An immigrant offers his special perspective on the principles and values that make America great and contrasts those with Islamic fundamentalism.
For the purpose of this article I intend to do a sort of anti-Fisking in which I will add my personal comments of endorsement to Mr. Ambati's original text.

As Duke welcomes a new freshman class and new academic year, the first anniversary of a very black day looms ahead. It is easy to say that America's current war is for our survival and prosperity, but we are fighting for our ideals as much as we are for our physical well-being, so this war is not solely about bin Laden and al-Qaeda, but about whether the idea that succored them, radical Islamic fundamentalism, will destroy or be destroyed by American ideals. As an immigrant, I deeply appreciate the guiding principles of America that are often taken for granted:

1) Empiricism: Americans are not wedded to ideologies and are wary of new "-isms," but fond of things that work, focusing on goals, not processes. Skepticism and pragmatism fuel scientific inquiry (the beginning of any quest for truth are the words "I don't know") and enable correction of mistakes by government and society. The Constitution's preamble, "We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union," embodies this, recognizing that America, land of second chances, is and always will be a work in progress.

Thankfully our basic premise is that there seems to be no one perfect way but rather the way, as it were, is subject to negotiation between persons and their government. This principle of a negotiated approach has the flexibility in it to allow society to respond to newly perceived realities. Old destructive ways are more easily discarded when they have lost their empirical effectiveness. When things go wrong in systems that depend heavily on dogma or tradition, the usual reaction is an almost superstitious call to the return to more faithful observance of the dogma or tradition. That's all they can do since they are fundamentally unable to admit that the dogma has, in fact, failed. A negotiated arrangement can always be renegotiated when the cost of remaining the same exceeds the cost of changing.

2) Anyone can be an American: The Statue of Liberty proclaims welcome to foreigners (although such welcome is not always matched in reality). In stark contrast to countries that severely restrict immigration, allowing foreigners only as menial laborers and indentured servants, or have citizenship requirements that one's ancestors were citizens, the U.S. confers opportunities to newcomers and their children--a marvelous engine of self-renewal. I will never forget my Chinese medical school classmate whose parents sold noodles on the streets of Flushing, N.Y. Fostering enlightened immigration not only enriches the cultural vibrancy of America but is a brilliant economic device. The country gets the talents and tax base of numerous adults without investing in their childhood. The most handsome dividends of immigration were in World War II, when we welcomed countless refugees and hundreds of scientists fleeing Nazi death camps who then went on to help us win.

This aspect is easily taken for granted by those of us who have grown up in this country. We have little concept of what it is like to be second-class citizens in our home country. In the remaining circumstances in which there are vestiges of second-class citizenship in our country, the denial of the full rights of citizenship is the at the core of the cause to get those circumstances changed.

3) Live and let live: This underpins our freedom of choice and culture of the individual. While the First Amendment gets all the glory, the Tenth Amendment shines, "Powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people." You can pretty much do anything you like as long as you don't hurt others, and the government won't get in the way.

This strikes to the very heart of what "freedom" really is. By avoiding the temptation to officially promote any way as the right way we allow freedom to truly blossom. That is up to the point where my exercising of freedom becomes detrimental to others. At that point their right to freedom puts a reasonable limit on mine. Living in freedom is a very real thing. Much too often the word becomes a stick with which we can cudgel other styles of government as we deem politically expedient. This idea of freedom that we enjoy is something we would do well to export as much as possible even when our expediently friendly regimes find it uncomfortable. I think that this level of freedom is what our international cause should be. We should challenge all nations to rise as high on this scale as possible. Who knows? Some nation may actually be better at it than we are. Then they will have something to teach us. But until then we should be forthright about leading the way.

4) The rule of law: John Adams wrote, "We are a nation of laws, not of men." The checks and balances in the architecture of the Constitution, together with due process enshrined in the Bill of Rights, have shielded the world's oldest democracy from the temptations of tyranny, moderated mob passions, and protected freedoms and the innocent. Transparency is maintained by a vigorous judiciary and a free press, the organs of society that cast sunlight on government agencies and guard against abuse. The Freedom of Information Act reinforces the "public's right to know."

