Arab world is partying like it’s 1799

Published February 23, 2011 5:00am ET



John Adams included this “right” in the bill of rights of the Massachusetts Constitution:

“Government is instituted for the common good; for the protection, safety, prosperity and happiness of the people; and not for the profit, honor, or private interest of any one man, family, or class of men: Therefore the people alone have an incontestable, unalienable, and indefeasible right to institute government; and to reform, alter, or totally change the same, when their protection, safety, prosperity and happiness require it.”

It is hard to read these words today without thinking of the “private interest” of Mummar Gaddafi and his family, and without believing that the Arab world (including non-Arab Iran) has entered a political phase not unlike the one that swept  Europe in the late 1700s. John Adams’ clear statement of the right to revolution lives on.

But you cannot have a successful revolution unless you have men like John Adams, George Washington, and Thomas Jefferson — someone capable of selflessly guiding these peoples toward government by genuine popular consent. Otherwise, we’re going to be stuck with another round of revolutionary clowns like we got in the twentieth century. That would be a real tragedy, compounding the ongoing bloodshed in Tripoli.