Arab World Unrest and the West

As I watch events in Egypt and Tunisia, I can understand their origins, as well as any European or American can.
The unrest was, is and will be caused by police state controls on personal liberty, by lack of democratic elections, by unemployment and its resulting unsupportable poverty levels, and by a young generation that has been educated but has no outlet for its skills and knowledge. The result is built up tensions in society that finally explode, largely because today there is the Internet and its social networking that enables people to organize without meeting. The goal of the demonstrators is to remove repressive dictators and replace them with governments that represent the people being governed.
If we think about it, a lot of the same things are going on in Europe and the United States, where people are demonstrating and demanding more responsive governments. There is little violence because western governments are democratic and so there is a mechanism for the people being governed to replace their leaders with ones that are more to their liking.
But, there is one big difference between the Arab world and the West.
The Arab world is governed by very right-wing rulers, for the most part. People are ostensibly free to do what they like and to live and work where they can, but the ruling group watches them for signs of deviation from the calm that supports the regime. Those who would agitate against the rulers are jailed, tortured or otherwise silenced. When the control is too much to bear, revolt follows, massive revolt as we see today because  it can be organized without the organizers being arrested before sizeable demonstrations can begin.
In the West, we are governed from the left, primarily, with America the exception until 2008 with the election of Barak Obama. So, we are free to demonstrate, to petition, to vote and to re-frame how our governments work.
But, in Europe and America today there is social unrest. People want less government intervention in their everyday lives, more and better jobs, less taxation, and a government that is more to their liking.
So, Arabs and Westerners are moving toward the center - Arabs from the right and Westerners from the left. Will we meet one day? It is hard to say, but the tendencies are clear. Less government, more personal freedom and fulfillment, less onerous burdens, whether by relief from high taxes and unnecessary regulation or simply having a job and being able to feed and house our families. The days of big, intrusive  government are weighing heavily on humanity and something will have to give.