Two Quick Thoughts

I have had two thoughts, inspired by Abraham Lincoln, the past week or so. First, if we were to have a Meeting of Minds dinner, here is a question I'd ask of him. Were an escaped/runaway slave to show up at your door, what would you do? Lincoln was a Constitutionalist and a legalist. He believed in the sanctity of the Constitution as a precious document. He was also devoted to the law. Throughout the years of his Presidency he struggled with the problem of how to abolish slavery in light of its protection in the Constitution (Article I, Sections 2 and 9, and Article 5 if I recall without double-checking) and Fugitive Slave Laws passed in 1793 and 1850. Lincoln and other Americans were required, by law, to aid in the apprehension and return of runaway slaves. Given his hatred of slavery and all it encompassed, yet his strong penchant for following the Constitution and obeying the law, what would Lincoln do in such a situation? We obviously will never know, but it is interesting to speculate in light of his conflicting and evolving views. Yep, that would be a question I'd ask him. The second is more convoluted. It deals with my lack of comprehension of a significant or at least vocal portion of Americans. Why are there so many anti-capitalists and even anti-democrats (not the political party) in academia and politics and increasingly so in the corporate world? I just don't understand them. They have prospered under the freedoms of democracy and capitalism. Why don't they celebrate American culture, founded not on geography, racial or ethnic lines, and/or out-and-out political and military might, but on the ideas and ideals of Enlightenment thinkers? These Enlightenment ideals were radical/revolutionary, that people could rule themselves, that they had natural rights not granted by government but to be guarateed by it, etc. I think far too many people conflate or actually confuse two terms: equality/egalitarianism and equity. The former, in general, refers to equal opportunities, to having those opportunities protected by government/law. The later has come to mean equal outcomes. I am, of course, generalizing with this. But I don't think I'm misrepresenting what has come to pass. There are egregious examples of evil being perpetrated under the protections of the Constitution and American law. Two obvious ones are slavery and corporate/capitalist exploitation of workers/labor. But on the whole, mischaracterizations of the 1619 Project withstanding, the United States has provided for far better lives for its citizens than any other civilization/society. Therein lies the issue, the difference between a real America and and ideal America. Returning to Lincoln and his wisdom, re-read the 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." The word "proposition" and is key. Too many people do not understand this. Lincoln did, though. "All men are created equal" is a "proposition." It is not theorem or, in effect, a law. The US, as Lincoln well knew, was not perfect, not in practice. But it was always directed toward perfection. In fact, that's how he viewed the Civil War, even with all of its horrors and devastation. Who is ignorant enough to believe in utopia? Even Thomas More, whose book Utopia, forms the basis for the concept of utopia, "an ideally perfect place." More knew the derivation of the word utopia, from Greek meaning "nowhere or no place." Utopia, that is, a perfect society doesn't exist and, except to the most naive, never will. But as Lincoln went on to explain at Gettysburg, we still strive to attain perfection. He said, "I do not think much of a man who is not wiser today than he was yesterday." That is, be a better person today than you were yesterday.