Replies

Yes, I think you and VDH do agree that people have a natural yearning to be free. So you're in good company!

Personally, I don't think people have a natural yearning to be free. I think men have a yearning to dominate everything and everyone around them. It's only with a lot of maturity, education, a supportive culture, etc, that people can learn differently. They learn that attempted domination just leads to non-stop violence, poverty, ignorance and pain. They can learn that liberty is a better option. But the process isn't natural. It's not easy. It takes a long time -- maybe decades or maybe centuries, I don't know.

Finally, I like the optimism in your last paragraph. I agree that I think Iraqis will one day realize that it's best to live in a free society, and that's it's worth making sacrafices to keep up a free society. We could be wrong, but I think it's a good effort worthy of a good country like ours.

Well, I take my "optimism" from the words of John Locke, Thomas Jefferson, and Abraham Lincoln, who thought liberty the natural inclination of all men.

I agree with many here that the main impediment to this is Islam, which means (guess what?) not "peace" but SUBMISSION. Now, as a Christian who has studied Islam and actually read the "holy books" (including the Hadith, which most people never even know exists), I'm convinced that Islam itself poses a problem for democracy or ANY form of government because the Koran does not really validate political government. Nevertheless, the reality is that 2 billion Muslims almost all acknowledge some government and have for centuries. So from that standpoint, I don't know that Islam (in reality) is any more of an impediment than Shintoism was to the Japanese.

That is why, though, I don't think we can allow Iraq to become a theocratic regime! And while this is not talked about much, especially by Bush, it is a KEY reason we must work for some sort of democracy (no matter how flawed) there because it undercuts the power of the Imams and Mullahs!