You keep saying "Western values" as if it's a cultural artifact of the West. What I'm saying is that even if the West had a role in defining a set of universal

You keep saying "Western values" as if it's a cultural artifact of the West. What I'm saying is that even if the West had a role in defining a set of universal liberal values and maybe embraced them to a greater degree than other cultures, I still support them as universal values not cultural norms (personal biases aside - and I'm not a westerner, BTW). If you want, we can debate each and every one and I will argue for it on principle, not chauvinistic conviction that the western social order is superior. For your example, theocracy is in direct contradiction with freedom of conscience. In order for the concept of theocracy to have any practical sense, the society must contain dissenters against whom the theocratic law is formulated and applied - otherwise we would have a purely consensual society that wouldn't need such laws, just like there is no law mandating people should breathe. The logical consequence is that the theocratic society is a repressive one against some of its members - so it is, by the very cultural values of some its members, not mine, an inferior one to the liberal order, while not being better for the religious majority; unless you accept enforcement of religious norms against others (jihad) as a legitimate value theocracy provides to the majority. You could do that, of course, being hellbent to prove the contradiction at the heart of liberal doctrine, but you would place yourself in such absolute moral relativism that it would make you unable to take any position on any political issue. A liberal might find his political options limited and distasteful, especially in the international matters. A complete moral relativist has no position and no interest. > So then the question becomes, what gives you the right to judge other people? And if you are OK with judging others, then why can't they turn around and judge you and say that you are wrong instead? Are you willing to impose your values by military force in the case of disagreement? Isn't any military conflict always a clash of values? The value of recovering the motherland, of imposing a master race, of plundering, of deposing a ruthless dictator. It seems cultures have no other option than to judge each other if there is to be any interaction: even such a minor thing like a commercial transaction could help, say, a militaristic nation build a nuclear device. It's irrelevant then what value the nuke has for that foreign culture - what matters is that its existence threatens our values, so we are directly and chauvinistically projecting them in international trade. The right to judge other cultures, and be judged by them, is an axiom of international relations.