Kaiser Bill to the Gulf War. Those conflicts provide, as AllanrnBloom suggests, “educational experience,” and that experiencerninvolves teaching our people and those whose brains we knockrnout about “human rights,” especially about “democratic equality.”rni’hese educational experiences usually entail fightingrnethnic groups that neoconservatives dislike—Germans, Slavs,rnArabs, and reactionary Southerners—and on the side of thosernthey like — upper-class Englishmen, Israelis, and progressivernYankee millionaires. The pursuit of moderate egalitarianismrnresults inevitably in a slow drift leftward which they and theirrnfriends can presumably control and which will not empowerrnminority leaders to a point that is intolerable.rnThe obvious problem with conservative egalitarianism is thatrnthere is nothing historically conservative or even classically liberalrnabout the glorification of political equality. This new conservativernprinciple is in fact the ideal of social democrats and Jacobins.rnAs Clyde Wilson observes, “What they say is notrnunusual but certainly not conservative.” And, so far from beingrnconservative, it is not even defensible on rational grounds. In arnstill unpublished manuscript, analytic philosopher David Gordonrnhas gone through the works of Harry Jaffa and his disciplesrnto expose their perpetually ragged reasoning. Treating as apodicticrnwhat is never demonstrated, ascribing disagreement withrntheir ideas to racist and anhsemitic attitudes, and ignoring historicalrncontexts are all essential to the arguments defendingrnthese “universal” positions. Gordon notes how little concernedrnhis targets are with the circumstances surrounding their texts ofrnchoice. Though Lincoln intermittently may have opposedrnslavery, his remarks during (though not exclusively during) hisrndebates with Senator Douglas indicate that he did not believernthat blacks could or should enjoy political equality witli whiternAmericans.rnI’here is in fact nothing in Lincoln’s words or biography uprnuntil 1856 to show that he ever held anything like Jaffa’s opinionsrnon race and politics. Even leading Abolitionists like RalphrnWaldo Emerson disliked slavery for, among other reasons, introducingrninto an otherwise Northern European people blackrnAfricans whom Emerson thought unsuited for citizenship.rnSimilar nonegalitarian objections to slavery could be found inrnthe writings of Thomas Jefferson and of other signers of thernDeclaration who owned slaves. Though these Southernrnplanters signed a document with a borrowed phrase from JohnrnLocke about natural equality, it is a long leap from there to thernmodern politics of equality. He who says “yes” to the Declarationrnas a statement of national independence need not be endorsingrnthe idea of political equality for all races, as both leftistrnhistorian Richard Hofstadter and Southern conservative M.E.rnBradford have pointed out.rnThere is no compelling reason to assume that the Declarationrn(mosriy a list of grievances like the 1629 English Petition ofrnRights) stands behind the Gonstitution, which nowhere invokesrnthe “principles” of 1776. There is no reason to assign pivotalrnimportance to the Declaration’s phrase about equality,rneven if Lincoln pointed back to it as the “sheet anchor” of ourrnfounding. After all, the equal right of all people not to be enslaved,rnto which Lincoln does refer, does not imply other morernradical forms of equality.rnBut there is another observation to be made. Those whornnow prate about equality believe even less in it than doesrnthe reactionary right. Democrafic ideals in the past were identitarianrnones, assuming the kind of unity among citizens thatrnAristotle, Rousseau, and Jefferson thought indispensable forrndemocratic polities. Homoiotes (likeness, or parity), which thernGreeks saw as the essence of democratic regimes, meant somethingrnentirely different from such late 20th-century democraticrnlitmus tests as the availability of entitlements or adherence to arn”universal proposition.” It signified membership in a communityrnheld together by shared ancestry, gods, and customs. AsrnAristotle notes in the Constitution of Athens, Pericles rose in thernesteem of the demos when he struck from the list of Athenianrncitizens those who were not descended from Athenian parentsrnon both sides. As ancient historian Paul Veyne observes, openrncitizenship is the mark of an empire, not of a democracy.rnTo carry the analogy with antiquity one step further, modernrnglobal democracy creates imperial subjects, not democraticrncitizens.rnWhile the American founders were not trying to replicate arnclaustrophobic ancient democracy, they did assume that theirrnown extended, representative republic would require sharp culturalrnand ethnic boundaries. Whether one quotes from Jefferson’srnNotes on Virginia or from Federalist 2 (on the good fortunernof culturally and ancestrally homogeneous republics), it isrnclear that the founding generation did not believe their countryrncould survive as a proposition nation. Citizenship would requirerna high degree oi homoiotes (which was more necessary forrnrepublics than monarchies) if the federal union was to be maintained.rnIn this respect the advocacy of etimic unity, combinedrnwith Protestant-tinged civic culture, was consistent with Americanrnideas of democratic homogeneity.rnLIBERAL ARTSrnHUDDLED MASSES,rnBJORNING TO BE FREErn”Over the last 25 years, Sweden has seen its centuriesoldrnhomogenous population become 10 percent non-rnNordic, and the assimilation and acceptance of diversityrnthat the country loudly wished to see in otherrnmixed societies has not occurred here.rn”‘It was so easy in tlie 60’s and 70’s to look at televisionrnand say, “That’s wrong,'” said Dag Jutfelt. . . . ‘Itrnturns out we didn’t know so much about the rest of thernworld when we were telling them how to live.'”rn—from Warren Hoge, “A Swedish Dilemma:rnThe Immigrant Ghetto”rn(New York Times, October 6, 1998)rnlANUARY 1999/19rnrnrn