[Some of] All The News That's Fit To Print

I saw Christopher Hitchens on the Charlie Rose show last night. He had what I think is an interesting observation - the ideas of the American Revolution are still alive, and the ideas of other political revolutions are dead.

The French Revolution, a poor copy of the American Revolution, was punctuated with mobs running around chopping and burning. The Communist Revolutions of Russia and China, also bloodbaths, have been discredited, along with Mao's "cultural revolution" and other cruel revolutionary purges in Russia and China. Castro's revolution in Cuba has left a legacy of oppression, dependency on Soviet aid, and now poverty. The Fascist revolutions in Spain, Germany and Italy were debacles lasting on only a dozen or so years each. The Iranian and other political-religious revolutions in the Muslim world have oppressed women and minorities, stymied education and crippled economies. Their re-creations of 6th century Arabia have been dismal failures, their only significant "contribution" to the world being suicide terrorism, a concept foreign to 6th century Arabia.

But the ideas that fueled the American Revolution are thriving today. The Declaration of Independence spells them out.. equality of all (wo)men, unalienable rights, the rule of law, the power of government comes from the consent of the governed, the right and duty of a people to remove despots that abuse their laws and rights. Those ideas were important to American colonists in late 18th century, and to Americans and Iraqis in the 21st century.