"A sign that says "no smoking" is not the same as an area where no one smokes"

By the same token, a document that states people respect life and liberty does not necessarily indicate that they do. It’s just a piece of paper afterall and actions speak louder than words. Other pretty fundamental rights are enshrined in various documents in America, but these are very easily put aside when required without much of an uproar, indeed the author himself describes this as “minor”.

To a certain extent, Carey is correct – Americans do have a deep respect for life. But it seems to extend only as far as other Americans. To argue that Americans have a respect for all life everywhere because of the ideals in the Declaration of Independence is simply not backed up by evidence. The Declaration is indicative of the rights Americans see as owing to themselves only, not as being universally applicable.

Also, why in this day and age, does the author refer to humanity as “man”? Even to go as far as to say “Americans see themselves as men with rights “endowed by their Creator”.” Men with rights? So women are not American citizens, or not entitled to the rights? If you’re talking about the things that differentiate us from terrorists surely paramount in this is our evolution to inclusive equal societies, which should be reflected in the very language we use to describe it.

Briliant!

I love it!
in particular:
>What binds us, the Western democracies, together, first and foremost, is the belief that all people have a right to life.

YES! YES! YES! Let's get rid of those shackles.

Just... could anyone please clarify who should we kill, so that only we, the white good guys America likes will survive:
- just the Iranians
- Iranians + Palestinins (they all are Hamas and Hezbollah suporters, ie. terrosist)

- or all Muslims?

Well - somebody said: war is too serious a thing, to be left to generals.

Another one said: a man holding a hammer sometines sees every problem as a nail.

It is just scary.

saddened,
Paul

If I were John Carey I would sue Marilyn Shepherd.

Marilyn Shepherd should buy a burka and go and live in Saudi Arabia; and live out her days as a BMO - Black Moving Object without a face -away from the "degenerate" West that she hates so much. She is a disgrace to progressive values.

I agree Kvasir.Let Marilyn go berko in Bagdad while watching mad Mullahs masticating in the streets.
The left are resonating with facist Muslims to bring down the Western mixture of democracy and capitalism.Who said the Yanks or Israelis were perfect.The US has totally made a mess of Middle Eastern foreign policy,but is this religious facism and answer?

For Marilyn the scenario is thus;my enemy's enemy,is my ally,no matter how retrograde or intellectually impoverished the Muslim Facists are,because it will suit the end result of more power to the lunatic left.

Is there any difference between the religious dogma of the Facist Muslims and the Lunatic Left that seeks to impose their centralised market free Govt control of everything we need?

Neither of these two philosophies want to give us a choice.Marilyn will not engage in debate in the broader aspects of Middle Eastern politics and how the rest of the world depends upon their oil,since this will weaken her purely emotional arguments of innocent victims in Lebanon who didn't prevoke Israel one iota?

To author John E. Carey

The Western worlds present moral compass has developed from 60 years of unprecedented prosperity, which was created by our superior cultural values that were a product of our commitment to education and science. This resulted in entire populations of western people becoming financially secure and comfortably well off. Such people only naturally develop ideals promoting tolerance, compassion and high ideals.

It is from this position that we are confronted by a rival civilisation which is a failure. This religiously based civilisation has achieved nothing in the last 700 hundred years except to condemn it’s own adherents to lives of abject poverty and misery. People living close to the edge of starvation with no hope of salvation will develop mindsets radically different from the wealthy western societies, whom their imams and crooked politicians routinely blame for their woes.

Confronted by Western enemies whio they perceive as being decadent, but also possessing overwhelming military force, it is only natural that the Muslims will hardly bother about applying the Queeensbury rules when fighting their western enemies.

The problem for the West, is that we are too damn tolerant and pacifist for our own good. Trying to differentiate between “good” Muslims and “bad” Muslims in this clash of civilisations makes about as much military sense as refusing to bomb Berlin during WW2 because it was assumed that some Germans did not like Hitler. Fortunately, western people were a lot more sensible in 1943, and we as a people had no qualms at all about mass murdering our enemies, including their women and children, by the millions.

It will take the detonation of a nuclear device in Sydney, New York, or London to get us back to thinking straight again, and once again remembering that in a survival situation, there are no bloody rules other than to win.