The Shoe That Was Heard Around The World!

So apparently shoe throwers are heroes in today's free societies. Yesterday a bronze sculpture of a shoe was erected in Tikrit (hometown of Saddam Hussein) in honor of the "hero" Muntazer al-Zaidi. Muntazer al-Zaidi is the journalist who stood up and hurled his shoes (one after the other) at former president Bush in a press conference during Bush's unannounced farewell visit to Baghdad last year.

My feelings about this have not changed from day one: Iraq will never join civilized societies if its journalists throw shoes instead of asking questions. The fact of the matter is that al-Zaidi had more power than the average Iraqi because he was able to be in a position to press Bush with serious challanging questions about his policy in Iraq, but he chose to throw his shoes. Regardless of the amount of frustration that man possessed, that is not a solution but a quick "Sara Palin" like way to fame. To my huge disappointment, the Iraqi people took in al-Zaidi to their hearts and now they call him a hero.

The price of freedom is costly and means many things like swollowing your pride when you disagree with someone about an issue and not throwing a shoe at them but maybe discussing the issue more or at least walking away. That is the fundemental question the people of Iraq have to ask themselves, are they willing to make that sacrifice in order to reign freedom in their troubled country? It is a hard and difficult task to achieve. I know this because most people here in the U.S. have not achieved that task and maybe never will.

It is very easy to scream from the top of your lungs, "we are a free society" or "we are a democracy" but that is never tested until someone who possess ideas and morals that are completely different from yours preaches them in front of you and all you can do is discuss it with them. Another way to ensure that you are in fact a free society is when something as horrible as 9/11 happens, you do not throw your laws and morals away and start 2 wars, toss away civil liberties and start torturing people.