Our Embedded Liberalism – F. H. Buckley

F.H. Buckley : The Roots of Liberalism is not an ideology that stands above our practices and judges them.

Buckley: Where did the egalitarianism and rights come from? He says moral philosophy can’t tell us who is a rights-bearer, nor can it tell us what the content of the rights might be.

Buckley says empathy and benevolence shared by everyone save the sociopath is the foundation for liberalism.

Liberalism isn’t buried in an irretrievable past, it’s embedded in the present, in actively remembered heroes such as the Black Prince and in the modern superheroes who are their exemplars.

The liberalism of the Founders, as restated by Abraham Lincoln , constitutes our identities as Americans and taught me that that which is not liberal is not American .