Posted 8/25/2002 10:15:00 AM by Ocean Guy
Thanks to charles at lgf for linking to this article. (And I see that shellshocking has also noted it.) Read what Bala Ambati, an immigrant American from Indiahas to say about American guiding principles:

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.

Go read his list of principles.