James Fenimore Cooper Quote

Y'all not getting his point. It's not a dis. It's a reality. It's like saying the pathway to the middle is always an average. Mediocre once you remove the negative connotations that one's own ego implies, only means middle, average, the mean. Isn't that ALWAYS the point of democracy? That the wealthy, highly intelligent, focused and actionable by obligation moral and/or ethical cannot simply run off and leave the lesser behind.. and those less by extension be forced to push themselves harder, faster and at an increase in order to keep pace, less they be left behind or impede progress all together? Isn't this what democracy is?

By definition. Not what it can be ideally, no but what it always is in actuality regardless of attaining that ideal or not. Subsequently, freedom is literally one's ability to exist within such characteristics and not be, for outlandishly persecuted for such inequities regarding others and your potential impediment of their goals, focuses and/or beliefs. "Freedom" as we describe it today (in modern times) has always been for the lowest common denominator of individual. As what's "freedom" to an individual with nearly limitless access to resource but what they already have and know.