Thanks to Jimmy Buffett for providing some of our titles this week. This below quoted from a piece about tribalism (a subject which we recently discussed), which addresses freedom, Iraq, Vietnam, Thomas Friedman, etc, from Shrinkwrapped:
...his theory was that the people who live between thirty degrees north and south parallels of latitude (the Equatorial Region) are different than those who live in more temperate climates. In that region it is relatively easy to wrest a living from nature through hunting, gathering, and subsistence farming. There are also abundant materials for building crude shelters from the elements. Because the temperatures are warm, the main purpose of shelter is protection from rain or hot sun. On the other hand, nature is very strong in these latitudes. Insects and the elements attack any structure as soon as it is put up. Periodically typhoons/hurricanes, tsunamis, and earthquakes occur, destroying shelters and lives. As a result the people develop a philosophy that they can’t fight nature. Therefore, they don’t spend much time, money, or effort on building shelter. And since food is readily available they don’t see the necessity to plan ahead for their food supplies or to save up for a possible famine. He believed the people of the tropics were very resistant to the ideas of democracy and capitalism because they were still too close to the old ways of tribalism. This meant the tradition of strong or big-man leaders, not building lasting infrastructure, and living in the moment rather than planning and investing for the future.
