John Locke got an interesting mention yesterday on NBC?s ?Meet the Press.? Democratic Congressman Charlie Rangel called the Iraqi elections last month a ?success? only by ?Republican standards? and called the war a ?fraud.? While making the respectable argument (though I disagree with it) that it is not enough of a U.S. interest to promote freedom in the Middle East to justify the loss of American lives, Rangel also alleged that the U.S. was imposing freedom and democratic forms on the Iraqis.
Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa shot back that spreading freedom to particular, dangerous areas of the world was in our national interest and that the notion of ?imposing? freedom was incoherent:
“It’s in man’s basic nature, going back to John Locke, that people want to be free and they’re born free,” Mr. Grassley said, referring to the 17th-century British philosopher.
