Not just as bad, but better

Pamela Bone puts things bluntly and well:

To many it is shockingly impolite to suggest that some countries - Western liberal democracies, for example - are better than countries that still operate under rules more appropriate to 7th-century century Arabia. Well, sorry, but if by better we mean more conducive to human happiness and human wellbeing, they are.

A society in which young, lightly clothed women and men can sit together at street cafes and discuss the sins of their government is better than a society in which they can be arrested for doing the same; a free and liberal society is better than a society that stones women for having sex outside of marriage and jails gays for existing.

Moreover, you do not help the reformers in socially backward Islamic societies by politely saying, "Well, look at us, we're just as bad, perhaps even worse." We are bad, all right, but we are not just as bad.

(Thanks: JN.)