better living through sanity
or, don't let the illuminated bastards get you down

The writings below are political, highly philosophical, and very dangerous. If you are a member of a fascist organization, or a militant hyphenated-American, you may be offended by this material. Read it anyway. It may change your point of view.

Since the beginning of time, there has been conflict - or so we think. Yet, for a species that does not feed on its own kind, we have an inordinate amount of violence within the species. There is no real evolutionary reason for it at all. All major religions preach the same doctrine - violence is bad - but continue to condone it in cases where it affects only members of separate ethnic groups. Examples - the crusades, the holocaust, the Armenian massacre.

Why, you ask yourself, would people do such things? Why would they hurt, even kill other peoples, merely because of differences in the number of gods they worship, or the kind of skin they wear? Well, there is no reason. It is all random and wholly stupid violence. Suppose there were a reason... what would it be? The following is a myth designed to answer this question. It is only a myth, intended as a parable. I am not some wacko advancing this as a fact. Do not trivialize what you read below as politically correct drivel. It is the main problem plaguing our society, if only people would realize it.

(LONG AGO THERE WAS A GROUP CALLED THE RING OF FIVE)

The basic doctrine of the Ring was to acquire for themselves powers of cosmic measure by sacrificing massive quantities of humans to a being capable of granting such abilities. They were not insane, at least in the sense that they were in touch with reality - this was a proven truth, and it had been done before by depraved individuals. They, however, wanted to build up a race of immortal super-humans, to endure beyond the death of the planet Earth.

(THEY ARE ALSO KNOWN AS THE ILLUMINATI)

The magnitude of the task before them was enormous. The creature, a being of tremendous size and hunger, required thousands, sometimes even millions of lives, before it could grant a single person immortality. The first step in their plans was simply to sink the continent of Atlantis, then the center of all civilization... this they did, and it granted enough power to endow their leader with supernatural abilities. There were too many people who had to be killed to make it a simple task, even in terms of efficiency. They needed to devise a plan.

(THEY ARE ALSO KNOWN AS THE NAZIS, AND THE KLU-KLUX-KLAN)

The leader, now possessed of spectacular intelligence, put forward a plan. His plan was this - to make all the peoples of the world look different through genetic engineering, and then give them a reason to hate each other. The Ring called him insane, and tried for twenty-three years to devise another strategy. Eventually, they decided that his was the only possible choice, and summoned him once more.

(THEY ARE ALSO KNOWN AS THE JEWS, AND THE BLACK PANTHERS)

His plan sounded ludicrous - create different segments of people, give them religious and territorial reasons to kill each other. If they all looked different, he reasoned, the adults of each group would prevent the children from marrying off into the other groups and blurring the distinctions and creating peace. Also, they would be easy to spot and kill at random, requiring no prompting from the Ring.

(THEY ARE ALSO KNOWN AS THE CHRISTIANS)

The beauty of this plan, he said, was that if they could implement the first part, they would never have to meddle again - just wait for people to die violent deaths, and the Ring could collect the souls. Each member asked, would the people not eventually understand and stop the killing? Would they not retaliate? His answer was simple - the children would only know from what was around them. There is no way that they could devise another form of existence - as long as they were carefully taught to hate, there would be no turning back.

(THEY ARE ALSO KNOWN AS THE ARABS...)

This they did. Pockets of resistance formed, and were quickly shot down. Ninety-Nine percent of the world's population followed the Ring, believing that they were marching to a new and better future in their own specialized genetic group, to be made better and different from all the rest. Only one resistance group survived - the discordians. They understood what was happening, and hid away, waiting to emerge again when the Ring's control was slipping.

(...AND THE CHINESE, AND THE JAPANESE, AND THE KOREANS...)

Wait they did. For four thousand years, violence from human to human has continued. People died in vast numbers. Until one day, the Ring stepped too far... they began the Great Wars.

(...AND THE AMERICANS, AND THE COMMUNIST PARTY...)

It began with the Civil War, a war about whether one man could hold another man in bondage because of his race. Then it continued, to the First World War, and the Second. The Vietnam war. The violent upheavals in Russia. When the soldiers returned home from these wars, a little bit of control slipped from the Ring each time.

(...AND THE DEMOCRATS AND THE REPUBLICANS...)

People saw the death and decay and rot of war. There was no longer a glamour surrounding the intentional and systematic killing of other men. People stopped rationalizing about it. It was the beginning of the end for the Ring.

(...IN SHORT, THEY ARE KNOWN AS YOU AND ME.)

The time to strike back is now. How, you ask? Hate no one. Love everyone, including those who would condemn you. Never raise a hand in offense against another person. Without regard to race, religion, color, creed, country of origin, sexual orientation, appearance, or intelligence, meet people. Talk with them. Become friends.

Perhaps we can overcome the petty racism that infiltrates all of our lives. Perhaps our experiences will no longer be limited by an antiquated set of rules set down by ancestors too long remembered. Perhaps we can abandon the negative beliefs in each of our cultures and adopt the positives in those of other people.

Perhaps we will be the last generation on earth ruled by hate.