If they saw ordinary people blogging about their crusade through social media, our Founding Fathers would identify rabble-rousing pamphleteers such as Thomas Paine. In ideology, we cannot differentiate these modern revolutions from the American campaign for independence two hundred years ago. We should not glorify our own roots in red, white, and blue while reproaching these world citizens for a struggle equal in fervor and patriotism.  The Arab peoples are battling real tyrants, such as Hosni Mubarak, who continue the tradition of dictators such as George III. Their actions began small, much as American colonists began their protest through boycotts and the Boston Tea Party. Nevertheless, the actions of a million Davids will coalesce to defeat any Goliath.
The world knows what happened in the aftermath of the American War of Independence, and, as the old adage contends, history repeats itself. Britain found themselves on the losing side of history, forsaking their claim to millions of acres of fertile American land. Only after the War of 1812 did relations fully heal between her and her former colonies. History also warns us that these uprisings will not contain themselves. Although many believed that the American nation would crumble, it endured, endowing the world with novel democratic principles that still shape our governments today. A similar situation exists in the Arab Spring, where their new political systems may affect future societies across the globe, including ours. We must not dismiss these revolutions as one-off acts. Just as our forefathers’ daring actions sparked the French proletariat into overthrowing the bourgeois, the success of our Middle Eastern brothers and sisters may one day catalyze the liberation of people as diverse as the Chinese and the Burmese.
I only hope that the millions of other Americans who shared my thoughts have an opportunity to learn more about the heroic plight of their brothers and sisters in the Middle East. The uprisings and insurrections may be a world away, but they intimately affect every human being on the face of the Earth. Just because these people have a different skin color and a different religion does not mean they are not the twentieth-century equivalents of George Washington, John Adams, and Benjamin Franklin. In time, people will remember them as patriots, cloaked in red, white, black, green, and a host of other colors.

By any stretch of the imagination, Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights does not depict the traditional “happy ending.” But looking at the characters, they have reconciled themselves amiably at the end of the novel. Although the final pages are marred by Heathcliff’s untimely demise, it does resolve many of the real conflicts facing Brontë’s characters: their archaic, unshakeable Victorian class conflict, their relentless campaigns of vengeance, and their atrophied ability to love. According to Weldon, the ability of the characters to better themselves, even in death, is the true happy ending. 