The headline of this article could and should be expanded to include dictators and wannabe dictators.

The simple fact is that war, no matter what the excuse or pretext, is insanity. And those who chose to engage in it are, frankly, nuts. Underlying this is a core insanity of general hatred of other humans—and this hatred is easily evidenced by the conference of labels or classifications on people for the purpose of excluding these “classes” of people from anything at all.

Here’s an example. Prior to World War I, Kaiser Wilhelm took the debased theory of Leipzig psychology professor Wilhelm Wundt to heart when he stated that man was basically an animal. To Kaiser Willy, this was a great way to get his soldiers comfortable with killing other soldiers—because they weren’t men. We’ve seen many examples of this false labeling of groups of people before and since. Hitler’s rants against Jews, Pol Pot’s murderous hate of anyone with an education, the South Africans who borrowed the concepts of Hitler and the American genocidal actions against Native Americans for Apartheid, the attempted erasure of Tutsi’s in Rwanda, the killing of over a million Armenians by the Turks—the list goes on.

The foundation is the same: a failure or refusal to recognize the basic fact of humanity itself. There is another basic fact: all people are human, not some other race. And it is ironic that those who try to exclude others from being recognized as people are actually denying only themselves membership in the human race.

Just to be clear, it is not only our country basking in the—hopefully not radioactive—glow of fools and idiots right now. Netanyahu, the leaders of Iran, Hamas, Hezbollah, the Taliban, Kim Jong-Un and of course Putin fall into this category. Their prejudices against others precede all their decision making.

There is a common denominator of all these “leaders.” They are holding on to power by shrewd politics, in the case of Netanyahu, or direct force of arms. Iran’s current regime objected to the secret police, the Savak, that kept people in line for the Shah. But today their religious police make those guys seem benign. Try objecting to anything about the North Korean leader only if you don’t value your life—that’s a guy who had his own brother assassinated in another country.

Have you ever seen the portrayal of a person who sees enemies, FBI agents, reptile people and Martians around every corner? These are the same kind of people we find on these positions of power. And no, Trump is not excluded from this list. The personality from history who probably demonstrates how dangerous this mindset can be to Mankind as a whole is Stalin. He killed around 10 million Russians, not including World War II, purely out of paranoia and to scare the hell out of those still alive.

People who obviously lack any humanity can’t respect the humanity of others—they are only aware of what they think and couldn’t care less about those around them. Hanging out with them and depending on their “logic” is playing dice loaded with nitro.

Humanity begets more humanity. And no this is not some allusion to a furthering of the species by reproduction. It means that if you treat someone with humanity, with respect, with care, you will get humanity, respect and care in return. The reverse principle is also just as true. Spread around hate, fear and terror and you will be getting a lot more of the same in return.

And here is the real saving grace for us and our unique location in the solar system and known universe: there are a LOT more humane people on this rock than the insane ones. Unfortunately, some bona fide nut cases are fully in charge of some countries. No need to name them all, you know who they are. And for whatever reasons of social abberation, suppression or subversion we are stuck with them for now.

The fact that Iran has funded international terrorist operations does not cancel out the fact that the United States, Britain, France and other countries have done the same thing over the decades. Look back at the history of Central America, Africa, Asia, even Iran itself and you will find terrorist operations by what would today be considered benign and humanitarian democracies.

This brings us only to a circle of pointing fingers. Where do we go from this corner of Rock Street and Hard Place Avenue? Well, everything works better with communication and responsibility. If you are communicating with a person you are not shooting at him or taking fire from him. If you are taking responsibility for the effects you have created in the past and for the effects of your messaging now, you will be less apt to antagonize. These are simple ideas that apply to interpersonal relationships, but they also apply to nations—interpersonal relationships writ large.

In the end it is never nations that go to war, only individuals who intentionally cause or seek out conflict do that. Real people communicate. And what luck that they are the majority that value their fellow man and seek beneficial solutions and compromises instead of death and destruction.

Never accept the statement that “war is inevitable.” That is a lie. Going to war is an admission that one is too incompetent or too inhumane to arrive at a proper solution.