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The
unfortunate people living in countries that have large oil
reserves face a daunting challenge. Unlike the peoples
of most countries, their political freedom does not depend
only on their own desire for liberty and the willingness to
work with their own countrymen to achieve it; it also depends on
the courage and conviction of people and governments the world
over to curb their insatiable appetites so these people might
have a chance to work things out on their own terms.
How
can the people living in oil rich countries possibly defend
themselves against the avarice of not only their own home
grown criminals and would be monarchs, but also against people
and governments the world over who base their economies on
oil, and have somehow convinced themselves that the oil that
resides beneath the surface of these oil rich countries belongs
to them now as much as it does to the people who live there?
Is
it possible that citizens and their governments will ever
believe enough in the rule of law that they will dedicate
themselves, on principle, to the proposition that these
people--indeed, all people-- ought to be allowed to live in peace… and
oil rich nations ought to have every
opportunity to succeed in defending themselves against the
avarice of those who have based their economies on oil and are
now totally addicted to it?
Will the people and the government of the richest
country on the planet support the political freedom of people
they don’t know or understand?
Will you? Our
honor and our dignity hang in the balance.
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