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To: randita
I agree with Pres. Bush who said that humans naturally yearn to be free.

I don't. The fact is some humans yearn for freedom and others don't. Even during Revolutionary times there were those who were more than content to live under the rule of King George III. And in contemorary American times there are many people - I will not grace them with the name 'Americans' - who long for a cradle to grave socialist system that does everything for them but wipe their asses. These people, far from yearning to be free (as both you and Bush/Blair assert), are content to be slaves. Similarly inclined (although perhaps in a different way) is vast majority of the world's Muslim population.

To quote Will from the article:

Does Blair believe that our attachment to freedom is not the product of complex and protracted acculturation by institutions and social mores that have evolved over centuries that prepared the social ground for seeds of democracy? When Blair says freedom as we understand it and democracy and the rule of law as we administer them are ``the universal values of the human spirit," he is not speaking as America's Founders spoke of ``self-evident" truths. They meant truths obvious to all minds unclouded by superstition and other ignorance. Blair seems to think: Boston, Baghdad, Manchester, Monrovia -- what's the difference? Such thinking is dangerous.

16 posted on 08/17/2003 9:50:43 AM PDT by Mr. Mojo
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To: Mr. Mojo
A response to Will might be: Yes, *our* freedom evolved over centuries, but as an example for others to follow, other nations need not take as long to adopt our cultural institutions, as long as the citizenry are able and willing.

Countries like Poland, Hungary, and Russia that lived for centuries under various forms of autocracy have moved remarkably quickly (in historical terms) from totalitarianism to market-based democratic rule. Not sure about Africa, but in Iraq there is hope.
20 posted on 08/17/2003 2:57:07 PM PDT by WOSG (We liberated Iraq. Now Let's Free Cuba, North Korea, Iran, China, Tibet, Syria, ...)
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