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  1. MP3 #
    April 5, 2010

    “The fearless american defender of liberty and democracy” got shot in the head and “the loathsome godless communist oppressor” got shot in the heart.
    Both empty places….
    Coinsidence?

  2. April 6, 2010

    Can someone please e-mail this to our world leaders?

  3. April 7, 2010

    @MP3

    Probably, giving the height difference between Calvin and Hobbes, a happy one nevertheless.

  4. April 7, 2010

    Brilliant, as usual. 🙂

  5. April 7, 2010

    Yes, since Calvin is shorter; it would have made less sense if Hobbes was the one on the ‘good’ side.

  6. April 9, 2010

    its ironic because Putin once said, “Whoever does not miss the Soviet Union has no heart. Whoever wants it back has no brain.” its the opposite here. oh well, brilliant nevertheless

  7. April 9, 2010

    Um, MP3, you’re a genius. For real.

  8. hat #
    April 9, 2010

    @MP3
    I kinda don’t think it is! 😛
    I believe that Watterson really did think that far into things.

  9. April 11, 2010

    Love it

  10. April 12, 2010

    @hat: even if waterson didn’t think that far into it, mp3 makes a valid point.

    id like to think that no comic strip he wrote had any pointless nuances, mostly because hes a badass.

  11. April 13, 2010

    yui,,,,,,,,love it

  12. April 13, 2010

    Warfare is the only constant in human history. Denying it as a compelling human instinct when it is so clearly and repeatedly demonstrated. Is to deny logic and reality.

    For those crying out, ‘It doesn’t have to be that way’, the reply is, ‘It’s Always Been this way.’ So it shall be until race, tribalism, religion, nationality, politics and the like are worked out. None alive now, will see that day.

  13. April 14, 2010

    And such is the brilliance of Calvin and Hobbes. Every time you read a strip, you get to another layer.

  14. April 17, 2010

    @Vetter
    Troll harder.

    Just because something has been one way for a long time doesn’t mean that it will be forever.

  15. April 21, 2010

    hmmmm, vetter in reply to that sad thing you said, yes humans have repeatedly killed each other and your reply may be, “it has always been this way.”
    To which I would simply tell you, “Learn to break tradition, it’s more fun.”

  16. April 22, 2010

    @Chaos_Valentine
    it’s easy for us non-participants in the political game to talk about breaking tradition, doing the right thing, blah blah blah. when the shit hits the fan though, we arent the people making the decisions: its our dear friends in DC. and yes, they are tough calls to make, the the fact of the matter is that we are so far removed from the politics of everything that to say it doesnt always have to be as bad as Vetter laid out for us is naive. Race, nationalism, tribalism, all these social contructions are too engrained in out thought processes, too indicative of the way we conduct ourselves, and too historically rooted for us to just sweep aside and start over. nothing is so simple as that.

    so as much as i would LIKE to disagree with Vetter, i really can’t. human nature is too telling, too static. and change is never as easy as it seems, and changing something as vast as the American political way of life is comparable to telling tectonic plates to stop in their tracks.

  17. April 24, 2010

    @waydtheblade

    The American political way of life is as vast as plate tectonics? America has been around for a tad over 200 years. Tectonic plates have been around for billions of years. America is not even that vast when you think about it in terms of other historical empires, for example the Romans. They had been around for over 500 years at the time of their downfall. Something changed there, and it was something big enough to take down an enormous and powerful empire. Things aren’t so ingrained in us that we can’t change them. That is called laziness.

    Most major changes in the history of politics and war did not come from law-abiding citizens becoming well informed about what was happening and voting and writing their representatives. They did not come from the leaders making choices that people wanted. They came about because people made those changes happen. People like you and I, who don’t like the outlook of their nations’ futures, people who want to make a difference and want it more than the guys who want to keep things the same.

    It’s not that the “non-participants” can’t make a difference because they don’t have a say in Washington or because they’re not the ones making the decisions and write it off as an entire nation sharing the same problem, as if it is some kind of pandemic, of being “too far removed” from what is happening in the world. They don’t have power because they are not choosing to participate in this particular “game”, therefore they can not make a difference.

    There is no sociological or psychological imprint and there is nothing ingrained in our brains that prevents us from making a real difference. People have been doing that just as long as people have been fighting wars.

    What is holding us back is, once again, our own laziness. People don’t like to do things that are difficult.

  18. April 29, 2010

    Ants are, to my knowledge, the only other species that makes war, takes slaves, practices agriculture, and builds empires. They have been doing it far longer than humanity has existed and they are probably a lot better at it. They certainly tend to treat their prisoners of war better.

    Ants do not create art, develop science, display compassion, or practice philosophy. They, at least, do not seem to.

    It does truly seem as if human history were just a long list of wars, particularly in the West. Conflict definitely is a part of our nature, but very few species will kill one of their own kind over a disagreement.

    The reasons for wars past and present may be generally summed up with the word “resources” if everyone is being honest. People fighting and dying for land, or money, or oil. It amounts to the same thing. In the natural world, there is great competition for territory, food, water, and continuation of the species. The wild is a dangerous place.

    Humanity does not live in the natural world, however, and resources are not scarce. Energy technology, hydroponics, permanent settlements beneath the water or upon the moon. There is enough on Earth (and its satellite) for everyone and more. If fewer resources were wasted in conflict in order to create artificial scarcity, it would be easier to see the truth of this.

    War is wasteful, ignorant and uncouth. War is not wrong, because being “bad” makes things sexy. War is dumb.

    Machiavelli said that, as long as the populace can be kept poor and disorganized, the people can never oppose the powers that rule them. This is the truth behind “making the Internet a safer place”. If enough people were to come to the realization that the entire world can freely communicate and that governments were no longer a necessity as long as everyone can manage to grow up, just a little bit, and stop saying “Mine! Mine!” every time they see something shiny.

    You know what else ants never do? Kill one another without cause.

  19. July 13, 2010

    A strange game. It seems the only winning move is not to play at all.

  20. thebrainbehind #
    October 9, 2010

    totally there with you Serp

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