The Muslim jihadists continue to make the claim that they are morally superior to the West. It is time that this claim be addressed, not as part of war between Christianity and Islam, and not as some relativistic doubletalk, but on the basis of values and institutions that actually make the West superior to the Muslims.
The West does not have people throwing sulfuric acid into girls' faces for going to school.
The West does not have people setting their daughters on fire for getting raped.
The West does not have children being sent to blow up marketplaces and themselves in the process.
The West has free speech. The West has women's rights. The West has a lot of people working around the globe to extend to others development, opportunity and education.
I do not say that the West is better than Islam for relativistic reasons. I say that it is better than Islam for absolute reasons. I say that West is morally superior to Islam, period. And that, instead of practicing a defensive posture or some sort of religious me-tooism, it needs to go to outright offensive against Islam and seize the moral ground that the Islamists wrongfully claim right from under their feet.
The West's moral superiority does not come from the West's conservative Christian values and institutions, but from its liberal values and institutions. The Western conservative Christian values have a lot in common with those of Islam. But the West's true distinction, and its true superiority, comes from its liberal heritage.
It comes from free speech. It comes from democracy. It comes from science and technology. It comes from women's rights. And yes, it comes from the belief that people are better authority over their lives than is a government or a religious institution.
For all things that one or another person does wrong, the Western system has produced far better results than has the Muslim system. And while there will always be people who look for alternatives, even they will for the most part come to the conclusions that the Muslim system is far inferior to what is here now. The Muslim system is not only worse than the Western system; it's also worse than Communism, Hinduism or Confucianism. Its global reputation is this: The bottom of the world.
Further, the Muslim people owe a lot to America and the rest of the West. If not for the Western democracies, the Middle East as well as the rest of the world would be practicing Communism; and that means that they would not be able to practice Islam at all. Whereas with the current world leadership they can be as Muslim as they want to be for as long as they aren't blowing up Western nationals in the process. Whereas if Muslims had their way, then everyone would be practicing Islam. And from what we've seen from the condition of the Muslim countries in Middle East, that is not a promising future.
The Middle East used to host the world's greatest civilizations. At this time, and any number of decades past independence, the place is a quagmire and an obscenity. It is entirely not the case, as Hashemi Rafsanjani claims, that Islam keeps these places on the right path. The opposite is true. Islam has taken these places on a destructive path and has turned the world's greatest civilizations into the toilet of the world.
Not enough people are brave enough to confront wrongs like this; and there need to be more. I for one do not care one bit if saying such things will bring onto me a fatwah. The issues here are too important, and they are especially important for the women - such as for example my daughter - who will be growing up in whatever world results from contemporary entanglements.
The West is morally superior to the Islamic world. And it is time that more people say so outright.