Has there ever been an idea more deadly than the notion that "human nature is basically good"? How much disproving evidence will the leftist simpletons who spout this nonsense require before they finally revise their thesis? The belief that man is basically good has undergirded more more mischief, mayhem, and genocide than any notion in recent history. It is the idea that has propelled the utopian fantasies of every homocidal, communistic, Marxistic dictator, all of whom have believed that if you can just manipulate the economic forces correctly, you'll end up with the Perfect Society. Sure, maybe we'll have to get rid of 10 or 20 or 60 million undesirables first, but then we'll be perfect.

What brings this to mind is that I was reading some of the final email correspondence of Rachel Corrie, the silly little leftist American girl who was tragically killed in the Gaza Strip a couple of weeks ago while obstructing Israeli bulldozers at a refugee area. That her death was a horrible, possibly murderous, event does not change the fact that she was still a silly little leftist. In a famous photo taken a few months before her death, she is seen publicly burning a paper mock American flag.

In reading some of her last writings, which were printed in the U.K.'s Guardian Unlimited, I was struck by something she said:

I'm witnessing this chronic, insidious genocide and I'm really scared, and questioning my fundamental belief in the goodness of human nature.

As Rachel now knows, her fundamental belief was wrong. Ideas have consequences, and this poor girl based her entire, short life on demonstrably incorrect idea, which was fed to her by people who should have had her best interests at heart (from her parents to the comically liberal college she attended), and which she uncritically accepted until finally taking a good look at reality. Hers is merely one of hundreds of millions of deaths that can be attributed to erroneous belief in "the goodness of human nature."

For those who see this poor, stupid girl as some sort of hero (and there are many of them), you need to realize something: Muslims would not stop trying to wipe Jews off the face of the map "if the two sides just understood each other more." People in the Middle-East would not just live together in peace and harmony if we could just establish a Palestinian state. And someone won't refrain from driving a bulldozer over you while you're standing in front of it just because he's "basically good."

The leftist vision says that mankind is basically good and thus perfectable through a few temporary, (though draconian) measures. Christian theology teaches that human nature is basically evil because of the stain of sin. Which side has been proven over and over again by the evidence? Those who really believe in the "basic goodness of mankind," ought to be morally consistent and remove the locks from their doors. The rest of us need to wake up, smell the world, throw ourselves on God's mercy, and produce solutions based on the truth rather than pedantic utopian fantasies.