For eons, mankind has displayed a tendency towards conquest, be it in colonizing foreign lands or winning a game of horseshoes, it’s all the same: humans will compete, there will be a winner and a loser, and the spoils will fall to the champion.

Of late, and I’m sure I’m not the only person bothered by this, the world has borne witness to an alarming surge in violent behavior towards fellow men and women. In America, it’s often black on white crimes, beatings, threats, outright senseless physical assaults for no good reason other than those initiating the violence being gaslit and propagandized by social media, cultural dissonance, or just plain hatred inspired by recent, and sometimes ancient events.

In Europe, the spread of Islamic culture and the mass of immigrants into places they should never have been admitted, like Sweden, France, England, and elsewhere has fomented rage and discontent on both sides. The Islamists insist on advancing their culture and practices against the will of the native inhabitants, promoting ideals that run counter to Western cultural norms, blaming people of European heritage for their poverty, their unacceptable behavior, their subjugation. Refusing to assimilate into the culture of the country they’ve invaded, they seek to impose their own set of rules: wearing burkas in public, praying the in streets, promoting Sharia law to a degree at which the original country’s inhabitants become victims rather than congenial hosts.

Eventually, the clash of cultures spills over into violence against one another in the form of protests, rioting, destruction of property and worse. Rape levels in Europe have reached crisis levels, primarily in the big cities, where the local police are either inadequate or unwilling - often by government decree - to quell the rage in any meaningful manner. Much the same is true in America, where violence against perceived authoritarian oppression has become endemic. The latest attempts to relieve Americans of the burden of 40 to 60 million illegal immigrants have resulted in confrontations and a swelling of destructive behavior.

Most of the Western world has become ungovernable, mainly through the government’s own mismanagement, ignorance, incompetence, greed, and apathy. Making no apologies for the actions of our “leaders”, Americans and Europeans alike have nobody to blame but themselves. They’ve allowed millions of people from far away places to arrive, live, and settle within their boundaries, often encouraged and supported by government assistance and reassurances from the mainstream propagandist media that everybody is treated fairly and with compassion.

Nothing could be further from the truth. When it comes to people who are within a country’s borders illegally - not having been properly vetted or naturalized - they have no rights. They violated a nation’s immigration laws and are as unwelcome as a colony of ants at a summer picnic.

It doesn’t have to be this way. People could treat each other better and not blame a difference in culture for one’s misery or lash out randomly at people just because they aren’t the same color as you. It’s insidious, maddening, and unnecessary. Government policies should be clear, poignant, and intolerant towards those who don’t adhere to basic precepts of societal norms or seek to impose their will on people who have done them no harm.

Instead, government and various media voices coddle the violators with reverse-victimization, claiming that those who came into a country without a passport, reasonable identification, and often no purpose other than to commit crimes and enrich themselves at the expense of native inhabitants are oppressed, misunderstood, and should be handled gently and not prosecuted for any crimes or violence.

It has to stop. People need to step back from the social media hell-holes of anger and spite and grief and get to the truth. If you’ve been supplanted from your native land, forced into a dangerous environment in a foreign country, you need to take a reality check and leave. If you’re an American Black, or Afro-American, the current white people in your vicinity had nothing whatsoever to do with the slavery of your ancestors from 150 or 200 years ago. Treating white people as though they’re the reason you feel oppressed or somehow unequal doesn’t cut it and most white people aren’t buying it.

Beyond the burning cities of the West, there is the matter of war and genocide, primarily taking place in Ukraine and the Middle East. This is large-scale killing, maiming, torturing on government budgets, which seem to have extremely deep pockets. The senselessness of these two disparate, but also conjoined conflicts have, at their roots, the devious plans of Western leadership, though instead of the people committing the violent actions, all of it is funded by the war machine of Europe and America. One can’t blame anybody whose lives have been torn apart or suffered the deaths of loved ones for hating the neo-colonizers who carry out the agenda of an elite over-class, bent on capturing territory to which they have no right, committing mass murder on a scale that boggles the mind.

Oddly enough, though there are certainly conflicts in other parts of the world, by comparison, Asian nations are relatively peaceful. Despite having been thrust into a war which they wished to avoid, crime and violence in Russia is practically nil. China, despite years of threats and sanctions by Western nations, has not resorted to violence, either militarily or through terrorism, and there is little crime or violence within their borders because it is not tolerated, both culturally and officially.

It is not too idealistic to desire less violence in the world, both on a local level and on the geo-political playing field. Actually, most of the world operates at a level of decency that approaches civility. Get out into the countryside of America, or France, or Germany, and life is simpler, maybe a bit slower-paced, less threatening, and less culturally-diverse. It adds up to a comfortable environment without conflict or fear. It’s too bad the rest of the world couldn’t be that way. Taken at a higher level, the vast majority of people in countries that are at war, threatening war, proposing war as a solution to any problem, don’t want war, don’t need war, and largely don’t support the build-up of militarism, the manufacture of weapons nor the policies of sanctions, threats, and demands upon those they see as their enemies.

China isn’t an enemy of the United States, just as Russia isn’t either, or Iran. The biggest enemy the people of the United States have is right in their own country, in the think tanks, the Pentagon, and the minds of the people who promote the military-industrial complex (MIC). Rather than spending a trillion dollars a year on servicemen and women at bases around the world, building bombs, aircraft, missiles, tanks, and weapons of destruction, most people in America would prefer that money be spent on fixing roads, bridges, and other infrastructure that’s been in varying degrees of disrepair for decades. The same is likely true in Europe, where many, if not most, people are weary of the constant barrage of war propaganda, as if Russia or China would actually want to invade those lands and inherit those problems.

Violence does nobody any good. Wars produce no victors, only resentment and pain. It’s time the people who want to lead the world into even more destructive activities find either religion or some other form of entertainment. The world has had about enough.

— Fearless Rick

Footnote: Originally, I set out to write an opinion piece about how it would be better to settle differences by competing in sports. Have a soccer tournament or a baseball series instead of a war. Obviously, I veered off that path as the writing just flowed that way. It’s probably for the best. No government is going to agree to play ice hockey or badminton over “big world” issues. For me, a sporting solution would be preferable to blowing up stuff, but, hey, I’m not in charge of those things. People with more power and probably less intelligence happen to be, and that's too bad for everybody else.