On Fridays, we bring you the best of our blog and the best of the web. This week’s roundup includes some hope for Detroit, questions on American exceptionalism and “love and conservatism.”
1. Detroit: A Ground Zero for Innovation? T. Kurt Jaros writes about private companies in Detroit whose work and growth might surprise you: “With the loss of public services, even emergency services, what are people to do? Answer: Turn to the private sector.”
2. Is America still exceptional? For the first century of American history, both Europeans and Americans saw the United States as exceptional: there was no nation like it anywhere else in the world. But do the characteristics that made America exceptional still apply?
3. When Detroit was “Freedom’s Forge” At the blog, David Wilezol writes on lessons that Detroit’s politicans can learn from their predecessors:
A stirring contrast to this selfishness is the attitude that Detroit’s business leadership showed during World War II. As America mobilized for the war, Detroit automakers retooled their entire operation to serve the nation…4. All you need is love: How community can save conservatism: AEI’s Michael Strain writes in the Atlantic: “Many on the right correctly emphasize individual liberty, but they do not emphasize what conservatism knows to be true: It is in community that people learn how to be free.” 5. The RJ Moeller Show: Charles Murray: Listen as our podcast host talks with AEI’s Charles Murray about what made America exceptional through the first century after the Constitution went into effect. Charles outlines what’s changed in America since the country was considered exceptional.