The founders simply postponed settling the issue of slavery, and eventually it came back to haunt us big time. And it still isn't completely behind us, it has just morphed into other forms. And how many bloody European wars were fought, not just between montheists, Christian on Christian, or Muslim on Muslim, but between followers of the same religion over what we see today as minor doctrinal differences?

Even modern man, who presumably has a better understanding of the social and psychological causes of violence is ready to accept at the drop of a hat that all his countrymen are right, and all his enemies are wrong, and it is perfectly all right to slaughter perfect strangers on a mass scale.

This is a tribal thing. We don't fight people who are wired differently, we wire ourselves to be like the side we're going to fight on. Why did Russians, English, French and Germans slaughter each other by the millions over some Austro-Hungarian princeling? And why did we get involved?

I just think we're going to have to accept the fact that we exhibit, and accept, collective behavior we would never engage in individualy. We are, after all, social animals, even more than we think so.