America will always have flaws but the Collectivist state we are becoming should be unacceptable to all who love freedom. Republican and Democrat these are only detail oriented ideologies both based on Collectivism. They have their point of view and want to use the state as a battering ram to make others conform or shape a Utopia of their own imagining.

They tout the glory and efficiency of a democracy when we were never given a democracy. A lynch mob is a democracy how appealing is that. No that is not what they had in mind.

As Ben Franklin said “A Republic if we can keep it”.

I do understand your point, don’t think I don’t. The transgressions and foibles of the Founding Fathers are one of the reasons it’s become very hard to get leftists to acknowledge the inherent justness of classical liberalism. ‘Slaveowners telling me about freedom? HA. Right.’

It’s kind of similar to shooting the messenger, in a way. Only it’s more judging the idea based on the messenger. But adulthood is supposed to confer upon us reason, judgment, and understanding. i.e. the ability to separate the two.

What is America the ideal? It’s the classical liberal ideal. What is America in reality? From the beginning it was the most classically liberal society ever founded. But it, like all real things, was imperfect. Today, it is rapidly becoming a collectivist/socialist state, not even remotely resembling its ideal, unlike the 1789 version.

Classical liberalism by nature is as anti-slavery as you get. And there can be no doubt that ‘progressivism’ denies the sanctity of the individual.

It’s a tired old and perpetually false method of argument to impute personal actions and opinions of men with the philosophies they espouse.

EX: I’m a buddhist. I whole heartedly believe in the philosophy of it. Of attachment, of loss, of everything. Of the importance of keeping an even keel etc.

Yet I cherish my Mustang, I mourned when my dog died, and I’m one of the most preternaturally angry men you’ll ever meet. That doesn’t mean that somehow buddhism reflects my materialism and anger. It just means I’m a bad buddhist.