{"id":2589,"date":"2010-09-22T17:00:11","date_gmt":"2010-09-22T21:00:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/?p=2589"},"modified":"2014-03-21T14:00:35","modified_gmt":"2014-03-21T18:00:35","slug":"no-apology-needed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/?p=2589","title":{"rendered":"No apology needed"},"content":{"rendered":"<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>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\n> Dear Eric ,<br \/>\n><br \/>\n> On behalf of most Iranian people , I&#8217;m &#8220;so sorry&#8221; that you feel like this :(<br \/>\n><br \/>\n> Your actions are and will be so valuable to us and we appreciate your<br \/>\n> attempts from the bottom of our hearts .<br \/>\n><br \/>\n> If I knew that you will face with such a barbarian threat,  I&#8217;d never<br \/>\n> emailed to you about what happened in Iran last year :(<br \/>\n><br \/>\n> I&#8217;m very very sorry for what&#8217;s happened to you &#8230;<br \/>\n> God bless you Eric , and take care &#8230;<br \/>\n><br \/>\n> Sincerely Yours ,\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>No apology needed.  Nothing I have experienced is even comparable to<br \/>\nthe risks and suffering Iranians endure daily in their struggle to be<br \/>\nfree of the mullahocracy.<\/p>\n<p>I am grateful to have even have had the chance to try to help.  The small risk<br \/>\nto my life was more than justified by the potential to strike a blow at an<br \/>\nodious tyranny. <\/p>\n<p>In thinking about the risks, and deciding I could accept then, and doing<br \/>\nso, I acted on my most fundamental values. I walk a little taller and feel<br \/>\na little happier today &#8211; more fulfilled, more myself &#8211; because I passed<br \/>\nthat test.<\/p>\n<p>That test was a gift.  Thank you.<\/p>\n<p>UPDATE:  For the blog, I have a bit more to add:<\/p>\n<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>\n<p>In 1961, President John F. Kennedy said this: &#8220;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.&#8221;<\/p>\n<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 &#8220;NO!&#8221; to tyranny and backed that up with their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor.<\/p>\n<p>This is what being an American <em>means<\/em>.  And it&#8217;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>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<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>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2589","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-terror","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2589","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2589"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2589\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5599,"href":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2589\/revisions\/5599"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2589"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2589"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2589"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}