First line of Gettysburg address:
Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Last line:
. . . that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government: of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
It's striking how this speech both begins and ends with an affirmation of the national values for which the War was fought and for which so many died--to preserve liberty and equality: freedom and a government of-by-for the people, not of-by-for oligarchs, whether of the royal, plantation, or corporate variety.
Lincoln does not articulate the idea I developed in my post last week concerning the necessity for maintaining a "balance" between liberty and equality, but it's there implicitly insofar as the one is not mentioned without the other. I argue that one is not more important than the other, but for the nation to flourish both must be held in a balanced tension, and that when one is dominant and the other subordinate, serious problems arise. Marxists states are problematic for exalting equality to the detriment of liberty, and capitalist states tend toward the opposite imbalance in which equality is suppressed in favor of liberty--the liberty, that is, mainly of the few who aggregate to themselves most of their society's wealth and power.
Isn't that what we're seeing being played out in this health care reform fight?
The argument of this blog for years now has been that our nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to equality, is in far more serious danger of perishing from the earth than most people care to think about. Since Reagan, the emphasis on liberty to the detriment of equality, and the general acceptance of the subsequent imbalance has brought us to the crisis we're currently dealing with.
The trend toward the diminution of equality is not something that easily self-corrects. The balance has to be vigilantly maintained when possessed, and vigorously fought for when lost. And I see this healthcare fight as an important test. Given, though, the superior strength of the forces that should effect a victory for reform, it's looking more and more like the Union Army in Virginia during '61 through Chancellorsville in '63: superior force beaten time and again by superior tactics and a stronger will to win. And the result was loss after loss because no effective leadership in the field.
I blame the moderate, rational mindset of typical of Liberalism. While there is remarkable valor in the ranks, Liberal leadership just doesn't have what it takes to win. It hasn't the imagination, the energy, or the grit. It justifies defeatism as realism, and losing becomes a habit. This leadership doesn't want to win; it just don't want to lose. And so progressive causes are doomed to lose and lose and lose against opponents with far superior field leadership and organization. This is our future until something fundamental changes.