Letter to Tim Phillips, President of Americans For Prosperity

I am interested in your work but don't know what your philosophy is and how you defend American values. The most important thing to defend are the philosophical underpinnings of America as our founding Fathers envisioned them and that is Individual Liberty: the right to Life, liberty and the pursuit of our own individual happiness.

All too common today is the call for sacrifice for the happiness of others. This is not America - America was founded on the freedom that each individual has, being an American, to pursue his own happiness. Agreeing with the government on the basics and only disagreeing on the side issues is NOT a defense of our American way of life.

The proper role of government is to defend us against our enemies and collect just enough taxes to run a small government not this behemoth that we the people have allowed to grow. The government today is involved in EVERY aspect of our lives. We have to ask permission of government officials for practically everything we do.

Is this the America of George Washington? Is this what he fought for and was willing to die for? Is this what Thomas Paine envisioned when he so eloquently declared "Give me Liberty or Give me Death!"

Is this what so many early American ragtag soldiers died for so that we the citizens now cow-tow to government minions who seem to fall over themselves fawning over the current President without so much as raising a peep over his totalitarian urges?

We must fight and defend the Grand Ideas of our country not the minutia - whether it's this type of government control of our healthcare or that type. THEY SHOULD NOT be in the healthcare business - or dictating to our Auto industry or "fixing" our banks - or telling us where to drill and what kind of energy we need or saving some minow fish in the west at the expense of farmers!

Our liberties have been draining away for the past 100 years. Obama is just cashing in on the ignorance and helplessness of Americans today. We don't know our history or understand the philosophy behind the stirring words and deeds of our Forefathers and therefore we cannot defend it properly. It's time and proper that we the people should change this stunning ignorance of what we should be defending.
Sincerely,
Margaret Sanchez
for more information on how to defend American Values go to:

For Happiness and Progress You Need Reason Not Faith

Ibn Warraq has an insightful article "Why the West is Best" (City Journal) i.e. why it is better than any other place on earth. More than anything else, it is a state of mind which allows westerners the greater freedom to live their lives to the fullest. Alas, whereas we have thrown off the shackles of faith many parts of the globe have not and we see death, destruction and mayhem as a result. For happiness the basic ingredient is reason not faith.

"The great ideas of the West—rationalism, self-criticism, the disinterested search for truth, the separation of church and state, the rule of law and equality under the law, freedom of thought and expression, human rights, and liberal democracy—are superior to any others devised by humankind. It was the West that took steps to abolish slavery; the calls for abolition did not resonate even in Africa, where rival tribes sold black prisoners into slavery. The West has secured freedoms for women and racial and other minorities to an extent unimaginable 60 years ago. The West recognizes and defends the rights of the individual: we are free to think what we want, to read what we want, to practice our religion, to live lives of our choosing."

"In short, the glory of the West, as philosopher Roger Scruton puts it, is that life here is an open book. Under Islam, the book is closed. In many non-Western countries, especially Islamic ones, citizens are not free to read what they wish...

"One could characterize the difference between the West and the Rest as a difference in epistemological principles. The desire for knowledge, no matter where it leads, inherited from the Greeks, has led to an institution unequaled—or very rarely equaled—outside the West: the university. Along with research institutes and libraries, universities are, at least ideally, independent academies that enshrine these epistemological norms, where we can pursue truth in a spirit of disinterested inquiry, free from political pressures. In other words, behind the success of modern Western societies, with their science and technology and open institutions, lies a distinct way of looking at the world, interpreting it, and recognizing and rectifying problems.

"...Moreover, other parts of the world recognize Western superiority. When other societies such as South Korea and Japan have adopted Western political principles, their citizens have flourished. It is to the West, not to Saudi Arabia or Iran, that millions of refugees from theocratic or other totalitarian regimes flee, seeking tolerance and political freedom. ...

"A culture that gave the world the novel; the music of Mozart, Beethoven, and Schubert; and the paintings of Michelangelo, da Vinci, and Rembrandt does not need lessons from societies whose idea of heaven, peopled with female virgins, resembles a cosmic brothel. Nor does the West need lectures on the superior virtue of societies in which women are kept in subjection under sharia, endure genital mutilation, are stoned to death for alleged adultery, and are married off against their will at the age of nine; societies that deny the rights of supposedly lower castes; societies that execute homosexuals and apostates. The West has no use for sanctimonious homilies from societies that cannot provide clean drinking water or sewage systems, that make no provisions for the handicapped, and that leave 40 to 50 percent of their citizens illiterate.

"As Ayatollah Khomeini once famously said, there are no jokes in Islam..." (City Journal).