Courage

As Alex points out below, the elections in Iraq are on schedule and the population seems very interested. I don't think any of us think it will be pretty but I, too, predict good turnout. And they can't screw it up any worse than Washington State, right?

I want to commend the candidates, workers, and voters, who are all standing up for their democratic rights -- at literal mortal peril. We have much to teach but much to learn about freedom.

Taranto, at Best of the Web, highlights two stories in the United States where people are too afraid of terrorism to allow votes. I repeat, these are in the USA: Illinois and Tennessee:

Groups want Iraqi voting moved

A prominent local Catholic priest is supporting a movement of businesses and churches who are demanding that city leaders move one of the Nashville polling sites in the upcoming Iraq elections.

And in Illinois:

Suburban village tells Iraq election group to leave

NILES -- An organization assisting in voter registration for the upcoming Iraqi elections left their headquarters Thursday in this suburb north of Chicago after village officials expressed security concerns, officials said.

The International Organization for Migration said Niles officials told the group they had concerns that the building could be a target for violence. The organization plans to move its administrative operations to the northwest side of Chicago.

"We are having to move our offices, and we are moving to continue serving the Iraqi community in the best possible way," said Oliver Vick, head of the organization's Chicago office. Vick said the move was involuntary.

After our soldiers, sailors, airmen, marines, and guardsmen risked their lives for this, these suburbanites are "uncomfortable." I am rarely ashamed to be an American, but I am ashamed of sharing a country with these. Taranto asks "What kind of people are so pathetic and cowardly?"

Freedom on the March Posted by jk at January 21, 2005 3:57 PM