Philosophical Excerpt of the Day

This one is from Charles Taylor (the great philosopher, not the brutal Liberian dictator):

But through all the differences of interpretation, the principle of equal citizenship has come to be universally accepted. Every position, no matter how reactionary, is now defended under the colors of this principle. Its greatest, most recent victory was won by the civil rights movement of the 1960s in the United States. It is worth noting that even the adversaries of extending voting rights to blacks in the southern states found some pretext consistent with universalism, such as 'tests' to be administered to would-be voters at the time of registration.

Charles Taylor, "The Politics of Recognition," in Multiculturalism: Examining the Politics of Recogntion, Amy Gutmann, ed. (Princeton: Princeton UP, 1994) pp. 25-73, 38.