INDEPENDENCE DAZE

 Independence Day 2025 is long gone, but I found it still on the mind of one of my forum-opponents. Without bothering to lay out the general argument in which the Fourth came up, my opponent's attitude was definitely that of the "slavery is America's original sin" mindset, in that he expressed the view that modern Americans are being hypocritical to celebrate Independence Day, but things weren't so independent for slaves. 

I've already set forth some of my views on the phenomenon of slavery in a few posts here, such as the two-part SLAVE WAGES essay. But for amusement's sake, I decided to randomly flip through Frank Fukuyama's THE END OF HISTORY AND THE LAST MAN, which remains an important work in analyzing the role of the United States in creating what the author called "an ethic of emancipation." I came across the following paragraph in the chapter "The Universal and Homogenous State," and though I'm sure it won't have any impact on the stance of my opponent, I'll reprint the Fukuyama paragraph here as it may prove useful down the road.  

The second way in which economic development encourages 
liberal democracy is because it has a tremendous leveling effect 
through its need for universal education. Old class barriers are 
broken down in favor of a general condition of equality of op¬ 
portunity.

 While new classes arise based on economic status or education,  
there is an inherently greater mobility in society that 
promotes the spread of egalitarian ideas. The economy thus cre¬ 
ates a kind of de facto equality before such equality arises de jure.