[walden]

Thought-provoking, in terms of what "nation-building" must consist of in order to succeed.

[Mahone]

Bump for a good read.

[Harp]

Nice read

Hello, Islamic nations? Catching on yet?

[larryjohnson]

Have his US HISTORY.Good man.

[denydenydeny]

Clash of civilizations bump. Bookmarked.

[denydenydeny]

Clash of civilizations bump. Bookmarked.

[annalex]

Excellent, thanks.

Bumping my recent Defense of Liberty companions.

[Dan De Quille]

Great article. Bump.

[Architect]

Yeah, the West is the embodiment of all that is good in human history. What has it brought the world?

Fascism. communism. Two World Wars. Colonialism. The Nation state. The atom bomb.

I'm not saying that the West hasn't brought many good things to the world as well. But the self-adulation in this post makes me want to puke.

Oh. By the way, Islamic fundamentalism has one and only one cause: the perversion of Islamic culture caused by more than a century of Western meddling and colonialism. The earlier Jihadism had been dead for a thousand years until we came along.

[dr gene scott]

Why West Is Best

Because Jim Morrison said so??

[RobbyS]

Its states are likely to have uneasy relations with the West until Islam reforms itself I am afraid that Islam has already "reformed itself," and that reform has led it backwards to the "pure" Islam of Mohammed. As late as the 13th Century Thomas Aquinas could propose a discussion with Muslims based on a common interest in western science--the science of Aristotle. But I see no Avicennas in the Islamic World.

[Pistias]

All of us desire moral order. All of us wish for justice. The chief problem that faces a civilization is how to translate morality and justice into a workable system of law.

Evil people don't want the moral order, nor do they want justice--unless they think it is in their interest. I thought the chief problem that faces a civilization is how to get people to love goodness and justice even when it conflicts with their perceived interests, or to educate them to the true value of goodness and justice.

[Aurelius]

BUMP (My NR subscription ran out.)

[johnny7]

The Magna Carta was the foundation. What we enjoy today was built upon it.

I learned this back in the 7th grade. Today, freedoms are taken for granted.

[Fiddlstix]

Bookmarked

[MaeWest]

Why West is Best

Sigh. This thread started off with some real potential.

[JoeSchem]

I've come to feel that Philip Johnson is overrated. Better than liberal/socialist historians, yes, but that isn't saying much.

The notion that the Romans and Greeks invented law, or that they somehow elevated both to new heights, is not tenable. Just ask a slave, or a gladiator. It was Christianity that abolished the bloody arena games, and was to later abolish slavery as well.

[monkey]

Compare the West to a relatively stagnant, primitive society, like Egypt under the Pharoh system.

They lasted for thousands of years. We will, quite possibly, create (or have created) the technology that will destroy humanity in the very near future. How do we "correct" for that?

[Clinton's a rapist]

Super article. Paul Johnson rules. We should give the muslims a quarter, and tell them to call us back in a thousand years -- if their civilization achieves anything worthy of note by then, that is.

[denydenydeny]

Bumping to Clash of Civilizations list.

[independentmind]

From this long history, it has become evident that equality in law cannot be finally ensured without the mass participation of the public. But it is important to understand that the rule of law must be established first before democracy can successfully evolve. That is the great political lesson of Western civilization.

I think Johnson skipped a step in here. What is the basis for the "rule of law" that needs to be established? At a minimum, there needs to be a consensus about an objective moral code.