Revolution!

Do you think that liberalism arrived just when you turned into a radical? Just in the nineties? The eighties? The sixties? The roaring twenties? Hell, the eighteen twenties! There were famous prohibitionists and anti-slavery advocates back then, too.

Even earlier. In the seventeen eighties there were reformists who were disappointed that the new American experiment, with its constitution, did not declare all people free, and were inspired by philosophers like John Locke and David Hume of the previous century. Including black Africans. 

Can you think it? That there was still slavery tolerated? No, capitalized upon, in the new Colossus? The new republic? The American Experiment? In their minds’ eyes, that experiment failed.

Did it?

But all reformers must eventually, painfully, excruciatingly so, learn one hard, excruciating lesson. 

That you have to give a little to get a little. 

Slavery was the coin in the eighteenth century. The little given, that allowed the republic to be born, even though it was not perfect.

Even if it would spawn a civil war a mere eighty years later. The constitution of that imperfect union that says, “...in Order to form a more perfect Union,” Not, “In Order to form a perfect Union.” Just, “a more perfect Union.” One that is closer to perfection, not one that is at its doorstep. Indeed, not one that is living in the spare bedroom of perfection, even.

When you stick your head into the apple barrel, you are hoping that the apple you pull up with your teeth is sweet, not rotten.

Sometimes it is sweet. Often it is rotten. A lot of times you have to take what you get and live to fight another day. That’s compromise. That’s negotiation. That’s diplomacy. In a nutshell, that’s democracy.

Sometimes you win. Sometimes you lose. Often you lose.

You may beg for, “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity.” Sometimes you get, “Regicide, Genocide, Mass murder.” One of the last victims of the Reign of Terror was Maximilien Robespierre himself, the leader of the Jacobins during the French Revolution. He was the woke champion of his day.

That’s the way it works. You’ve been warned.

Can you live with that? If the answer is a historical, “No,” then there is only one other choice.

Chaos. Revolution. Insurrection. Civil war. Reigns of Terror. And if you are lucky, eventual peace and a republic, with all of its faults. 

When cooler heads prevail. With fewer deaths. When people read the words of Locke and Hume. In earnest. If not, you will find that in that same nutshell there lives death. Many deaths.

Do you want that? Be careful what you wish for…

...It may stab you in the back.