SPELL OUT YOUR IMPROVEMENTS.

Abraham Lincoln said, "conceived in Liberty," and contemporary social critics might note, in various ways, how that conception was anything but immaculate.

He continued, "dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal," and those critics might be able to point to that "all men," and to a number of other instances suggesting the dedication was contingent, or hedged.

In "The Illiberal Temptation," Gabriel Schoenfeld warns that throwing away the conception and the dedication, without spelling out how you would replace them or improve on them, is unlikely to end well.  "It is notable that today’s anti-liberal theorists are, for the most part, rather vague about what they envision replacing the liberal-democratic order they decry."

Perhaps that is for the good.  What we understand as the liberal order was not crafted all at once, and much of what Mr Schoenfeld documents might better be understood as adjustments possible in a time of relative calm.  That's right, relative calm.  Bet on emergence.