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As the fighting in Iraq grinds along its merry way towards its inevitable conclusion, we are constantly reminded by the prez, the press, and people who support this conflict that the Iraqi people want freedom. Indeed, the issues of evil incarnate, a.k.a., the new Hitler, a.k.a., Saddam Hussein, poised to wield his "undeniable" weapons of mass destruction against the U.S.; of the terrorist threat ol' S.H. represents to the United States; of S.H.'s "responsibility" for the attack on the World Trade Center; all have been relegated to the back seat in favor of a NEW! and IMPROVED! rationale for prosecuting this undeclared war.
The pro-war boosters inform us with evident sincerity that what they really want now is to bring "democracy" to the citizens of Iraq. The prez is adamant that the folks in this country-of-externally-imposed-boundaries are e'en now ready and eager to govern themselves. They just need a bit o' help from Uncle Sam to ensure that their choices are satisfactory to their liberators, i.e., the American government. After that, shucks, they're on their own. Sure, we'll be around to advise them and guide them and protect them for awhile -- just a decade or two or three, say -- just as we've had troops in scores of other countries around the world. For their own good, of course. Just as Uncle Sam does for his own citizens...
At the very least, I can agree that many Iraqis are not especially thrilled about being under Saddam's heavy thumb. Short of a masochist, who wouldn't be anxious to escape the weight of S.H.'s whims? Random murders. Genocidal policies. Suppression. Theft on a massive scale.
Kinda wears on a fella after a bit, don't you know?
Still... Man, I wish I were wrong in this. But... Oh, well. Facts are facts. Stiff upper lip and all that. While it distresses me to no end, I'm afraid I must disagree with our Fearless Leader:
I seriously doubt that the Iraqi people really want to be free.
There. I've said it. No taking it back now.
Let's examine this outrageous statement, shall we?
While it's sadly true that conceptual thought in the world is, at best, murky, I cannot in good conscience let this one slide. Words mean things...or at least they should.
The Iraqi people want to be free.
What does that mean? At its simplest level, of course, this states that the goal sought by Iraqis is "freedom." Sounds good, no?
The crucial question then becomes: what is "freedom"?
In any objective sense, what the prez et al. are seeking is anything but freedom.
In the realm of politics and morality and reality, "freedom" means that any adult person can engage in any behavior/action of which he is capable as long as he does not initiate coercive force against another person or destroy the property of another without his consent; that any voluntary, mutually agreeable behavior (that does not violate the foundations of freedom) must not be infringed upon by others.
(Justification for this definition can be found in Ayn Rand's writing and elsewhere.)
So: Is it true that this -- Jeffersonian-style liberty -- is this what the Iraqi people really and truly desire?
Hell, no!
I mean, most Americans say they want freedom. Indeed -- even though I cringe every time I hear them say it -- virtually every politician proclaims his devout devotion to the shining star of freedom.
Yet when presented with the gritty reality of what freedom is and what it implies, the American public runs shrieking in fright and terror into the strong and comforting arms of the Demicans and Republicrats...who are only too eager to calm their dread: "Hush, hush, there. Don't worry your little heads, dear voters. We don't actually mean it when we say we're pro-freedom." When 98% of Americans who vote consistently reject full freedom in favor of their preferred flavor of statism -- mostly of the fascist variety -- how seriously can the words of these ignorant folk be taken?
Even many so-called libertarians retreat from embracing liberty when the rubber squeals on the road. (Witness many think-tanks who primarily seek some modus vivendi with statist interventions in our lives rather than attacking those violations of freedom openly and head-on.) The average American is happy to reach an accommodation with the State as long as he can do most of what he wants to do and get most of the goodies he believes belongs to him.
(On a personally observed, micro-scale, after years of teaching and offering debates and persuasive topics to my students, I have seen them consistently and overwhelming choose to defend either the statist or the left-liberal positions on a wide variety of topics. They laugh incredulously at the foolish notion that anyone would seriously want to (let alone be able to) defend, for instance, the crazy idea that the government should not provide welfare, impose regulations, tax us to death, and so on ad infinitum, but should instead leave people to make their own decisions...and live with the consequences, for good or ill.)
