(Hopefully, we are peddling them because we have a surplus of freedom and democracy in America and not because they are shopworn concepts that are past their expiration date or no longer in demand as domestic products.)

If we stop to think about it, democracy and freedom are, in actuality, two radically different concepts.

Democracy is a secular product with few absolute standards of truth, morality or justice. In a democracy, the citizens select a government and in a few years they vote again. They are free to select a new government or retain the old one.

Democracies almost inevitably drift toward individual freedoms. When you see a female voter in a shopping mall, wearing a tank top, holding hands with her female lover, on her way to buy a six pack of beer and rent an x-rated movie you are probably watching a scene from a democracy.

When you complain that you are forced to pay taxes for government policies you don't believe in, obey laws you think are idiotic and listen to the blathering of elected officials you didn't vote for, you are probably living in a democracy.

Living in a democracy is akin to being a Chicago Cubs fan. Often the best you can say is, "Wait till next year."

Mr. Abu Masab al-Zarqawi, the chief al-Qaida bomb thrower in Iraq, summed up democracy very well. He stated on his Web site, "Democracy means the will of the people. In a democracy the people are the ultimate authority and not God. If they elect an infidel, that is their right. We must resist this foreign product and have only Allah as our authority."

Mr. al-Zarqawi believes he and his fellow bomb throwers are fighting for freedom-in this case, his freedom to establish a religious state based on a specific version of Islam.

His argument is hardly unique. His understanding of freedom is neither peculiar nor unprecedented. Lots of folks around the world and even in America believe the best government is the freedom of righteous folks to run things their own way.

None of the world religion's mention democracy in their sacred writings. They mention liberty and freedom-but this is usually as part of some perfected, utopian state in which religious life and belief hold absolute power.

Freedom fighters for centuries have fought to establish their perfect societies based on their own religiously, ethnically or ideologically beliefs.

Too often, after the freedom lovers have kicked the butts of the colonialists, the oligarchs, or the heretics, or the folks who are the wrong color or belong to the wrong ethnic group, the freedom lovers cheer and say, "We got our freedom. Now you are going to get what is coming to you."

Rarely do they say, "Well, let's review this situation in four years and let everybody decide again who should be in power."

Democracy often leads to an expansion of freedom. But the language of freedom does not always lead to democracy.

Democracy is a messy process that is always readjusting itself-sometimes wisely, sometimes foolishly.

To stick with democracy-even when it allows infidels, heretics and idiots to govern-is an option that confronts both Iraq and, if we stop to think about it, ourselves.