Let Freedom Ring

To secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed—that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience has shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security.

Thomas Jefferson

So let freedom ring from Aswan to Cairo, from Luxor to Alexandria. Let the country where God rescued his people from slavery, where a young couple and their miraculous baby sought shelter from authoritarian cruelty, experience a new birth of freedom.

It is true that in the coming months the U.S. may lose a powerful ally in the Middle East. It is true that the Egyptian people may choose a leader who will hinder our fight against organized terror and slow our efforts for a lasting peace in the Middle East region.

But if this happens it will be the Egyptian people who have chosen it, and this choice is what we as a country, as a people, have staked the convictions of our hearts and the blood of our fathers upon. Together, as one people, we have "sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man." It is written on the arms of our laborers and the tongues of our leaders, on the minds of our children and a thousand white stones in Arlington.

So let tyrants everywhere cower in their beds. Let there be no rest in the palaces of Iran, in Zimbabwe, in Sudan, in North Korea, in Saudi Arabia. The liberation of one man or woman liberates all men and women; the liberation of one people liberates all people. Let freedom ring.

Celebrations outside the Egyptian Embassy in Washington, DC after the announcement 

of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak's resignation in Cairo February 11, 2011

Image: Messay Shoakena