Let’s start with freedom. Among others, U.S. historian David
Hackett Fischer has stressed what an essential value it has been
to us and how differently we have interpreted it. In his Liberty
and Freedom he indicated that even these two synonyms have often
taken on different shades of meaning. In his Conservatism in
America, historian Clinton Rossiter once noted that “the
preference for liberty over equality lies at the root of the
Conservative tradition, and men who subscribe to this tradition
never tire of warning against the ‘rage for equality.’” At the
end of the twentieth century, conservative historian Richard
Pipes echoed that sentiment in Property and Freedom, where he
wrote that “the main threat to freedom today comes not from
tyranny but equality — equality defined as identity of reward.”
He also stated that programs such as affirmative action and
school busing impinged upon freedom and that “the entire concept
of the welfare state … is incompatible with individual liberty.”
When today’s conservative