8. The greatness of classical liberalism is that it is both universal & constraining: it makes promises that defy tribal category, & it limits state power & state favor in ways that ameliorate the natural tribal tendency.
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19. If we lose the shared language of classical liberalism, then both Right & Left are left with no better choice than to choose the strongest fighter for their tribe. Most of human history goes this way, & we know where it ends.
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20. Lincoln saw the American Founding as legitimate, and in its legitimacy he found the tools to defeat slavery. His example even helped inspire more illiberal regimes, from Egypt to Russia to Brazil, to abandon servitude.
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21. Progressivism, lacking such touchstones of external legitimacy, can never impose on its own constituencies such a demand. It can only follow the logic of the tribe, by which the favored in-group is to be rewarded by sacrifice of the out-group.
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22. For all these reasons, any effort to delegitimize the very ideas that were used to dismantle American slavery & segregation should be regarded with suspicion. That doesn't mean we bury the reality or history of enslavement; Lincoln & Douglass faced it graphically.
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23. But it does mean that we still hold those same truths to be self-evident. And we still see America as the shining city on the hill because it was founded on them. America was never without sin, but the nature of our Founding is what allowed sin to be condemned as such.
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24. In short: slavery is the "yes, but" of the American Founding. It is no basis to discredit its greatness, but rather the reason why the Founding principles remained vital to keep examining.
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25. If you get that wrong, if you embrace instead the collective & the group over "ALL men are created equal" no matter who their ancestors were, then you will always be against the friends of liberty wheresoever they are found. Individual liberty was good then, and it still is.
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End of conversation
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