The Enemy of Freedom

From Michelle Malkin in Hot Air:

The true enemy of freedom is fear.

It's fear that makes people abandon the last, faded pretense of democracy, at the insistence of thugs and secret police. The lonely souls that yearn for freedom in a dictatorship do so in silence, because they fear that if they speak up, there will be more enforcers bearing down on them, than friends standing beside them. This is the terrible silence that America's voice was meant to shatter.

We know that we cannot liberate the rest of the world with military force. Our greatest weapon against tyranny is our courage. We know that freedom is not a special privilege reserved for people fortunate enough to have been born in the United States. We know it's not a peculiar quirk of Western culture, impractical or meaningless to the people of other nations. We know from the writings of Russian dissidents that the strong support of the American president helped them endure prison cells and exile camps.

We should never hesitate to roar our defiance, and contempt, in the faces of dictators. They have no more right to rule the people of Iran, Honduras, Cuba, or Venezuela than they did to rule Germany, Russia, or France. The language of freedom cannot be properly spoken by appeasers, manipulators, or international socialists. It is the speech of eagles and lions.