Getting lots of e-mail from NRO-niks

who said their journey from youthful knee-jerk liberalism to Reaganism

mirrors mine. This letter from a reader contains an interesting question,

one that only Michael Lind can answer:

Saw your link on the corner “I was a Teenage Reagan Hater.” You have perfectly described me. In fact we are the same age, so you and I have nearly identical political growth rings. I hated Reagan with such self-righteous bitterness, I am almost embarrassed about it today. But it’s that cathartic moment that we shared. When you it hits you–POW!–you realize that if I was wrong and he was right about issue X, what else should I re-examine. Then I started to reject just about all of those silly liberal ideas that sound good, but just don’t hold historical water (i.e. Nuclear Freeze–remember that one!! LOL) I find it interesting that you never hear the opposite. You just don’t come across many conservatives who all of a sudden say “Hey…I guess that raising taxes really IS good for everybody” or “maybe if we’d have appeased Gorbachev at Reykjavik, the world would have been better off.”