A few random thoughts

As I shan't be at the next meeting, I thought I'd go ahead a post a few of my musings now.

(1) I simply wasn't aware of the extent to which Liberaldom (as O'Sullivan describes it) had taken hold of the American psyche (at least of the chattering classes). The fact that in 1976 the national high school debating resolution was whether the world's raw materials should be harvested and managed by some world-centralized body simply astounds me---simply that the idea should have any currency, let alone enter the mainstream. That leads to my next observation . . .

(2) Carter as Post-American. That is a very telling and I believe trenchant observation on O'Sullivan's part. The author takes care not to belittle or disparage Carter's motives: he acknowledges that Carter is a patriot and certainly not unAmerican, but that he and his cohort were post American in that they believed that the era of American exceptionalism (of America as the city shining on a hill) and the Pax Americana were over, and that America had to get used to being a second class hegemon (pardon the contradiction) and gracefully accede to the demands of statism and social democracy.

(3) The nobility of JPII and Reagan. The fact that both were willing to forgive their would-be assassins I find remarkable and surely indicative of greatness. It wasn't until Weigel published his bio of JPII (which I highly recommend) that people began to realize the importance of the Pope's 1979 visit to Poland, with the Polish people chanting, "We want God." And I admit to thinking "what a great scene for Hollywood" when reading about the conclave, and JPII weeping when it became clear that he would be chosen and Cardinal Wyszynki, Primate of Poland, encouraging JPII: "You must accept. For Poland."

(4) I laughed out loud re the quote of the Polish trade union member in response to the question of why would you want to be a practicing Christian in a Communist country: "To prasie the Holy Mother of God and to spite those bastards."

(5) I also admit to weeping when reading the letter of the Cambodian PM whom we abandoned to the American ambassador: "I cannot, alas, leave in such a cowardly fashion. As for you, and in particular, for your great country, I never believed for a moment that you would have this sentiment of abandoning a people which has chosen liberty." May it never happen again!

(6) To what extent did the UK's victory in the Falklands prove its continued relevance to the world balance of power, and to what extent did it reveal the continued deadweight of a practically defunct empire?