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Dave92f1's avatar

Lip service is better not-even-lip-service. It at least provides a rhetorical foundation to build on and a vision of the ideal.

Reagan had good instincts, limited political abilities, and was poor at picking people to implement his good instincts.

Still, overall, far better than most presidents.

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Patrick Joyce's avatar

This link doesn't work:

But the more specific the question, the more statist Americans look.

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Joe Potts's avatar

Bringing your skill and work ethic into the Shining City will disadvantage, at the very least, those already-there not able or willing to exceed your virtues.

Good for you (and your employer), bad for natives of lesser endowment. They'll (unwillingly) form a dispossessed underclass that grows as your skillful, hard-working relatives follow you in.

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Greg's avatar
Apr 27Edited

This is an intriguing and informative critique/deconstruction Bryan. I was never a huge Reagan fan, but for reasons unrelated to the substance discussed here. I do think he genuinely believed in the “Shining City on the Hill,” and knew that the metaphor was meaningless if one could not get in.

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