The Wolf's Dictionary

rev. 7-25-2024

I posted this December  2020, after the last election but before it was certified. Little did I know where things were headed. Once again, I think the words of Abraham Lincoln have relevance.

Democracy. Fair election processes. "Our freedom is under siege." I don't think these words mean the same thing to all people, so how can we have a conversation?

Abraham Lincoln was confronted by this problem on a colossal scale. The rank and file on both sides believed to their very marrow that they were right and that their cause was just, even using the same words. Liberty and Freedom.

"The world has never had a good definition of the word liberty, and the American people, just now, are much in want of one. We all declare for liberty; but in using the same word we do not all mean the same thing. With some the word liberty may mean for each man to do as he pleases with himself, and the product of his labor; while with others the same word may mean for some men to do as they please with other men, and the product of other men’s labor. Here are two, not only different, but incompatible things, called by the same name—liberty. And it follows that each of the things is, by the respective parties, called by two different and incompatible names—liberty and tyranny.

The shepherd drives the wolf from the sheep’s throat, for which the sheep thanks the shepherd as a liberator, while the wolf denounces him for the same act as the destroyer of liberty, especially as the sheep was a black one. Plainly the sheep and the wolf are not agreed upon a definition of the word liberty; and precisely the same difference prevails to-day among us human creatures, even in the North, and all professing to love liberty. Hence we behold the processes by which thousands are daily passing from under the yoke of bondage, hailed by some as the advance of liberty, and bewailed by others as the destruction of all liberty. Recently, as it seems, the people of Maryland have been doing something to define liberty; and thanks to them that, in what they have done, the wolf’s dictionary, has been repudiated."

This lack of a common dictionary tore the country apart. It seems we again diverging over what democracy and the Bill of Rights mean. I can accept nearly any political difference of opinion as a basic right. I've voted Republican and I have voted Democrat. But what I cannot abide is any disrespect for the Constitution and the IDEA of fair processes that it inspired. THAT is what makes us American. Respect for the process, whether we like the result or not. Only in a failed nation do people disrespect the process, and we are NOT a failed nation. I hope not.