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and the present condition is one of war. Not the physical kind, but a psychological one. The personal has been made the political, in every realm, and that's what gets to us. All of us. The present conflict very much resembles the run-up and breakout and battles of the Civil War, a little more diluted in time but in principle very much the same by dynamics and consequences.
What you miss is the creativity in the public arena which, while rare, did give overt purpose to living in our society when people were less given to open conflict- not that things were any better, really, in facts, though. Well, for one thing the present conflict has gone on for more than two generations- and what Democrats stand for now was what far smaller numbers of people demanded earlier. There are few or no new ideas to add because so much time was spent in hopeless minority that only dreaming and rhetoric and articulating discontents was possible: and that job got done. We are, in a sense, beyond all the arguments now. Fulfillment, which is to say resolution and political power to implement their conclusions, is what remains us. And for that we need to win the battles that remain.
Freedom is different things in different situations. Republicans now stand for freedom in its crude, material/animal, sense- the right to walk away, to deny others what is fair, to take stuff, to live outside the social contract if you have sufficient money (yet exploit the social contract to retain wealth either way). Democrats are having a hard time getting themselves agreed on the alternative, you're right. Somehow, choosing to be the Party of civilization is not enough fun or something.
Creative freedom is what is the Republican kind lacks. Being accepted as part of the social contract without question, but free within its terms and duties and guarantees, that's the basis of life that can be creative and defined by individual growth and being collectively wealthy rather than given to individual selfprotection and socially counterproductive competition to exploit the crumbs left on the table. Creative freedom is not material or animal freedom- it's spiritual freedom exercised, enabled, yielding fruit and hope.
The missing idea, into which all Democratic ideals fold, is of formal equality conceded to members of all groups of Americans. That is, that every group of Americans is dealt with as fairly and seriously and generously as all others. This is politically the idea of real equality before the law and real equality in treatment by government, and the idea of government serving the best interests of all members of society- this, when realized, in turn freeing up people to pursue their hopes and dreams rather than selfprotective measures.
If you look at why Barack Obama's speech to the Democratic Convention worked so well, it was because he told Democrats this was what they really stand for (despite wavering and lack of will/desire in many instances) in both an absolute and in a relative sense. (Absolute because the Party serves the American People by fighting for adaptions to the Modern Age, relative in regard to the Republican and Green etc Parties.) But no one picked up on the central idea, because even he didn't know what that was. In fact, the idea was written out 137 years ago due to outrages occurring in the post-war South...and made part of the Constitution.
14th. Amendment to the U.S. Constitution
Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
It's a measure of how far we've all fallen that this ideal, this necessary foundation for the lives we've wanted to lead, is slipping outside peoples' ken and hopes.
But I believe we've reached the point in our conflict that matches to the Civil War's January 1865- when the Union could see the end slowly coming into sight, at last, after a seemingly endless set of setbacks and shortfalls and failures. Our present internal argument is essentially like the one about the 13th Amendment at that time, which was really the argument about whether the North was serious about getting rid of slavery or not. We're seeing the end slowly come into sight too- the analogousness to the Civil War predicts the '06 campaign to control Congress as the Other Side's definitive defeat at Appomattox, btw- and our present argument is also about ensuring that our bloodshed on the battlefields was not in vain.
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