There’s nothing in the street
Looks any different to me
And the slogans are replaced, by-the-bye
And the parting on the left
Is now the parting on the right
And the beards have all grown longer overnight

(The Who, “Won’t Get Fooled Again”)

This won’t be a Facebook Revolution. It will be more Falò delle vanit. The people of Egypt are not demanding Modernity. They are not demanding Cafe Americano at Starbucks. They are rejecting the ongoing erosion of their culture to the point of unleashing a Thermodorian Reaction against what Francis Fukayama refered to as The End of History. If Muhammad Morsi was The Neitzchean Last Man, the Egyptian people demand a do-over. Entropy trumps Darwin until absolute zero is reached.

As The French were unsatisfied with Danton and Marat and demanded Maximilien Robiespierre, and as The Russians were merely whetted of appetite by Lenin and Trotsky and not truly revolutionary until they had Stalin, the Egyptians are not through with their simplification. Sadly, the US Government does not realize the extent of their epic fail. A single-handed facepalm does not do justice to Senator Bob Menendez on Meet The Press, 7 July. Hold your nose and sample the escatemological maunderings below.

SEN. MENENDEZ: Well, I– I do think that the– the reality is that this is a very nascent democracy. This country doesn’t have a history of democracy. And what we expect of democracy overnight is not something we’re going to see here. So, we were trying to nurture along a path that would move to what really needs to happen, which is an Egypt for all. The only way that Egypt will succeed is if it’s an Egypt for all. And that means a– a participation in the government of all different sectors of Egyptian society. And so, the reality now is what do we do and using our assistance as leverage at the end of the day…

Really, Senator? It seems Senator Menendez likes youthful naiveté as much in his foreign policy pronouncements as he does in the brothels he peruses when he travels abroad. Let’s advise The Good Senator on a few democratic preferences of the current adult population that lives and occasionally gets to vote in Egypt. Show him what he wins, Dom Pardo!

We learn some things about Egypt from a Pew Survey from 2010 on the views of average Muslims in countries throughout The Middle East. 95% of Egyptians want Islam to play a large role in politics. 80% feel it would be bad if Islam played a small role in Egyptian politics. 61% of Egyptians see Muslim Fundamentalism as no impedance to modern governance in their country.

We now move beyond theory to where the rubber meets the road. At least 75% of those surveyed in Egypt believed all of the following would be good legal practice in their country: stoning adulterers, using public corporal punishment to include amputations for crimes such as larceny, and capital punishment for converting from Islam to another religion.

Perhaps the one saving grace in these results comes from how Egyptians view leading international terror organizations. Al Qaeda scores only a 20% favorable rating. Hezbollah also lags behind at 33%. Hamas, however, could theoretically win an electoral plurality. 49% of the Egyptians surveyed liked these guys, while 48% were not as enamored.

A friend of mine argued to me that Egypt would be OK because it had 70 Million educated people who wouldn’t tolerate such reactionary thinking. I like my friend for his optimism, but must respectfully disagree. Orestes Brownson offered the following highly educated defense of Savanrola.

The name of Savonarola has become popular with the partisans of republican opinions and the adversaries of the Catholic hierarchy; and so often as that name is pronounced at the present day, it seems to recall exclusively the recollection of an ignominious death inflicted on one of the most energetic defenders of civil liberty and liberty of conscience. That which has, more than any thing else, contributed to this error, is the perseverance with which the eyes of posterity have been required to contemplate two facts, which are claimed to exhibit the sum and spirit of Savonarola’s public life, namely, his having refused absolution to Lorenzo de’ Medici at the point of death, unless he should first restore to his country its liberty, and the boldness with which he is said to have shaken off the authority of the Holy See.

Savonarola, I remind you, burned the works of artists who helped produce the Florentine Renaissance. We have our idiots in the US as well (as this old Styx song effectively parodies), but they are never successfully let off the leash.

In Egypt the book-burning religious censors receive aid and succor from an American political sect that would assassinate Dr. Righteous if he really ran for President of The United States. There is very little the US can do right with regards to Egypt. Patience will be required as a lost generation of Egyptian revolutionaries devour their children. If the survivors of this Egyptian Revolution access Facebook at all, it will be from the caves.