Although I don't want to get in the middle of the intense debate going on about various topics around the core makeup of US and philosophically liberal societies, such as the role of violence in government, or the ability of Constitutional democracies to surpass prior wrongs, there is one thing that occasionally gets forgotten.

There is no evidence whatsoever that the society created in the USA and surviving for over two centuries is the basic model for all future societies and the endpoint of humankind and its societal evolution.

Most of us can tell the difference. There's a big difference in between making an argument about the best possible course our society may head towards in some conceivable short or medium term future -- i.e., perhaps by adopting single-payer health care, which arguably could (though as easily may not) happen -- and saying, that's it, this is pretty much the best that humanity can achieve, ever.

If someone argues that, say, it should be possible to move toward a society in which power is distributed in such a way and so democratically that the traditional notion of "state" as the arbiter of the use of force is drastically redrawn, it's not an argument against that idea to posit that it has never happened and is not likely to happen in the foreseeable future.

The same goes for arguments regarding the role of private capital in an economic system. If someone believes we should not only embrace a society based on a participatory democratic structure but expand that sense of democracy into the economy and control of material resources, there's nothing illegitimate or silly about that goal or set of ideas, unless someone foresees that happening shortly or without tumultuous change.

In defending against the right's ever-present reactionary attack on achievements gained so far, it's not fair to also ask anyone else to give up their sensible conclusions about what could someday exist as a vast improvement over what exists now. Just because something may not happen soon, and may in fact never happen, doesn't mean human society is incapable of a quantitative improvement over currently existing levels and richness of democracy.

If we survive another 500 years, and still resemble humans, I certainly hope that we have vastly improved over our best current forms of democracy and economic participation.

And if one views this system with a few tweaks and improvements here and there as the best, the highest, the ultimate that humans can achieve, well, maybe we've undersold ourselves.

It simply means that the liberal agenda (whatever that means) is not a priority within the Palace these days. -- Ché Pasa

Where do you suppose Justices Warren and Douglas were nurtured? Was Thurgood Marshall a stranger to activism?

Yes, since the end of WWII, even our most liberal presidents have been Cold Warriors. Roger Morris' indictment of Jimmy Carter's foreign policy in his extended article on the rise of Robert Gates now running at TomDispatch.com is stunning, and probably the sort of thing Bucky1 would point to as proof of the bankruptcy of both parties.

Still, I think I would argue that the Cold War, and America's economic and military supremacy following WWII were a special case; any atavists bound on mischief had ample opportunity in the midst of all that technical euphoria, not to mention the distractions of a newly-prosperous middle class. That era is now ending, and the bills are coming due. We all know what happened to our smug power elites and hedonistic consumers between 1929 and 1941. These opinions which you claim have no traction are -- unfortunately, in some ways -- about to be given a whole new opportunity to explain what to the right is inexplicable. Are we ready for that?

Only a moron would claim that Novus Ordo Seclorum could be translated as New World Order. None of us, least of all you, fall into that category.

As to what we might become under the aegis of the better angels of our nature, we are always visited by heralds. Lincoln was one. Bebop-o is another.

Eyes on the prize, eternity in a thunderclap. Anyone can see the Promised Land from a mountaintop. Never doubt that someone's children will one day enter it.

If we survive another 500 years, and still resemble humans, I certainly hope that we have vastly improved over our best current forms of democracy and economic participation.

Exactly backwards. We'll have to vastly improve democracy and economic participation in order to survive 500 years and resemble humans. I nevertheless predict that people will still be fighting over who's omnipotent invisible friend is the most omnipotent and the least invisible.

Re: ...why phenomena like the Emancipation Proclamation, women's suffrage, the expanded interpretation of the commerce clause, the Fair Labor Standards and Civil Rights Acts, etc. should be seen not as usurpations, but as adaptations to changed circumstance, and entirely in the spirit of the Constitution...

I have this idea that part of what has gone wrong is that the very improvements WT lists above were made possible by arguing for the from a utilitarian basis (e.g., John Stuart Mill re: women's rights). I freely admit that I have not read even an iota of what you two have-- that's why I'm asking for your thoughts.

Utilitarianism may have been intended to present the best case, the benefits of making changes, and how they would be for the greater good. But, it seems like it is a short slip on a banana peel (I read that somewhere here tonight) from "benefiting the greater good" to the "ends justifying the means." Which is why we now find ourselves hanging onto the end of a fraying and greasy rope.

Surely, there is some other school of thought that, instead of weighing good v bad, or justfying ends v means, just considers what is actually best in a situation. Inherently. Again, inherently, people of color and women should be able to vote, learn to read, go to school, have credit, own property, etc. etc.

Isn't that what our (white, Christian, male) founders (bless their Other-omitting little hearts) really meant by "inalienable?"

Anyway, this is why I have very little patience for what I perceive to be "utilitarian" arguments. If they can be argued one way, they can as easily be argued another. Just look at the plight of most women in the Middle East, etc.

Obviously, it is for the greater good of their culture that women be kept under wraps-- not to mention for their own good.