Sunday, February 06, 2011 :::
 
Bliss it was to be alive in that dawn.

So quoted James Pinkerton, former Reagan Administration official, and so quotes A Mind That Suits, former Reagan Amdministraiton gofer.  There is simply no way to express the elation when Ronal Reagan was elected.  Our long national hangover of guilt was over, and we were ready to get moving.  It would take a very long time to give his life its due, so A Mind That Suits merely recommends what everyone assumed would be the best memorial, and it is:

http://peggynoonan.com/

One of the keys to the freshness that President Reagan and Prime Minister Thatcher brought to the public debate was that they both read original texts.  They had actually read Marx, and simply refused to put the academic glass on his thought and that of other enemies of freedom.  All the right people tut-tutted about being too "simplistic," but all the good people yelled "hurray"--for the clarity.

In his honor, therefore, that A Mind That Suits would like to quote an original text, if only from memory.  There was a time when no one who claimed to be a conservative intellectual did not have at least a passing acquaintance with the thought of Alexis de Tocqueville, particularly Volume Two of Democracy in America.  If one went into it further, one also read The Ancien Regime and the Revolution in France, and his memoirs of his own experience with the Revolution fo 1948, entitled Souvenirs.

Somehwere in that very small output he comments that dictatorships go through the greatest danger when they try to lift restrictions, because things can easily boil over.  He was reminded of this when it was announced that the government of Egypt will allow several freedoms it has not before, especially freedom of dissent.

It has been plausibly argued that both sides are currently in a standoff.

Let us hope that this is the opening that leads to a peaceful transition and a guarantee of rights for all.  Let us all hope even more that this is not the crack that brings Egyptian society crashing down into chaos.

::: posted by A Mind That Suits at 3:21 PM


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What doesn't kill me, makes me laugh... usually.