It is time we took a side: the side of the people who want what we want; who see our societies, for all their faults, as something to admire; who know that they should not be faced with a choice between tyranny and theocracy. I detest the implicit notion behind so much of our commentary that the Arabs or, even worse, the people of Islam, are unable to understand what a free society looks like, that they cannot be trusted with something so modern as a polity where religion is in its proper place.
我们现在应该做出选择：支持与我们有同样愿望的群体；他们看到我们的社会虽然有种种缺点，但仍有值得敬佩之处；他们清楚不该在专制和政教合一之间做出选择。我厌恶我们众多评论背后所隐含的潜台词，即阿拉伯人、甚至伊斯兰人根本无法理解自由社会，我们不相信他们能够接受赋予宗教恰当地位的现代化政治制度。