...and Once Again let Freedom Ring

Today despite threats of violence, sectarian hatred and fear the Iraqi people have spoken. Embracing freedom just as their brothers and sisters in Afghanistan had, the Iraqi people streamed to the polls in droves. The only people who failed to vote in great numbers were the Sunnis, who fear the will of their countrymen.

A liberal commentator on another blog once asked me what I thought of Muslims and I told him that I thought they deserved the right to select a government that reflected their desires. He snidely quipped back "as long as that government looks like the United States' right?" The answer is "no". It need not even remotely resemble our government. It need only reflect the wishes of the people and preserve their right to choose. If the people of Iraq should happen to decide that they wish to reside under a theocracy, so be it. As long as they have the right to change their minds if that form of government does not adequately serve them.

To the freedom loving men and women of Iraq, I tip my hat. Showing up to vote today took true courage. Braving the dangers that laid before them proved that freedom is a prize of great value. I also salute the men and women of our armed forces who've laid their lives on the altar of freedom once again to secure this opportunity for the people of Iraq.

For our liberal whiners in this country... See you were wrong again! (as always)

For a unique perspective on the Iraqi polling, drop by Sam's blog or Mohammed and Omar's or Alaa's or Rose's for that matter and read it from an Iraqi's point of view...

To think that some of our liberal friends were insisting that the Iraqis were not ready for freedom.

There was a time in this country that people could disagree on matters of politics, but one place where we never parted ways was on the fundamental values that make us Americans. Nowadays some people are willing to trade those values in to follow a party's dogma; trade their souls for a government hand out! I am not one of those people! I stand firm in my belief that what our troops have wrought in Iraq is nothing short of a miracle and they've paid a heavy price for it. What they have done was stand up for those fundamental values I mentioned earlier. They've allowed a folk who've struggled under the yoke of tyranny for far to long to have this day. The day when at long last their voices are heard.

To close, here's a final offering:

(2005-01-30) -- News reports of terrorist bombings in Iraq were marred Sunday by shocking graphic images of Iraqi "insurgents" voting by the millions in their first free democratic election.

Despite reporters' hopes that a well-orchestrated barrage of mortar attacks and suicide bombings would put down the so-called 'freedom insurgency', hastily-formed battalions of rebels swarmed polling places to cast their ballots -- shattering the status quo and striking fear into the hearts of the leaders of the existing terror regime.

Hopes for a return to the stability of tyranny waned as rank upon rank of Iraqi men and women filed out of precinct stations, each armed with the distinctive mark of the new freedom guerrillas -- an ink-stained index finger, which one former Ba'athist called "the evidence of their betrayal of 50 years of Iraqi tradition."

Journalists struggled to put a positive spin on the day's events, but the video images of tyranny's traitors choosing a future of freedom overwhelmed the official story of bloodshed and mayhem.

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