Via “3QD”:http://3quarksdaily.blogs.com/3quarksdaily/2007/04/paternalistic_d.html, Ernest Lefever “writes”:http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/013/574nhmym.asp about Africa and irritates my inner copyeditor:

bq. BECAUSE OF AND in spite of Hollywood films like The African Queen and television shows like Tarzan, tropical Africa south of the Sahara and north of the Zambezi is terra incognito for most Americans.

I imagine a giant moustache on top of the Central African Republic. The CIA engages in the war on terra incognito.

bq. Others accept the opposing myth promulgated by Thomas Hobbs that in a “State of Nature,” there are “no arts, no letters, no society, and which is worse of all, persistent fear and danger of violent death, and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.”

Maybe he’s confusing him with “Russell Hobbs”:http://www.russellhobbs.com/. I know, I know … this is just nit-picking. But then, a classic:

bq. Unduly critical of the European colonists, they seemed unaware that the British, for example, had ended slavery 79 years before Lincoln signed the Emaciation Proclamation. …

Onward:

bq. Back to Hobbs. If it took a thousand years for the barbarian tribes of Europe to become democratic and prosperous states, how long will it take African tribes that missed the Renaissance, Reformation, Magna Carta, and Industrial Revolution? … And brutal demagogues like Mobutu in the Congo, Adi Amin in Uganda, and Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe have ravaged their countries to enjoy the fruits of unbridled power.

Mmmm. Adi enjoyed unbridled fruit.

bq. [Rhodesia] was conquered by explorer-entrepreneur Cecil Rhodes in 1897 and eventually established as a self-governing British colony. Determined to make the country safe and prosperous, Rhoades established the world’s first national park there, insisting that it be open to all races.

I’ll leave Tim Burke to deal with the content, as needed.