That's all interesting, LH, but weren't a lot of the people the Taliban put on trial trying — to one degree or another — to follow the path you espouse?

Peace, love and equality are nice concepts, but a reality check tells me there's little of it around now, there has been precious little of it in the past and there's little chance of it in the future.

Peace can never last as long as there are scarce commodities (food, building materials, oil, fish, whatever) to fight over.

Love can exist, but only with its attached opposite, hate. The more you love a person, place, god or whatever, the more imperative it is that you kill anyone or anything that threatens it.

Equality never has and never will exist. We can legislate equality of opportunity, but only with the inevitable outcome that all standards will be lowered to the mediocre, way below anything we would consider excellence. But there will always be people who are smarter or stronger or more ambitious than others and I've never heard of — in life, history or science fiction — any society or social institution that could level the playing field for long.

cheers,

david