Here's a great article on Glenn Beck's 180 turn on supporting Democracy in the Middle East. It's pretty hypocritical to me that anyone associated to the Tea Party, which claims to desire "revolution" in this country in order to pursue "freedom" and a "return to our constitution" (ie: stop having to pay taxes) would oppose another nation whose people are in the process of real revolution because their freedoms are genuinely trivialized, and their constitution has been altered to the whims of an autocratic ruler. That's right Tea Party, this is what a real revolution looks like.
But it makes perfect sense if you look at how Fundamentalist Christians view the Middle East. Egypt has been viewed as friendly towards Israel, and Christians believe that we must support Israel at all cost, or we risk being on the wrong side of the battle of Armaggedon. Therefore we must support Egypt, else Israel could fall into the hands of Islamic radicals who'd join forces with Iran to oust God's chosen people. It's all in the book of Revelations. John Hagee, one of the biggest blow hards of all pro-Israel-at-all-costs Fundamentalist Christians recently posted an update on his website that includes this quote (in big, fat, appropriate John Hagee caps): "REMEMBER THIS; THE DAY AMERICA FAILS TO HELP ISRAEL IN ITS DAY OF TROUBLE IS THE DAY GOD ALMIGHTY WILL SEND AMERICA A DAY OF TROUBLE AND NO ONE WILL COME TO OUR AID." No doubt, much of the rhetoric you will hear in support of Mubarak (or in opposition to the protestors) stems from this same Christian idea.
It is a precarious situation, and there is a real possibility that Egypt could become an Islamic theocracy, but would that be worse for the people of Egypt than their current situation? Many of them don't seem to think so.
The bottom line is that Mubarak has grossly abused his power and the people of Egypt aren't taking it laying down any longer. Mubarak has announced that he will not run for President again, but that isn't enough for the people of Egypt, and why should it be? They do not trust the election system, and they aren't dumb enough to think the game will have changed simply by the President letting his term expire. A presidential candidate from an opposition party was jailed in 2005 after contesting the questionable election results. It's pretty obvious that the system itself needs to be scrapped to prevent this sort of corruption in the future. How can anybody oppose a revolution under these circumstances?
Obviously, I'm not in support of an Islamic theocracy. I hope the people of Egypt opt for democracy, but I realistically cannot expect them to. Not when their crooked president has misrepresented democracy to his people for 30 years.
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