A just society must not be a respecter of persons. When privileges are granted or punishments meted out on any other basis than objective merit, society suffers. We rob ourselves of contributions of much-needed talent or we allow predators and parasites to sap the strength of good people.

5) Exploration: Hollywood's special effects do not compare with NASA, deep-sea divers, particle physicists, biomedical researchers and their predecessors. This culture of exploration has bestowed America with unparalleled dynamism, a fascination with the future, an eternal optimistic can-do spirit and unprecedented physical and social mobility.

Life brings with it some seemingly intractable problems. Yet many problems that have seemed to be intractable in the past have eventually succumbed to a sufficiently energetic assault. "The pursuit of happiness" demands that we continue to attack these problems wherever we find them.

6) Opportunity for all: In principle, everyone has access to health, education, capital and self-improvement, the goal being equal opportunity for the pursuit of happiness. Our system is intended to discriminate among persons based on their character and deeds, not on features of identity they were born with, principles codified in the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and restated in the Civil Rights Act. These allow each citizen to dream the American Dream, the continual betterment of the material well-being of the individual and the country, a dream that has nourished entrepreneurship and progress.

When one looks at the scope and depth of poverty across the world it is tempting to despair that such shall always be the case. I grant that America has benefited from a wealth of natural resources through the years. But that can not be the whole story. There are many countries that have significant valuable resources but they have utterly failed at making the benefits of those resources available to their people. I am optimistic that as societies around the world reform to the American model that the intellectual and moral energies that come into being will provide the means by which to eradicate the curses of poverty and denial of opportunity.

7) Separation of church and state: The First Amendment begins, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof..." This sentence has protected religion from the corruption of politics and government from the tyranny of fundamentalism. Both are vital, since faith stems from divine revelation and should not be polluted by mundane concerns, and democracy requires the ability to dissent and to say "I don't know," with which a theocracy is incompatible (witness the Taliban). Separation of institutions also underlies the separation of powers and apolitical military that are key features of our government.

This is a real biggie for me. As a religious person I recognize that the biggest threat to religious freedom is neither secularism nor government. It is other religions. It is almost like a Nash Equilibrium in that all benefit most if no single one achieves the top spot. By its very nature as an all-consuming life philosophy, religion can be easily seduced into imposing itself onto the "unbelievers" for their "own good". By the same token the goals of the government may not be compatible with the goals of the religion in the long run. Religion can become distracted from its proper goals if it becomes too close to the whims of politics. To give the power of governance to any religion is too much to ask of it. Any religion that hopes to thrive in the States needs to adapt to competition in the world of ideas. None should expect to benefit from government help. To whatever degree that a religion wishes to assist the government in providing some benefit to the members of society I think the religion should provide that assistance as its sacrificial gift to society as a whole. Because of the special danger that comes with the mix of government and religion I think any such relationship should be carefully crafted so that the goals of the government do not become an instrument for the goals of the religion.

These principles have helped this country become great. Sure, they have drawbacks (gridlock, bureaucracy, materialism), and yes, America has too often been hypocritical (the three-fifths compromise, lack of women's suffrage, slavery, wiping out Native Americans), but within our system is the capacity to recognize faults, change and grow, to form a more perfect union.

We can no longer hold the illusion, nourished by two oceans and two friendly neighbors, of isolation from the world. Foreign policy must be informed by an appreciation of who we are so as to articulate and pursue cogent goals of freedom and justice. This is what we defend: Faith that people can rule themselves through reason, an orphaned belief for millennia prior to the United States.

Radical Islamic fundamentalists claim divine authority and ultimate truth, rejecting inquiry, seeking to impose their world-view on the rest of the world through their version of religiously sanctioned murder. Church and state are one, and due process and freedom are irrelevant. Aside from religious imagery and embrace of suicide as means of murder, their creed resembles Nazism and communism. It is as much our duty as our right to discredit and destroy the idea of radical Islamic fundamentalism. And in so doing, we must not trample our superior ideals to save them; indeed, we must hold true to principles of freedom and democracy to enable their uncorking.