tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7152221.post110050594100627337..comments2024-03-23T07:49:50.940-05:00Comments on The Middle Ground: Free At Last: T.E. Lawrence, Iraqi Freedom and The Promise LandUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7152221.post-1100542663919105982004-11-15T12:17:00.000-06:002004-11-15T12:17:00.000-06:00As America's own history should illustrate, achiev...As America's own history should illustrate, achieving freedom does not mean that the struggle for liberty has ended. There are always those within the borders and without, who would snatch freedom back away from people and subjugate them. That much you have illustrated and I agree.<br /><br />I would also add that merely being free doesn't guarantee that people will take a peaceful and rational course. Adolf Hitler was elected. Many of the more egregious leaders of South America were elected. The Islamic terror that governs Iran did so by a widely popular revolution. Sometimes an angry mob will opt to do the most insipid thing possible, ruled by their emotions rather than by reason. It was concern over this tendancy of mob behavior that caused an American Tory in Boston to opine: "I would rather have one tyrant 3,000 miles away, than 3,000 tyrants one mile away."<br /><br />The sobering lesson of the dynamic of freedom is that ONLY when the population is educated and enlightened can it engender anything that can be called reasonable or praiseworthy. And where I marvel the most is that there have been so many in Iraq who have achieved that level of education and enlightenment in spite of being under the thumb of a psychopath all those years. To that extent, Iraq really IS the "model", for the perserverence of intelligence even in the deepest darkest cloud of stupidity that would try to reign over it.Cigarette Smoking Man from the X-Fileshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11847781147692094361noreply@blogger.com