At 10:59 AM 5/1/97 EDT, brian j. callahan wrote:

>At any rate, I think homo sapiens have an ability we call reason that frees
>us to some degree from a pre-ordained pattern of society.  The change from
>hunter gatherer to agricultural to industrial societies with large variations
>in the social structure in each should show us that.  So let's use that
>reason to create a society where we can satisfy our natural needs and
>inclinations while allowing all the other homo sapiens to do the same.
>Wouldn't that be neato?

You are apparently basing your ideology the misconception that
people are "rational"[1].

Studies show that most people are not rational. For example,
they routinely fail to make inferences according to Bayes'
Theorem, which is a formula used to calculate the probability
that a particular event will occur. People give recently
presented information undue importance, thereby producing
answers that are not rational [Hamm, Ornstein and Ehrlich].
In other words, humans have not evolved to be successful
democrats in a world that is now far over carrying capacity.

[1]Here I define rational as: the ability to carefully weigh the
  important-known variables and make that decision which is most
  likely to achieve the desired end. See, for example, Ornstein:
  "Since the mind evolved to select a few signals and then
  dream up a semblance, whatever enters our consciousness is
  overemphasized. It does not matter how the information enters,
  whether via a television program, a newspaper story, a friend's
  conversation, a strong emotional reaction, a memory -- all is
  overemphasized. We ignore other, more compelling evidence,
  overemphasizing and overgeneralizing from the information
  close at hand to produce a rough-and-ready realty."

Jay -- http://csf.Colorado.EDU/authors/hanson/