It is a truth universally acknowledged that behavior by others inconsistent with social norms is condemned as hypocrisy but similar discrepancies in our own conduct is rationalized as understandable prioritization in the face of multiple goals. When the military deposed Egypt's first freely elected president, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said it was "restoring democracy." When the Thai military took power through a coup last month, the United States suspended all military assistance. In Ukraine the West supported street mobs who ousted the elected pro-Russian president and installed a pro-Western government instead.

While the Group of Seven represents the world's wealthy club of fading powers, BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) groups together the rising new powers. At and after their recent meeting in Brussels, the G-7 leaders ordered Russian President Vladimir Putin to recognize and work with Ukraine's President-elect Petro Poroshenko, or face further sanctions.

Are they really so blind to their double standards and hypocrisy? Or so brazen because they simply do not care about "the decent opinion of mankind" in the rest of the world? The U.S.-led West has no divine right to choose who shall be the ruler of which foreign lands, by which means of installation and toppling, and for how long.