Human Nature the Hobbes Way entry #1

Hello my name is Thomas Hobbes and I am a 17th Century English Philosopher. What I have to say about human nature is the absolute truth. I believe that in general human nature is selfish and bad. All human acts are motivated by self-interest and the quest for power. Humans have only one natural right, the right to protect oneself by using any means necessary, including violence and slaughter. In the state of nature there is no law, no morality, and no property. When it comes down to it, even of we don't want to admit it, we will all do about anything to survive. We will not care about the consequences even if the affect others, as long as we benefit from them. The state dominates by using scarcity and fear. There isn't enough resources or property for everyone to have, and that is why people are selfish. People always want more even if they have enough, because of the fear of one day not having anything. When government comes into play, it acts as the 3rd party. The government protects that the agreement two people conclude on and makes sure that everything is under control. There is no way to prevent a new leader from abusing its power. Even though the state will inevitably abuse its power it is still better than no ruler at all

Here are some examples of three people that perfectly show my reasoning and prove that I am right...

Rafael Trujillo (el Jefe)- El Jefe was in power for 31 years in the Dominican Republic. He was a bad and selfish man. He killed around 20,000 Haitians just in 1937. He fixed elections so that he was always in power, he was obsessed with being in control. He was self interested and would kill innocent people to get what he wanted and stay in control. Nothing he did was for the benefit of others. He abused his power, just like I said people will always do.

Idi Amin- He was the military dictator and President of Uganda. Idi killed around 100,000-500,000 people. He took control of the government and made it a military rule. His policy was one of military domination and violence. He rapped, killed, and imprisoned people. He got rid of all the people in government that actually did good. He was a cruel selfish man, who never though about the rest. He is an example of another ruler who took advantage of his power.

Bernard Madoff- Was the former Chairman of the NASDAQ stock exchange. He committed 11 felonies and made a huge scheme that defrauded thousands of investors of billions of dollars. Madoff wasn't a poor man that was in need of money. He is a selfish greedy man, who wanted to be rich and didn't think of what that meant for the people he took money from. He might not have been a ruler, but he had power and abused it.

Also here are books that show these same ideas...both of these book are written about two horrible time periods when rulers abused their power and did very awful things.