The West is the Best
by Anton Kelly
The second anniversary of September 11 passed quietly and I'm glad I didn't see any gratuitous replays of the events of that awful day. There was an excellent documentary on about two brothers in the NYPD who lost their lives as the towers came down, and as I watched the grief of their father I felt hatred towards those who would attack civilisation in such a murderous way. Yesterday I read a list of names of those who died. There's a heck of a lot of names there.
As a libertarian I don't see the West as being quite perfect - there's too much compulsion permitted in human affairs for my liking - but it's a damn sight better than the alternatives.
We have capitalism, to varying degrees. We have democracy, which is better than dictatorship. We have secularism, which is better than theocracy. We have science and technology, which is better than witchdoctors and chicken entrails. We have politicians who, though their implementation of it may be somewhat lacking, at least profess to understand the importance of that most sacred of things: freedom.
Incomplete as it may be, it is this freedom which makes the West so good.
You may disagree with me. You may belong to a death-worshipping religion which is simply incompatible with civilisation, and you may want to see the West brought to its knees. You may detest freedom and capitalism, and pine for the rule of dictators and mystics. That's fine. I think you're wrong, but you see, in the West you're free to think as you wish, and you're free to say what you think. Know this though: the West will never be brought to its knees. We've come too far, we've weathered too many storms to be brought down by irrational primitives like you.
No, the West isn't perfect, but I can think of no better place to raise my son. Here I can show him all that life has to offer. Here I can help him set a course to his dreams. I can do this because here in the West, we are still free to think, and act, and dream.
The West is the best.
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