Is America a ‘Country of Lords’?

I'm Michael Kavnat and I'm Rufus Grisscomb. And this is the next big idea. Today, the 250-year fight against equality in America. Rufus, I know we're past all the 4th of July hype and all that, but I'm still thinking a lot about this country on our 250th birthday. I don't know about you.

I imagine you are too. We both read Walter Isaacson's latest book, The Greatest Sense Ever Written, and he got us really engaged by that that line in the Declaration of Independence that starts, we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal. Yes. And as I discussed with Walter, maybe the greatest edit ever was Ben Franklin crossing out. We hold these truths to be sacred in replacing it with self evidence.

And it goes on, we're endowed with inalienable rights, among them life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness. We are an imperfect nation, we both know, Michael, but this founding creed arguably inspired generations of abolitionists, suffragists, supporters of civil rights, to try to make this real. And I don't know about you, but I sort of grew up thinking this is, you know, the arc of history. And this is what's great about America is we have this ideal. We obviously fall short of it all the time.

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