Epsilon Delta
Jedi Master
That's correct, I doubt Egyptians want to be "more Western," but a bigger point is that it's equally misguided that this necessarily mean they want to be "more Islamic." Surely some protesters want a more "Western" Egypt and some want a more "Islamic" Egypt, what they all agree on is that they want a freer Egypt, where those who want a more "Western" Egypt can vote for a party that represents that feeling and those that want a more "Islamic" Egypt can do the same (whatever shape or form that "Westernization/Islamization" takes in the theoretical post-regime politics).
What they all want is the freedom and dignity of being able to say what they think, no matter how moronic what they think might be - just like every America-bashing hippie liberal vegan or red-blooded Gov't-hating, gun-totting conservative has as a god-given birthright. They want freedom to assemble, to make parties, to form coalitions - to live in a country where the government can't just take you off the street and put you in a torture chamber for as long as it pleases with absolute impunity, or alternatively shut off the internet and choke communication between people. They don't want to live in an eternal state of emergency.
It is unequivocal that the United States should support the protesters - if what the politicians spew held anything other than vain hypocrisy. The limp timidity that the supposedly "bleeding-heart," so-called "liberal" Democratic establishment has responded to developments showcase a kind of sad underlying factor in American foreign policy, which could be characterized as being the total lack of empathy for the suffering of others in any meaningful way. Americans simply don't understand. They don't understand what it is like to live under these regimes. And what's worse - it simply seems not to matter. Obviously that's a broad and perhaps unfair generalization, but from the kind of responses on this board one might believe them true.
