Many of us remember the story of David and Goliath. Some of us might remember the cartoon show Davey and Goliath.
The cartoon, a stop-action clay animation show, had a well intentioned but dim witted Davey and his intelligent dog, Goliath, who had to keep reminding Davey of what his mother had told him.
"Now Davey, you know what your mother said," Goliath would say.
But no, Davey was dumber than a box of rocks and got in trouble every episode until he 'did the right thing.' And if he didn't have his dog to remind him what the 'right thing' was, we can assume Davey would have ended up a juvenile delinquent, drug addict or in prison.
Every show had a moral message, which was basically that Davey was too dumb to remember what his mother told him. It was probably my favorite cartoon show.
The story of David and Goliath is a story about two champions who duel to the death. Goliath is huge and well armored. David is a mere boy armed only with a slingshot.
Naturally, the little boy with the slingshot wins, because, like the cartoon show, the story is fiction. But what is interesting is that it really does reflect warfare in ancient times.
Goliath was the champion for the Philistines; David was the champion for the Israelites. When David defeated Goliath, the Israelites won and the Philistines went home.
WHAT, ARE YOU KIDDING ME!
No, if your champion lost, your whole tribe or clan or city-state lost. We need to do that today. In the second Gulf War, wouldn't it have worked better if President Bush and Saddam Hussein had just duked it out and left the rest of us out of it?
Where did we go wrong? David and Goliath had it right. We are extremely messed up.
Napoleon came up with the idea of nationalism to convince people to die in his army fighting people in countries far away from their borders.
When Napoleon invaded Russia and Spain in 1812, his army was made up mainly of conscripts from the general populace.
Before Napoleon, most armies were comprised of mercenaries. The monarchs that ran most countries in Europe could not afford standing armies. Napoleon changed all that. The whole nationalism thing is one big scam perpetrated on people to get them to fight wars that used to be fought by mercenaries or by champions.
In effect, we are as dumb as Davey, we have forgotten what our mothers told us. We fight wars all over the world because we have been conditioned from birth, thank you Napoleon, that it is our duty to die for our country.
Our Founding Fathers, bless them, knew better. They mistrusted standing armies as well. They knew they were instruments of tyranny. Please, please, read the Declaration of Independence again. Washington had to rely primarily on local militia to win the war, as the Continental Congress refused to authorize a large, professional army.
We're fighting two wars now, are we insane or just very, very dumb?
Ancient peoples in some ways are more intelligent than we are today. At least in regards to the way we fight wars.
It would help if our leaders today were as smart as Goliath. The dog, not the Philistine.
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