This post is to my Muslim friends, and to Muslims who just do not know quite what to make of the West. The Taliban just hung a 7-year old boy for spying for western troops.

Think about that. I don’t have to tell you what the face of rabid authoritarianism looks like. You know such maniacs could easily be your future–your government.

Yet, you see how the grand ideas of liberty and justice in the West have degenerated into Hollywood absurdity, debates over homosexual marriage, wardrobe malfunctions, ads on TV for making members harder and longer, and a veritable cesspool of Internet pornography. And the lazy, welfare-state sloth looks up like a thief and proves to you with his eyes that idle hands readily become the Devil’s tools. You are repelled by our license and laxity even as you are drawn to our liberty.

Welcome to our world–our shared dilemma. Most of us feel the same way. Here’s the difference: We are more horrified by human nature’s lust for power than we are of human nature’s lust for perversion.

This is a lesson the Wasabis, the Jihadists, and the Taliban would well-remember. Indeed, the Taliban and al Quaeda are showing us all what the world would look like with the Koran forced down everyone’s throats.

It is utterly impossible to impose “goodness” on a people. That must come from above and within and, then, those people reflect that goodness back out into their culture and into their government. We learned through centuries of oppression in Europe that people who govern are no better than the rest of us–they must be kept in check. Limited self-government, we call it. Checks and balances frustrate the power-mongers. Sovereign states fragment their plans to consolidate their rule over us all. The First Amendment mocks them and the Second Amendment threatens them with destruction if they get out of hand.

Many in America are also repelled by what we see our country becoming; it’s just that we are more afraid of what will become of us all once if we plead for “the King” to take over and save us. We know already what would befall us if we arm our government with total power. For, no matter what title you give them, or what religious position they claim, they–like you and we–are human and “…all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”

Look onto the corpse of that 7-year old child swinging on a rope, and see your future. Look to the West and see a people struggling to be free, and yet to be good even while enjoying more freedom than a people ever have before. But, if you look to Sharia Law and your religious leaders for your salvation, well, then–look onto the corpse of that 7-year old child, for he is your future.