Let Freedom Ring

There are two Americas on the world stage. The first is governed by a particular president and Congress, follows a particular set of policies and operates in a particular geopolitical context. Then there's the other America. This is the one to which tens of millions of immigrants have flocked in search of a new beginning and a better life. That's the America to which we Soviet dissidents turned when we pleaded our case against an evil empire. And that's the America that today inspires dissidents around the world threatened by murderous regimes.

This America stands out as a beacon of liberty, and its identity is inextricably linked to the struggle for freedom it has waged at home and abroad for two centuries. That America, whether by choice or not, has become the last, best hope on earth.

Rarely do the two Americas—one of principle, one of practice—align; more frequently, they're at odds with one another. The same shining city on the hill that stirs the imagination of countless millions often cuts deals with dictators or simply looks the other way when so-called allies trample the freedoms that Americans themselves hold sacred.

Yet this inconsistency can be overcome. Just as Martin Luther King Jr. once appealed to American principles such as equality and justice to combat the oppression he faced in the nation's streets, so can dissidents around the world appeal to American principles even when U.S. actions betray those ideals.

That said, what could not be overcome is America's abandoning those principles altogether. If, at some point, having a tyrant as an ally no longer causes shame in the United States, or if dissidents are no longer able to look toward America for help in advancing their struggle for human rights, freedom everywhere will suffer.

Still, I am confident things will never come to that, for an America shorn of principle would simply cease being America. To believe that the flame of liberty that burns so deeply in the hearts of Americans could be directed only inward or that U.S. leaders could become European-style practitioners of cynical realpolitik is to believe that the America of which Lincoln spoke could be lost. I don't believe it.