Tell an American that "to be free" means:
Yes. Inform the average American of what "freedom" means and that he will have to live within its parameters forever and he will crawl into a fetal ball and weep in abject panic...
In regard to Iraq and the Mideast, there has been much talk about the propriety of one set of semi-free countries "liberating" even less-semi-free countries. Some say that if Government A is even a smidgen or a dollop "freer" than Government B, then A is fully and completely justified in attacking B, as long as what results is a semi-free country that is at least a tad freer than it was before.
Yet what we have here is yet another linguistic sleight-of-hand, a magical word trickery designed to obscure what is actually going on.
While speaking of "semi-free" or "partially-free" countries is, of course, intelligible in everyday conversation, in a very real and profound and fundamental sense, such talk is loose, imprecise, and dangerous.
One is either free or one is not-free.
In this context, there is no middle-ground, no compromise, no willing surrender of a "bit" of freedom while retaining the rest. What does exist on a political/moral continuum is slavery. Once the chain is slipped over your neck, you are no longer free. Period. True, some masters -- like those in the U.S. -- generally give their slaves considerable slack in their leashes. Other masters -- like the gent in N. Korea -- keep the chains short and yank them at the slightest hint of movement.
Consider: before the War for Southern Independence, many slaves wore no literal shackles, had no iron chains locked to their wrists and ankles. Some slaves traveled into town on their own (but with their ID papers, of course, close to hand...) Many of these slaves ran small businesses. They were allowed by their masters to keep some percentage of the money they earned. Most were not routinely beaten. Many were reasonably well-fed. They married and had children. They laughed and sang. They celebrated holidays.
And they were still slaves.
As I quoted writer Isabel Peterson in my essay, "One Freedom":
I prefer not "to use the language of Europe" because it implicitly grants value to those who do not deserve it, i.e., our masters, by implying we are still "free" or at least "freer" than Iraq or whoever.
But we are not free. That "basic principle" -- that objective meaning of what constitutes freedom -- was long ago abandoned in the United States.
As Ayn Rand said:
Yes, I can still do many things without direct permission of the State. All that is not prohibited is not yet mandatory.
But there is little to nothing in our political system standing as a bulwark against such an outcome. When we suffer under a State that dictates the size of the holes in Swiss cheese, you can rest assured that things are seriously out of whack.
It probably would be an improvement over their current lot if the Iraqi people could decide for themselves how to organize their society. Even so, the U.S. should not expend the lives of its soldiers, should not use the money of its citizens, should not increase the danger to its people from terrorists in order to help the Iraqis gain the opportunity to vote themselves, say, into a different kind of dictatorship, possibly a religious one this time.
A democracy is good only within the framework of a properly limited government, one that can only vote upon a strictly small number of issues. Since the burial of our republic, democracy in this country has led to rampant abuses of freedom, increasing levels of theft from productive citizens, and a burgeoning State that views itself as omnipotent and omniscient.
How much worse will the results be in a country that has little to no history or understanding or experience of anything even remotely approaching freedom? When will the central planners who are conquering Iraq realize that top-down rather than bottom-up works no better in the realm of politics than it does in the realm of economics?
Sacrificing so much of who we are for "Islamic values" is not my idea of a good bargain.
Regardless of how this latest round in the Iraqi war resolves itself, "good" ends will never justify bad means. Nor will stating that U.S. citizens are "free" -- in a relative sense -- change the reality of our enslavement.
I don't care what other people say or claim or want. I will never grant the State even an ounce of my life. I will never glance the other way and mumble that, well, we're at war, so I'll overlook the chains around my neck.
I will never condone or make excuses for or admire or applaud or worship my masters, simply because the leash they have placed around my neck is -- for now -- a bit longer or looser than are the chains around the necks of other poor souls worse off than I.
Still, I can sympathize with those who say they want freedom, even if in their State-induced ignorance they don't realize precisely what they are asking for.
But unlike such blindly groping slaves, I don't just want freedom.
It is my passion.
