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Liberty
is for the brave. From the Revolutionary War to the wars in
Afghanistan and Iraq, our men and women at arms have responded to
threats to our liberty with the courage that befits a great and free
people. But preservation of our liberties requires not only the
physical courage of our warriors. It demands as well moral courage or
civic courage on the part of all our citizens: the courage to stand up
against that tyranny most feared by the Framers of our Constitution, the
tyranny of the majority. This is the courage of ordinary people like
Rosa Parks, of great figures like Martin Luther King, Jr., and of all
those who resist popular moves to abridge constitutionally established
rights, or to subvert the structure of our democracy.
Sometimes opponents of the popular will are wrong. Civic courage is not
always conjoined with civic wisdom. But better civic courage that is
sometimes misdirected than no civic courage at all. When that virtue
disappears from our midst, the central liberty of our democracy on which
all other liberties depend, the freedom of speech, will become in effect
the freedom to agree with the prevailing view. Let us resolve always to
be the home of the brave - that we may always remain the land of the free.
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