Thursday, June 5, 2008

"The Case for Democracy: The Power of Freedom to Overcome Tyranny and Terror" by Natan Sharansky


"During my long journey through the world of evil, I had discovered three sources of power: the power of an individual's inner freedom, the power of a free society, and the power of the solidarity of the free world."

"[Stalin turned individuals into cogs] by depriving individuals not merely of their property but also of their connections to their own history, religion, nationality, and culture."

"In the free world, with its varying shades of gray, isolating the black and white, finding moral clarity, becomes far more difficult."

"If we fail to recognize [that the divide between free and fear states is greater than the divide between democratic parties] we lose moral clarity. The legitimate differences among us, the shades of gray in a free society, will be wrongly perceived as black and white. Then, the real black-and-white line that divides good from evil will no longer be distinguishable."

The statement above explains why free people can't tell the difference between religious fundamentalists in democratic states and religious terrorists in fundamentalist states. And how they come to see fellow citizens as enemies and foreign dictators as their friends.

Andrei Sakharov - "A country that does not respect the rights of its own people will not respect the rights of its neighbors."

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