Freedom, it would appear, is contagious. Whether or not democracy triumphs in the Islamic world today or tomorrow or in ten years, it seems certain to me that President Bush’s declaration of the Freedom Doctrine on January 20th, 2005, combined with the Iraqi Elections of ten days later will forever be remembered as the time when the tide turned in favor of freedom and tyrants were, at long last, truly held to account.

Of course, it isn’t these things along. It’s an atmosphere of liberty which is toppling one wobbly tyranny after the other.

Freedom is on the march and tyrants fear the sound. We live in a world where the people rule. The brave people of the Palestine, Afghanistan, Iraq, Ukraine, Georgia, and Lebanon are showing us the way. And they’re doing it for one reason: they know that the most powerful nation in the world is a friend of freedom.

Would the people in Ukraine have resisted without assistance from the West? Probably. Would they have been successful? I’m not certain. Were not the words of the Europeans backed by the knowledge on the part of both the Russians and the Ukrainian Government that George W. Bush was in the White House, I suspect that the Orange Revolution would have had an unhappy ending.
And what of the others? Would Afghanistan have voted without the United States? It’s practically unthinkable. Would Iraq? It’s impossible. Would Lebanon’s people have risen without the example of their Iraqi brothers and sisters? I doubt it.

I’m a Republican, so it’s natural that I’m thankful that George Walker Bush is in the White House. I was thrilled by both of his election victories. But, these days, there are times where I literally get down on my knees and thank almighty God that George Bush is the President.

I didn’t always believe in him. Frankly, I’ve always leaned more towards realism and realpolitik. In many ways, I was sympathetic to the arguments of those who believed that the best way to confront Iraq would have been to smash the Saddam regime, install someone, and march out. But George W. Bush and the brave Americans who serve under him have shown the entire world what we have always known to be true: freedom is the most basic desire of all people

When I think of the sacrifices of the brave fighting men and women of both America and its allies, the fighting required to create the new Iraq, I sometimes think back to the words of Thomas Paine, “What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value.”

These days the President looks strangely imbued. He is a man confident of the rightness of his cause and certain that the Lord is on his side. And so I believe he is. Sometimes, when I look at the President, I think of what the Bible says, “a prophet is not without honour, save in his own country, and in his own house.”

We’re winning the Global War on Terrorism. The terrorists may strike, but they cannot shake our resolve. They cannot beat us. They can only further demonstrate their depravity.

What do you think that people of Iraqi think about the “resistance” so glorified by Michael Moore and his ilk in the world media? Do you really think that those who indiscriminately slaughter the innocent will find support amongst the people? Do you really think that the people wish to be ruled by those who practice murder as a professional sport?

The Iraqi people and the people of the Islamic world are not fools. They may disagree with us on some things, but no one desires to be ruled by barbarians. While Western moral equivalency fetishists may be blind, the people of the Islamic world can see. Only the insane would, if given the choice, choose to be ruled by bearded lunatics who justify their depravity by spouting off versus of the Koran.

In this world, the people are sovereign. No government, even the most depraved and immoral, can long maintain its power without the acquiescence of the people. No government that has ever existed, even Stalin’s Russia or Hitler’s Germany, could have survived a mass popular uprising. After all, the soldiers who man the weapons are, themselves, a segment of the people. If a government survives, it is because the people are willing to accept its survival or are unaware of their own inner strength.

I realize that I’m starting to sound like a Marxist-Leninist here, preaching the power of the people and so on. And, in a way, I am: but in a very different way.
What I preaching is the evangel of popular will and individual rights. I envision a world revolution, yes, but not a revolution aimed at establishing a new tyranny. Not a revolution aimed at theft.

Rather, I envision a world of peaceful democratic states, led by that supreme champion of freedom, the United States of America, in peaceful cooperation and commerce. In envision a world united by a strong believe in the necessity of personal and economic freedoms. I envision a world where it is understood that the government, though necessary, must be restrained and that we live in a world of people who have governments, not governments who have people.

This is the new Domino Theory. When liberty arrives in one land, it will spread to others. It is inevitable, unavoidable, and right.
Tyranny cannot survive the age of mass communication so long as we are prepared to resist it. Now that the people know their own strength, they cannot be expected to abjure it.

As freedom spread to the lands of Communism, so too will freedom now spread to the lands of Islam. The spread of liberty is unstoppable for the simple reason that, in the end, it is the solution to the material wants of the world. Inevitably, free people are also rich people.

Freedom will march onwards. The question now, becomes, how we will safeguard our liberties and our plans for a perfect world from other enemies, those where the people, in their degraded condition, agree to accept the loss of freedom.