It is helpful to think what some of those other truths might be. Despite our seemingly endless disagreements with the left, we do agree on a number of important propositions that seem to be self-evidently true. That a person who earns a living is better off than one who must depend on others. But, here again, beneath such agreement lies seemingly intractable disagreement. If we agree that a child needs a good education, we disagree about how to deliver it.
Progressives have one answer, traditionalists another.
Advocates of whole language stand off against advocates of phonics. Rote learning of important facts clashes with the self-directed discovery approach to learning. The welfare reforms of 1996, which center on personal responsibility and conditional beneficence, touched off storms of disagreement. And despite the manifest success of those reforms, the disagreements are still rumbling. Founding Fathers viewed the idea of self-evident truth.