And yes, the solution really is that obvious, and yes it will come to that.
Well, there is an obvious short term solution, and really, we won't have to do much other than deny them aid (forcefully if required)
Its their bed, we just have to make sure they lie and die in it.
The Longer term solution is much more difficult. I have seen enough evidence that suggests herd mentality has a genetic component and that set of genes is dominant. It is our individualist - thinking - rational genes that are recessive. I really don't think these herd animals really cognitively understand much of any of the civilization around them ( Electricity comes from the wall, its clean energy!) and they have just learn to BS their way through by emulating civilized behavior ( for the most part.) They are like a Cro Magnon dropped suddenly in the modern world. They practice a paleolithic system of ethics evolved for hunter-gather groups. They simply go mad in a world where they are isolated, dependent upon themselves with no tribal safety net, expected to make their own decisions without the group-think of the tribe , and basic needs are plentiful and easily met. They are unhappy because this environment is massively unnatural to them at a very basic level. The idea that the berry bush is "mine" is beyond them - to them I am hoarding the berries for myself. The ideas of our founding - Individual rights, personal responsibility, rule of law, Limited government are simply outside their ability to comprehend. They understand the individual is inferior to the tribe, that the tribe as a group is responsible for taking care of the tribe - which member will benefit equally , that the strongest one rules, and he rules absolutely. It is the only political system they can understand and therefore its the one one they are willing to accept. Our way of thinking and our values are completely alien to them.
Commander Adama: What awaits us out there is what troubles me.
President Adar: But surely you don't cling to your suspicions about the Cylons? They asked for this armistice. They want piece.
Commander Adama: Forgive me, Mr. President, but they hate us with every fibre of their existence. We love freedom. We love independence. To feel, to question, to resist oppression. To them, it's an alien way of existing they will never accept.
The long term problem is that this is genetic -- the free-loading herd animal will be born to the freedom-loving individual and vice versa. They want to eradicate the recessive gene - Mendel's recessive Green Pea. We want to live free of the Yellow Pea dominant free-loader dominant herd. ( I am emphatically NOT talking about race here - . ) But no matter what we do, our genes are going to ensure we are born into mixed groups.
Its also probably not 100% deterministic.. its a predisposition to herd group think and base desires-- just as American Indians have a genetic predisposition to alcoholism. These behaviors can be overcome. Perhaps the freedom-loving genes just make that same predisposition easier to overcome. So the proper education and conditioning may help, but it won't solve the problem... we will still have individuals among us that long for the safety and protection of the herd-- - who cannot be happy in our world.
I have no doubt that the herd mentality was a survival trait for millions of years, and I have no doubt having a small number of thinking individualistic herd members that could adapt to new situations also aided a herd's survival. But now, in the modern world- the complexity of which depends on individualistic specialization and effort - the herd wants to force the individual freedom-lover into association with and service to them - All other tribes are enemies - therefore if you are one of "us" you are one of "them" - Fundamentally this is at the base of all of our conflict with them. They define their tribe and we must not only accommodate it, but join and support it. You must bake cakes for Gay people. You must hire the right races and sex in the right proportions. You must pay the right wages. They simply cannot and will not accept any other form of societal organization. That is why any "diversity" is okay as long as its not ideological diversity. The Animals have bleated and identified the other animals like them..
Ever feel like this in a group of liberals?
"You are NOT of the body!"or like this?
SCREAM!! (Invasion of the Body Snatchers - Donald Sutherland)Yeah. That.
They aren't willing to "coexist" and they will live and let live only so long as they are able to force you to live their way..The Coexist sticker is really an announcement of their genocidal ambition to be the Borg and add your cultural distinctiveness - by forceful association- to their own.
Of course its not any individual who does this ( they as individuals don't matter -) the "tribe" decides via group-think and the "tribe" knows best.
This is also why they have no concept of force or coercion. They really don't understand the difference between a volunteer and a conscript, any more than the Borg do. You are owned by the tribe. You are of the body. Of course the body acts in unison, and the arms and legs move without complaint and resistance to the commands of the body. The very idea of individual choice is foreign and nonsensical to them.
We can't live with them. We can't separate. Even if we gave them both resource rich coasts as their own to govern as they may-- what would happen? The free States would still do better, and the herd states would go broke and fail , and the herd, in a greedy animalistic fit of envy , will declare that somehow the free states stole their prosperity from them, and they would start a war.
This cycle is going to repeat over and over.
Throughout history, poverty is the normal condition of man. Advances which permit this norm to be exceeded — here and there, now and then — are the work of an extremely small minority, frequently despised, often condemned, and almost always opposed by all right-thinking people. Whenever this tiny minority is kept from creating, or (as sometimes happens) is driven out of a society, the people then slip back into abject poverty.
This is known as “bad luck.”
We had a 200 year run before bad luck overtook us this time. Maybe next time we can do three-hundred. Eventually, with star travel, there will always be a New World - a New Frontier , and the individuals will always be on the edge of it. Always pushing a little bit further out, and only then will the problem be "solved"
Mal: I tell you, Zoë, we get a mechanic, get her up and running again, hire a good pilot, maybe a cook - Live like real people. A small crew - Those that feel the need to be free. Take jobs as they come. They never have to be under the heel of nobody ever again. No matter how long the arm of the Alliance might get... we'll just get ourselves a little further.
Zoë Washburne: "Get her running again"?
Mal: Yeah.
Zoë Washburne: So not running now?
Mal: Not so much.
