The American Spectator

Reader Mail

(Page 5 of 13)

/p> p> FRESH ACCENTS br> Re: Lars Walker's Hello, Columbus : /p>

I read the piece by Lars Walker with interest. It occurred to me that Mr. Walker's analysis can be applied to our relationship with the middle east in general and with Iraq in particular. Western values are not universal, they are exceptional, and arise from the particular social, religious and philosophical ideas of Western Europe and, later, the United States. People in the Middle East do not share our values and are proud of that. To paraphrase Mr. Walker, middle easterners are not "culturally impoverished" "little brown people" so bereft of thought that they will soak up our world view like a sponge. We in the West cannot formulate policy on the naive notion that all people, if given the choice, will ultimately chose to be like us. That was our mistake in Iraq. We assumed that freedom and democracy would naturally arise once Saddam was removed from power. Why? Did we really believe that Iraqis had put so little thought into their civilization that they would automatically see the superiority of the West and its values upon liberation?

p>The best policy is not to assume that, given the opportunity, others will adopt our civilization and "be just like us." Instead, we should accept that clashes of civilizations will occur and we should use our resources to ensure the survival of our way of life. We can assume that everyone is the same, but it just isn't true. br> -- Rob br> Los Angeles, California /p>

I agree with Lars, though I think it's funnier with a Clouseau-type French accent.

The Founding Fathers had the correct idea: all men are CREATED equal. They understood there's nothing special about the meeting of sperm and egg, and left it there. They didn't even touch birth or events afterwards.

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