Somehow, wedfrid also objects to the "distorted" emphasis in the opening paragraph: Apparently, we don't fight over politics any more, but we used to fight over it in the ancestral environment, so our instincts are misled. But this is putting the cart before the horse: Fundamentally, politics is a means of (hopefully non-violent) conflict resolution and de-escalation, achieved through increasingly complicated strategies and institutions. When we are unable to solve a political conflict through non-violent means, we can and do fight over it, as the rulers of Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Syria, Bahrain and Yemen have been discovering recently. Wedfrid seems to hold to the Maoist/Machiavellian view of politics as something that "flows out of the barrel of a gun": might makes right, ethics and rights be damned. This view works correctly until it doesn't, and when it fails the costs can be severe.

I consider this to be a straw man. I did not say those things. I don't believe those things. Your claims about what I believe are not a tenable interpretation of my words.