Progress? What progress?

What did I learn from Winston Churchill's History of the English Speaking Peoples? I learned a sort of drearily hopeful thing: people have always blundered through life. Politics (at least in England and the US) have always involved crazy legislation that generally makes things worse...and yet the human race limps onward.

I learned that people are blinded by their own culture.

I learned that small mistakes have awful consequences.

I learned that few people actually do learn from history, and the mistakes of the past are repeated over and over again.

AND

I learned that the nobility, humility, power, brilliance, or virtue of some people can still inspire and fascinate hundreds of years after they lived and died, even when they seem to be on 'the wrong side' or when you've no idea which side is the right side.

Which leads to the conclusion that we should obey God and love our neighbors, be as wise we can be, and maybe not struggle too hard to always be right, because there are things we cannot see. This may be encouraging in the present chaos concerning money and politics and all that.

Baby Snatching

Keep a close eye on anyone who says "our children are our future," because they usually mean that your children are their future. Anyone who thinks that children are the collective property of the community is kooky.