SACRAMENTO, CA - "Gangs of Dayak headhunters armed with spears, machetes, and blowguns swarmed through south-central Borneo on Sunday, hunting down and killing immigrant settlers from the island of Madura."

This was a lead that grabbed attention, even with the latest Clinton corruption scandal unfolding. Lower in the story it got worse. The marauding Dayaks, who feel displaced and disrespected by the Madurans, were beheading their victims as part of a belief that taking a head gives its new owner enhanced powers. The Dayaks paraded their trophies through the town of Sampit, and they are also fond of eating human hearts. Their terror campaign takes one back to first principles, often forgotten by policymakers and pundits alike.

Those Americans fond of stoking ethnic grievances and racial victimhood in the name of political correctness should see in this conflict what kind of savagery can result. Conflicts between the Tutsis and Hutus in Rwanda and ongoing Balkan feuds underscore the danger. Nations based on principles rather than ethnic claims have generally avoided that kind of chaos. A color-blind society and equal treatment under the law are the only answers, but there is more.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau was a prime mover of the concept that human beings are basically good--the "noble savage"concept--but corrupted by society. The quest then became to change society, which would create what Lenin called a "new man," and eventually usher in a utopia in which the state itself would wither away.

The fundamentalist wing of this vision wanted to push it along with revolution and bullets. The moderate wing urged evolution and ballots, but the end was the same. What it meant in practice was the tyranny of the general idea, with millions falling slain. As C.S. Lewis observed, human beings are never more eager to practice terror than when they believe it serves some super-personal force, in this case the utopian vision. For sheer magnitude, ethnic conflicts cannot match the atrocities of class terror.

The line between good and evil, as Russian writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn observed, passes not between classes, races, or nations but straight down the middle of every human heart. That reality will not be changed by ardently wishing it were not so, nor by mood-altering drugs, legal or illegal. Contrary to what many politicians imagine, evil cannot be bought off by launching new government social programs or expanding old ones. Even a booming economy, as desirable as that may be, cannot change this basic truth.

The reality of human evil is why we have a system of checks and balances. It is also why we have a limited government whose primary duties are to protect life, liberty, and property. When government fails in these duties, it is a sure sign that it is operating in areas where it has no business. The noble savage, meanwhile, remains elusive but still pursued.

The proletariat was a longtime candidate, also the poor generally, and more recently, children. But Rousseau's disciples have really given up on human beings as repositories of pristine innocence. It's now to be found in animals and the earth itself. Since these cannot speak for themselves, their human advocates have taken to acts of violence on their behalf, such as torching homes in mountain areas. We will be seeing more of this as the century unfolds.

- K. Lloyd Billingsley