My Favorite Freedom, post two

I came across this quote by United States Senator James Webb on the back of his book "A Time to Fight." I follow his career because I think he represents well Americans who were drafted to fight in Vietnam and who feel the nobility in that gift was not appreciated properly and utilized intelligently. I loved this thought about freedom of speech and the pursuit of the new:

"The one connecting dot in all my experiences has been a passion for history and a desire to learn from it. Not the enumeration of monarchs and treaties that so often pass for academic knowledge, but the surging vitality from below that so often impels change and truly defines cultures. The novelist Leo Tolstoy wrote vividly about war and peace, showing us the drawing rooms and idiosyncrasies of Russia's elite. But in reality, he was telling us that great societal changes are most often pushed along by tsunami-deep impulses that cause the elites to react, far more than inspire them to lead. And this, in my view, is the greatest lesson of political history. Entrenched aristocracies, however we want to define them, do not want change; their desire instead is to manage dissent in a way that does not disrupt their control. But over time, under the right system of government, a free thinking people have the energy and ultimately the power to effect change."