It is the West that has liberated women, racial minorities, religious minorities, and gays and lesbians, recognizing and defending their rights. The notions of freedom and human rights were present at the dawn of Western civilization, as ideals at least, but have gradually come to fruition through supreme acts of self-criticism.

The West has given the world the symphony, and the novel.

Not only is the West so successful economically, but it leads the world scientifically, and culturally.

We cannot hope to win the ideological battle against Islam without criticism of Islam, it is essential that we continue to criticize Islam.

The greatest number of drug addicts are to be found in Teheran and in Karachi, not in the West. Not in New York believe it or not. It's the same with the roles of slavery, racism and imperialism in the world. These institutions were present in other cultures. However, it was Western civilization which did something about slavery, about racism and voluntarily dissolved its empires leaving behind a very positive legacy of institutions not to mention buildings and roadways.

The origins of the modern West are often seen in the Enlightenment of the seventeenth and eighteenth century, but the roots of the Enlightenment can be found in habits of mind cultivated in Athens, Rome, and Jerusalem, and the institutions that grew from them.

Human rights transcend local or ethnocentric values, conferring equal dignity and value on all humanity regardless of sex, ethnicity, sexual preference, or religion. It is in the West that human rights are most respected.