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.”