On the 4th of July, thinking of Egyptians.

Today is Independence Day here in the United States. It is a day to remember our history.

At the end of the American Revolution, tens of thousands of residents of the American colonies emigrated rather than stay in the Republic under its new form of government.The Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Unity didn't work out and the government had to be recreated by the Constitution in 1789. The Whiskey Rebellion and Shay's Rebellion threatened the Republic in its early days. In 1812 the United States went to war with England for reasons hard to understand, and saw it capitol burned and its government in flight. The Vice President killed the former Secretary of the Treasury in a dual; friendships formed in the Revolutionary War broke apart due to political division and former friends refused to talk to each other for decades. The Nullification Crisis in Jackson't administration also threatened the federal authority over the states. Then we had a great Civil War less than 100 years after the Revolution. During all those early years the nation denied privileges of citizenship to millions of slaves and not only mistreated Indians, but removed the native Americans from their traditional lands.

Thus, American history should give us some willingness to try to understand the difficulties that Egyptians are having in finding a form of government that provides a good life in freedom for themselves and for the Egyptians of the future.

I have sympathy/empathy for the Egyptians, who are living through difficult times.  May they find the way to a better form of government and to social and economic progress!