{
    "href": "/post/2005/01/30/first-free-elections-ever-in-iraq/",
    "relId": "2005/01/30/first-free-elections-ever-in-iraq",
    "title": "First Free Elections Ever in Iraq",
    "author": "pmjones",
    "markup": "html",
    "tags": [
        {
            "href": "/tag/general/",
            "relId": "general",
            "title": "General",
            "author": null,
            "created": null,
            "updated": [],
            "markup": "markdown"
        }
    ],
    "created": "2005-01-30 14:58:12 UTC",
    "updated": [
        "2005-01-30 14:58:12 UTC"
    ],
    "html": "<p>Today, Iraqis get to vote.  They were beaten, murdered, gassed, starved, raped, looted, and tyrannized by a dictator for fifty years, and by kings and tyrants before that for all time in memory.  But today they get to vote.</p>\n<p>Regardless of your short-term petty political bickering about Bush, he's the one who got this ball rolling.  Today a people gets to choose its government, because America looked to its own interests, and found those interests to be the same as the Iraqi people: freedom.</p>\n<p>A small minority wants to blow them up for voting; those in that minority has only violence and blood, not freedom, on their minds.  That's not going to stop the vast majority who want freedom; they will vote, not in spite of, but because of the danger that minority represents.</p>\n<p>It's a good day.  Break out the cigars, and hail: \"Democracy! Whiskey! Sexy!\"</p>\n"
}