Cultural Ennui--and Its Opposite--in France

Is it "racist" to opine that Western values--freedom, democracy, equality--are superior to non-Western values--tyranny, inequality, submit, dammit? Why, yes, yes it is. And if you do dare express such flagrant cultural chauvinism, especially in, say, France (where un homme named Chauvin once lived), you can be all but certain that someone will claim that your desire to preserve your freedom, the very reason why the West fought and defeated the Nazis, is in fact what makes you like the Nazis. Or something like that:

PRIME Minister François Fillon and government ministers walked out of the National Assembly after a left-wing MP compared Interior Minister Claude Guéant to the Nazis.

The walk-out happened after Serge Letchimy, an MP for Martinique, attacked Mr Guéant’s recent comments in which he said certain “civilisations” which stood for liberty, equality and fraternity were better than others which “accept tyranny and the subservience of women”.

Mr Letchimy said: “You bring us back day after day to these European ideologies which gave birth to the concentration camps”. He then asked whether the “Nazi regime” was also a “civilisation”.

The PM released a statement asking the Opposition to apologise, saying he “deplored the fact that [they] chose to resort to an indecent provocation during the question time session… there are comparisons which are shameful to those who make them. The sacrifice of the victims of the Second world War should not be wheeled out and sullied for self-interested reasons.”...

I believe it was Mark Steyn who observed that in Europe these days, it's the Muslims (and their lefty apologists), and definitely not the Jews--or, heaven forfend, the Zionists--who get to leverage the Holocaust. How right he was!