‘Democracy’, ‘Freedom’ and ‘Liberty’ are not synonyms. It is Liberty, Creator endowed and unalienable, that is at the core of American values and human rights. Liberty is inseparable from ‘humanness’ and is therefore universal. As such, liberty owes nothing to men for its existence or its perpetuation.
Freedom, on the other hand, is man made. Freedom is the social state that enables the free exercise of  liberty. Complete freedom is anarchy. On the continuum from anarchy to tyranny, different governments provide for more or less liberty.  Indeed, as expressed in our Federalist Papers, every grant of authority to government necessarily results in a loss of some liberty.
Democracy is a form of government that derives its powers from consent of the majority of its citizens. Democracy, however, without a fundamental belief in individual liberty permits tyranny of the majority over minorities. Americanism is exceptional because the highest goal of its republican/democratic blend of governance is to protect the liberty of all its citizens and thus are minorities protected by restraint of democracy in service of a higher ideal.
Why is this important? It is important because, as we fashion our policy toward Egypt or other nations , it is liberty, not democracy, that we should be advocating and supporting. Many from the cultural relevance wing of the left have been saying that whatever government Egyptians democratically choose should be o.k. with us. Really?
Cultural Relativism approves enslavement, imprisonment, sexism, bigotry, anti-Semitism, stoning and even murder. Cultural Relativists stand for nothing, and, because they do not, they are the useful idiot enablers of tyrants. Enabling tyranny is not amoral, it is immoral.
It is individual liberty, not democracy, that is essential to the protection of human rights and dignity. Liberty is what Egyptians deserve and nothing less. Â The fact that the Muslim Brotherhood would limit the liberty of women, Christians, and other minorities by imposition of Sharia Law is reason enough for us to oppose them, even if they were democratically elected. Indeed, it is reason enough to deny them the opportunity to be elected.
In fact, the US is a Republic, not a democracy. The minority maintain certain rights.