"Dignity is at the Heart of our Declaration of Independence"

Commentary on:

"Dignity is at the Heart of our Declaration of Independence"

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2011/07/02/dignity-is-at-heart-our-declaration-independence/

The Declaration and Constitution are indeed inspiring documents. It is, however, one of the tragedies of America and Americans in recent years that we interpret events in other countries as if they too have come through the same European intellectual, social and political experience as we have, and that therefore events like the "Arab Spring" signify the same desire for "dignity" and "democracy" which the American Revolution signified (even that may be over-romanticized).

This skewed world view has led America into the mis-adventures of "nation-building" in Afghanistan, Iraq, and now Libya. Try to think of it in terms of the French, who helped the American revolutionaries, if they had come in with the same "overwhelming force" of "shock and awe" to build a nation in the Americas in their own image. Would that have been appreciated by American colonials? Would they have turned against the French?

And remember, that the French, just like the Americans now, did not come to help for altruistic reasons - they had their own agenda in a centuries-long struggle with the British for colonial dominance.

So let's try and keep both feet on the ground when we "analyze" events such as the Arab Spring, and remember that the spark which ignited these protests were not a search for "dignity" or "democracy", but a protest against high food prices. And let's try and remember that the "American way of life", as much as most of us may like it, is not what everybody in the world wants or needs.