[Truthsayer20]

The American and French revolutions have a lot more in common than many American conservatives are willing to admit. They were both products of the Enlightenment and, from a contemporary point-of-view, left-wing in their outlook. Of course, royalist and anti-Enlightenment conservatism has never really existed in America.

[KC_Conspirator]

I failed to read about the American version of mass executions by beheading in Boston public square.

[Mongeaux]

"The American and French revolutions have a lot more in common than many American conservatives are willing to admit. They were both products of the Enlightenment and, from a contemporary point-of-view, left-wing in their outlook. Of course, royalist and anti-Enlightenment conservatism has never really existed in America."

Absolutely, they were products of The Enlightenment, but I don't think "left-wing" is an accurate description of the political component of The Enlightenment. America got a lot of the Blame from the Nobility of Europe for "inspiring" the French Revolution - it was seen as a natural result of "Mob Rule": what happens when the ignorant masses are allowed to run their own lives in selfish ignorance.

I'd argue it had more to do with the English Civil War than the American Revolution.

[jpl]

The American and French revolutions have a lot more in common than many American conservatives are willing to admit. They were both products of the Enlightenment and, from a contemporary point-of-view, left-wing in their outlook. Of course, royalist and anti-Enlightenment conservatism has never really existed in America.

I would call Tom Paine the closest thing we had at the time to a leftist French-style revolutionary here in America, especially in regards to his fierce opposition to all religion. Fortunately for us, Ben Franklin and the overwhelming majority of the Founders were never quite willing to go this far.

[Ditto]

They were both products of the Enlightenment and, from a contemporary point-of-view, left-wing in their outlook.

Don't confuse left-wing with liberalism. The classical Western liberalism of the enlightenment which put Natural Law at the foundation is the antithesis of left-wing ideology which puts state control at the center.

I'd also point out that the inspiration for the American Revolution was more based on Locke and Burke and the Scottish enlightenment and very much a revolution of thought. The French Revolution, for understandable reasons, was much more resentment driven without widespread ideological or philosophical pretext and hence, beyond the slogans, lacked a unifying thread.

[elhombrelibre]

Yet most conservatives view Burke as the first great writer with his great diatribe against the French Revolution - Reflections on the Revolution in France.