This is a really brilliant essay.

It's good to be reminded of what Western values really are.

In Australia where I live, we are told to respect and not offend the cultures and beliefs of everyone except the mainstream Australians. Our prime minister tells Muslims they should be more "Australian", but it is unclear what that means. Does it mean you stand around in the backyard having a barbeque and drinking fosters beer? Does it mean democracy? We have seen in Palestine where democracy leads.

I think what it does mean to be an "Australian" or a "Westerner" is that we should aim to foster and live by those Western values that you have described in your essay.

We take these values for granted in our Western societies and I would guess that over 90% of people interviewed in the street at random would not know what it means to be a Westerner. Its easy to trivialise being a Westerner with the right to eat McDonalds food and the freedom to watch porno films (interestingly McDonalds stores are often the first target of third world mobs). That is possibly why many of the young people in the West are drifting aimlessly, with no core belief system, abusing drugs and in extreme cases converting to the "certainty" of Islam.

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Posted by Kevin to Thrutch at 3/03/2006 12:23:55 PM