While I do not like the religious conflict overtones raised by the Italian PM, I have said before and I say now that there IS a cultural conflict going on. I'll simplify a bit and characterize it as a cultural conflict between Western values and Third World values. It is not "racist" to state that Western culture is better than a culture that values keeping women as chattel and allows slavery and allows young sexually screwed up males to order extreme punishment including death for someone they percieve to be violating their view of right. Bin Laden wants the world to live like in the Middle Ages. He wants to destroy America to make this happen. He has put his words into action. Next time, let's not dismiss the words of those threatening death as mere rhetoric.

Here in the US it is not socially acceptable to discuss this on university campuses. Supposedly, all cultures are equally valid. Equally. I contend that this is not so. Yes, I realize that taking cultural pride to extermes leads to some very bad nationalism. But that is the extreme at that end. We're acurrently at the extreme other end where cultures don't matter. We have endured an era of happy talk and pop pyschology to make everyone feel good regardless of their accomplishments. This locally gets reflected in proposals to eliminate testing and grades as being too judgemental.

-phil