Absolutely

older understandings about the source of liberty in the british constitution (balanced social forces) to the new context of the united states -- whence liberty without such balanced social forces (king vs aristos vs commons)? webster answers, other kinds of balance!

political or public virtue-talk. these would be liberals against classical republicans who are proto-totalitarians like robespierre. I do not endorse that framing, to be clear! Bailyn, whose book this original here is from, thinks that this is best understood as a way of updating >>

t'inquiete! so, the questions you're asking go further than i think the OP (noah webster) means to go. but one way of understanding the federalists (who he is representing here) is absolutely as liberals who are agnostic on principle about individual virtue, who just as you say would reject >>

for instance, Ralph Ellison interviewed Leo Gurley on the corner of 135th and Lenox on June 14, 1939; Leo told him about a man who could make himself invisible. Here, some screenshots to counter those from VF

Rather that political organization shouldn't worry so much about virtue at all.

OK it turns out there's a wikipedia page en.wikipedia.org/wiki/You_hav...

the middleschooler came home a few months ago and told me about how her teacher had explained the differences between capitalism, socialism, and fascism, using cows.

What you need, Webster says, is a generally equal level of property -- which, he thinks, is the situation in the main in the united states (in say the 1790s). Not communism, but a longstanding tradition in republican and other political traditions that recognizes inequality as destabilizing.

In the quoted passage Webster (the dictionary guy) is saying, against Montesquieu and others that the republican form of government (which, in the form of the constitution, he supports) can indeed exist in large states even without extraordinary, implausible levels of virtue.

So then i'm trying to imagine the US political scene without the GWOT and it's hard to do!

(assuming 9/11 still happens)

My big question has always been, if Gore was in office, would we have invaded Iraq? Afghanistan, sure of course, but also Iraq?

From the last few pages of Bailyn

Some good stuff in that thread

She has written these great essays, several things that I really appreciate, and then has just completely lost the plot.

+1

no time like the present to go see the bands you don't want to regret missing later