liberty, equality

John Rosenberg (Discriminations) writes:

There is indeed a tension between equality and liberty, especially when equality is thought to mean equality of condition. The characteristically American solution to this tension is the concept of equality of opportunity, which draws on both equality and liberty. In practical terms, debates usually occur over how much state intervention is required to “level the playing field,” and how much collective responsibility to take for the clear and persistent losers.

The thought is not original, but it is neatly put, and I value that. I seem to have reached the above-excerpted item indirectly from Dodd Harris’s (Ipse Dixit) essay on the same subject(s), which in turn was linked by Susanna Cornett (Cut on the Bias).