As our path through history leads us closer to the present we finally have the opportunity to comment on things that may have even happened in your own lifetime!  The past and the present are getting closer although like asymptotic lines approaching the horizon they will never actually meet.  It's worth remembering that our actions in the present are fashioning our combined futures in the same way that our progenitors built the arena in which we act.

While man has always had a dark side to his history a major distinction must be drawn between the actions of the lone criminal and the state-sanctioned and coordinated mass depredations which dwarf the power of the individual.  The organization of society has made possible the organization of killing.  All the wars of conquest, all the violent suppressions of dissent, all the reigns of terror, all the search for enemies have been optimized and scaled up to monstrous levels.  The only hope for mitigating this sad history is in the realization by all men of the brotherhood of all men.  When men see themselves as men and not as citizens, members, or subjects of nations, kings, religious movements, or ideologies the power of these groups to mobilize people for killing will be broken.

There is the bitter irony of looking at some of these horrifically evil governments and ascribing best of intentions to them.  In one sense the problem is not with the governments as they are simply doing what governments do very well - accumulating power, cementing control, growing inexorably larger and reaching ever farther into the live of people.  In this sense the problem begins with people of good intention who made a fatal error in expecting government to somehow do something other than what they are by nature inclined to do.  This is the fatal flaw behind all the totalitarian excesses frequently cited, the Nazis, the Fascists, the Soviets, the Red Chinese.  In all these cases there was a core of zealots all too happy to use the hammer of government to impose their personal vision upon the world by any means necessary but they were enabled by a passive populace who were enamored of the idea of letting a government take charge of protecting their liberty and well-being when this is really the peoples responsibility.  I go so far as to say this way of thinking is tragically mistaken and can never end well for people.

The horrors of the 20th century are the horrors of the total state writ large, unleashed upon a world which seems unwilling to face the truth about this abusive relationship. There are many who not only refuse to learn anything from the mistakes of the past but are determined to double down like crazed gambling addicts.  Along with the recognition of the brotherhood of man we can only be saved by an increased embrace of self-determination and a rejection of the hollow promises of the state.