Why Do You Say You Want a Revolution?

I've made fun of Newsweek a couple of times, so they deserve some credit when it's due. In an online piece that went up today, Niall Ferguson points out that we Americans have a fondness for revolutions and overthrown dictators that's not always warranted.

He takes some shots at the Obama administration's handling of the series of uprisings that have plagued North Africa and some countries in the Arabian Peninsula, which not everyone might like nor think are fair. But his main point -- that the happy results of the revolution that founded our country have not often been duplicated by other revolutions around the world -- seems a pretty solid reading of history, and might serve as a caution about too much excitement over current events.