There has been some hand-wringing about whether Iraqis are ready to live in a free society, seeing that many of them appear quite opposed to being liberated by the US government.  This deserves some consideration because what is meant by people needing liberty is misunderstood.

That we all have the right to be free is perhaps a fairly sophisticated idea. Actually, the claim made by classical liberals and, especially, libertarians is that the right to liberty is something everyone has by his or her nature as a human being.  But that said, it does not follow that all will acknowledge having this right or care about it at all, even less that they care about others having this right. 

Having a right by one's human nature doesn't mean that the right is innately cherished, only that given human nature, it is true that one ought to be free, that others should not enslave us, coerce us, impose their will on us, and so forth.  But, as it is with many battered women, just because hurting them is wrong, not every one of them will resist, even protest the battery.  People do not automatically know that liberty is a value to them, even if in fact it is.

Why should this be odd?  There are umpteen things good for us we fail to acknowledge as such.  We benefit from exercise though lots of us refuse to get any.  We could easily gain from reading more, yet lots of us will forego the opportunity and do something that’s far less beneficial, even harmful to us.

The idea that if liberty is good for people, they must know this innately comes from the sadly mistaken view that whatever is in fact good for us must be something we already desire.  The good and the preferred are, however, far from the same. 

This is plain enough when it comes to children—they often want what is bad for them and reject what is good for them.  In their case it is not mostly a fault, though, since they are too young to have developed the capacity to figure it all out.

When it comes to adults, however, many could discover what benefits them, what is harmful to them yet fail to do so.  People often fail to pay enough attention to these matters and, also, they are often too busy with other things to learn.  That’s so especially with those who have lived under tyrannies and could barely eke out a living for themselves and their loved ones, so the effort required to figure out just what kind of political regime would suit them best would be a luxury they cannot afford, lest they lose the little hold on life they manage to have.

Of course, this does not mean other people may clobber them into realizing what is good for them.  The civilized way to deal with other people’s ignorance is to teach them, especially by example, which tends to “speak” more forcefully than out and out preaching.  Even then, however, there is no guarantee that folks will follow what they are taught.  Stubbornness, pigheadedness and the like get in the way, as well as the adolescent-like resentment against anyone who would presume to know more than one does about what’s good for one, even if they do.

In the case of many Iraqis, even those who have no desire to live under tyranny or to tyrannize others, it is very likely that many find President George W. Bush’s swaggering attitude about what is good for them difficult to take.  This president, more than others in the recent past, has this demeanor of “Well I know best, no one can teach me anything at all, I know it in my bones, so just trust me.”  Even that little persistent grin he wears communicates the message that he is self-assured as all get out. 

Is his self-assurance justified?  Perhaps, in comparison to many of his hypocritical critics—who believe in meddling in other people’s lives even more than he does except when he does—Bush is understandably stubborn.  But more likely he, like most bullies, is merely strutting not even his but his government’s stuff, namely, the military might that he commands and that need not answer to anyone merely because it is so powerful, never mind being actually right.