that lead to the ‘war that ends all wars’…by eradicating our species.   A deep dive into the origins of life (from either a science or biblical perspective) however, can also yield the fundamental principles essential to the perpetuation of our species. 
  

What are those fundamental principles?  Abraham Lincoln convinced me that ‘framing’ principles in the context of “the Laws of Nature and Nature’s God” that are offered to us in the first paragraph of our Declaration of Independence, is our species greatest hope.   Not our Constitution.  To him the “principles” within “Our Declaration of Independence” are essential.  Our nation’s Declaration is our “apple of gold”… “and our Constitution” is “the picture of silver framed around it”.



FP #1.  Genetics do not determine our destiny.   Recent studies of epigenetics destroy the long held scientific understanding that the genes we are born with, we are stuck with.  In fact, various stressors outside our cellular DNA can alter how genes are expressed in both our bodies and our brains.


FP #2.  Genetic variability is our species greatest ‘strength”.    When Darwin coined the term “survival of the fittest” many people understood this ‘law of nature’ to mean ‘survival of the strongest’.  As a former wrestler I assure you that any strength you rely on can and will be used against you.   One’s capacity to adapt to changes is and will remain the greatest strength.  Genetic variability is profoundly enhanced by the exchange and recombination of genes through sex.   Hybrids can result in variations of life that can withstand catastrophic changes in the environment (nature, economic, social…). 


FP #3.  Earth has an expiration date.  White supremacists and other genetic ‘purist’ motivated extremists fail to comprehend our need for biological diversity within and beyond our species if life as we know it, is to ultimately survive Earth’s fate.   Earth and all of its precious life WILL be vaporized in a few billion years when the Sun ages.  Or we could all be vaporized next week by a planet killing asteroid or Gama ray burst originating ten thousand light years away when it finally reaches our tiny planet and obliterates any DNA/RNA based life forms. 


FP #4.  The inability of human “moral virtue to govern the world”.  Given the unlimited variations in human bodies, languages, and beliefs; our capacity to create new tools and concepts; and our mental ability to believe ANYTHING -- and then kill or die for that cherished but flawed belief -- disastrous tensions/passions can be expected.  And humanity must engineer an effective means (systems and structures) for governing them.  This should be obvious.  Thomas Paine expressed it most succinctly in his pamphlet “Common Sense”.   The need for a “form of government from a principle in nature” to ultimately maximize human “freedom and security”. 


FP #5 ‘United…We stand’ a chance of surviving human tensions and inevitable natural events.  Given the evolution of weapons that we continue to engineer for maximum human destruction -- divided, we will likely destroy ourselves before nature does.   Or, deplete our natural resources before we can learn and incorporate all of nature’s wisdom it has generated since the beginning.   There is a biological reason for “the Golden Rule” underlying of every major religion.  Any species lacking the will or the capacity to defend its kind, procreate, and defend its own would have likely perished long ago.  Survival is a fundamental principle of all life and fairness (justice for all) helps insure it.  


As we end this decade and 2020 begins, we must quickly learn that there are ‘self-evident truths’ that fake news and deep fakes will never spoil.   Nearly two decades ago the “Global War against Terrorism” was launched.  It continues in a low-profile version today in over 90 nations.  There are more ‘extremists today and they are not going away from fear of military force.  They only go deeper into hiding and tactics we will not be able to defend against.  Our collective failure to invest in prevention instead of preemption, assassination, kinetic violence, and containment is fulfilling Osama Bin Laden’s original two goals – breaking us economically and dividing us politically.  We didn’t need any help with either but we do need to change how we respond to ‘terror’.  


‘We the people’, social media, big data intelligence, robotics, and the most powerful and wealthy nations, corporations, or tech giants in the world --  must remember that technology and economic theories are only tools.   We ultimately decide how they will be used and must understand the consequences of abusing them.  Unless we recognize and act on this humanity may yet lose the right to survive and the opportunity to thrive. 


The one thing we can do this decade to ensure we make it to, and well beyond 2030, is fund and achieve the 17 Sustainable Development Goals.   These are the closest thing we will get to the ‘Golden Rule”, enforcing the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and codification of our Declaration of Independence. 


The human race is worth fighting for.  Compassion and cooperation in achieving ‘liberty and justice for all”… our best weapons we will ever have to win this war.