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I believe a key line in this entire report is at the end of the Burke quotation wherein he warns of the consequences of fair treatment to ordinary people: "In this you think you are combating prejudice, but you are at war with nature.” The phrase "at war with nature" is a direct contradiction to the essential, revolutionary belief of America..."We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal and endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights among the are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."

Nature in Burke's view advocates that "nature" has created humans as essentially unequal and, therefore, any social inequality is justified as "natural". As Stephen Jay Gould's "The Mismeasure of

Man" shows, much, if not most, of post-Darwinian American social science, focusing on craniology, eugenics, intelligence (IQ) testing, etc., had the implicit belief of inequality as its a priori assumption.

Human equality is also an a priori assumption which is beyond the pale of scientific proof. Nevertheless, if equality is assumed to be a human possession by the mere fact of existence, then the focus becomes the need to create and maintain the conditions that enable whatever personal qualities each individual may have to grow and flourish; rather than only for those who are deemed, by whatever superficial criteria, to be inherently superior. I can not see how society is thus harmed.

Americans tend to jingoistically pride ourselves as being the greatest society in the history of the world. Think how much greater the USA and the world in general would be if we did not intentionally or unintentionally handicap our citizens based on beliefs of inferiority based on race, gender, wealth,

and social status.

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Me too! "At war with nature!" Boom! Aren't the powers that be in love with the "naturalness" of the heirarchy! I also made a note that the continuum from the "Dark Ages" to the "Middle Ages" was not so fuzzy if viewed through the lens of the weaponization of RELIGION.

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It was for the protection of the white men! period. Not even white women counted at the time.

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