36 lines
2.6 KiB
Plaintext
36 lines
2.6 KiB
Plaintext
No apology needed
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<p>A few moments ago I received email from the Iranian who first asked me to try to help the dissidents fourteen month ago. I reproduce his email and my response in its entirety, except that I omit information that might identify him.</p>
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<p><span id="more-2589"></span></p>
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<blockquote><p>
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> Dear Eric ,<br />
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><br />
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> On behalf of most Iranian people , I’m “so sorry” that you feel like this :(<br />
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><br />
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> Your actions are and will be so valuable to us and we appreciate your<br />
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> attempts from the bottom of our hearts .<br />
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><br />
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> If I knew that you will face with such a barbarian threat, I’d never<br />
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> emailed to you about what happened in Iran last year :(<br />
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><br />
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> I’m very very sorry for what’s happened to you …<br />
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> God bless you Eric , and take care …<br />
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><br />
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> Sincerely Yours ,
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</p></blockquote>
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<p>No apology needed. Nothing I have experienced is even comparable to<br />
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the risks and suffering Iranians endure daily in their struggle to be<br />
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free of the mullahocracy.</p>
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<p>I am grateful to have even have had the chance to try to help. The small risk<br />
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to my life was more than justified by the potential to strike a blow at an<br />
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odious tyranny. </p>
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<p>In thinking about the risks, and deciding I could accept then, and doing<br />
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so, I acted on my most fundamental values. I walk a little taller and feel<br />
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a little happier today – more fulfilled, more myself – because I passed<br />
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that test.</p>
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<p>That test was a gift. Thank you.</p>
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<p>UPDATE: For the blog, I have a bit more to add:</p>
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<p>I do not want to be thought of as heroic for risking my life in the defense of liberty. Instead, I want this to be understood as the ordinary duty of every American. </p>
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<p>In 1961, President John F. Kennedy said this: “Today we need a nation of minutemen; citizens who are not only prepared to take up arms, but citizens who regard the preservation of freedom as a basic purpose of their daily life and who are willing to consciously work and sacrifice for that freedom.”</p>
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<p>JFK was not proposing anything novel. Rather, he was reminding Americans of their roots as libertarian revolutionaries, as the people who said a resounding “NO!” to tyranny and backed that up with their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor.</p>
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<p>This is what being an American <em>means</em>. And it’s why, though I grew up on three different continents and forgot two languages before I was thirteen, I am and always have been American down to the bone.</p>
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