[Posted via P.M. to all who responded to my initial post. Posted without amendment to the public thread as well. While I reserve the right to make something more of my Reagan post (or attempt to, anyway) and of the responses to it, I offer the following without quibble, and wholly of my own volition.]
To whom it may concern:
I repudiate my earlier post. I apologize to those whom I offended by it. I offer neither excuse nor mitigation for the sentiments it contains because, to those whom I have injured, there are none sufficient.
I will continue to dispute those views -- past, present and future -- with which I disagree. Vigorously. My hope, however, is to do so without resort to disparagement or personal attack. In this I may fail, as I have just done, but I trust the readers of this thread to catch those failures and, simultaneously, to extend me an opportunity to temper my views.
Granted some tolerance, there's every chance I will learn from my errors. Without such tolerance, I am left entirely to my own faults -- and strengths, of course, such as they are -- and, robbed of others' good influence, will be less likely to correct my mistakes. I have assumed that most people on this thread seek to persuade others of the rightness of their views, not merely to condemn views with which they find fault. I still assume that good faith, but also know that I depend on it.
Again, I apologize.
ian
Those who find this teapot too small for such a tempest (or not) might take the air here: (Donne's Devotions upon Emergent Occasions, no. 17, "No man is an island....")
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