I wish representative democracy - as it exists in most major nations today - meant 'people power'. To me it means taking power from the people and giving it to one person (or a small number of people). Eugene Debs was right - if we people trust in leaders, they may occasionally find a good one, but eventually a leader will come along to lead them astray.

Thanks for your appreciation. You are right that I haven't focused that much on our capacity for violence, as I have on our capacity for good. That is because there seems to be no end on the focus on the violence, and very little focus on us being capable of being better, so I'm trying to let people know there is another side. (Although the 'Were we born evil?' article does speak of the negative side of humanity too)

The passage in the beatitudes about being 'poor in spirit' is open to several interpretations.

Traditionally 'poor in spirit' has been interpreted as meaning humble in spiritual matters, or lacking spiritual pride. That's a message I can agree with - that humility should be rewarded. However, Luke does render it as 'blessed are the poor', which does fit in with the many Bible passage about Jesus favouring the poor and condemning the rich.