A light on the hill (the Reagan Library)

We went out to the Reagan Library on Monday, 25th.

http://www.reaganfoundation.org/

It was actually a knockout, very impressive sitting way up there on its hill overlooking the vast sweep of the Simi Valley. And inspiring, I've got to say. Just to give a sense of the scale of the building, a Boeing (Reagan's own Air Force One) is on display, standing on columns, in a space the size of a hangar (of course), looking out a glass wall over the Valley. And the library is inspiring because it dramatises just how large the Reagan story was - and Southern Californian. There are all the signal events - the assassination attempt, the meetings with Gorbachev, the signing of a treaty banning medium-range missiles, the demand to pull down the Berlin Wall. Reagan sensed, rightly I suggest, that a president should concentrate on two or three key achievements and that this created memorability.

I've actually always been intrigued by the fact that Reagan campaigned for Harry Truman and endorsed Hubert Humphrey (with whom he remained friends). This is what I would explore if I were to dramatise his life.What happened? What, if any, anxiety did the switch (or was it a shift) cause him? He and his father loved FDR and the New Deal - 'loved'! - so was there an emotional cost? Of course the ultimate prize was the presidency. But in the library there is a statement from one of his 1976 radio speeches:

"Our problem is a permanent structure of govt. insulated from the thinking & wishes of the people; A structure which for all practical purposes is more powerful than our elected representatives..."

So that's the beef? A permanent structure of government? Bureaucracy?

There is one important difference I sense in the Reagan philosophy and that of his heirs in the Tea Party. Reagan had a sunny personality. He was personally engaging. His politics comes from a positive belief in the inherent goodness of people, following from a long-held principle of American society. The founding fathers saw Native Americans all around them who seemed to have no government; they seemed to have no regulation. Franklin talked about this in his Concerning the Savages of North America and so did Jefferson in a chapter of Notes on the State of Virginia. And the theory is that people left free to fully explore their own capabilities will generate goodness to all. But does it happen? I remember seeing a letter from Jefferson to a Shawnee explaining that "with us a majority suffices". The Iroquois Confederacy, however, looked for unanimity and, in the old days, used to naturally, reflexively, consider the impact of their decisions down to the seventh generation. They were self-regulating. And, even though a subsistence society, came from a feeling of plenty. I fear that the 'Tea Party' comes out of resentment and a 'poverty mentality': "Leave us alone", "there isn't enough to go round", "why should we?"; "why should we 'subsidize the losers' mortgages'?" (to quote from the radio spiel that some say started it all, and leaving aside that the pain was felt also by winners who didn't have mortgages).

One of the guides at the library told us that many people give talks out at the library (people such as Condoleezza Rice, 'not Democrats'). She said that 'Sarah' has spoken at the ranch. I asked the guide if Democrats really never spoke at the library. She said she couldn't recall any. But then she said, "they'd be welcome. This is America." And there was my ray of light.