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out of any situation. They fail the test of humility, and become drawn to things which distance themselves from the general populace. They become greedy, apathetic, hard, cold. They no longer have the ability to empathize or care. They justify their new nature as a "sacrifice" of a sort. Money means more to them than people. They can't fail, because failure means going all the way back to the beginning, and the struggle and pain in their lives. They no longer have the choice to change their ways, because the person they are in the end is all that they know anymore. In faith-based vernacular, they have sold their soul to the devil. In reality, they have had the taste of power, and it is a heady feeling. They will do anything which keeps that sense of exhilaration, of commanding the actions of life or death.
In life, they have chosen the oldest path--that which requires the least amount of actual work. They are not unique at all--this path is one which most people do, but some are just able to grasp the brass rings they find along the way. Extraordinary people always follow the more difficult path, the road less traveled, as Robert Frost said. Most of us have found that path, tried it for a short while and diverted back to the path of least resistance. It's okay--we're not all capable of the hardness, the racing in the wind or swimming against the tide. Humans rarely are able to finish that path because it's more difficult to find all the conditions which favor it. It's against human nature in general to accept the inevitable losses which come with heroism and complete self-sacrifice. But in life, we can recognize some of those people as true leaders--Gandhi, Mandela, Anwar Sadat, Yitzhak Rabin, Jimmy Carter.
Human beings are not wired all the way to exercise the best of intentions all the time. Very few have the ability to ignore their own needs and put the needs of others ahead of them.
But Reagan was not a hero and never a man of the people. His own selfishness and desire for power were fueled by his ego and his overwhelming desire for power. The more power he had, the less of a human being he became.
Anyone who eulogizes Reagan needs to step back and look at the whole picture, of the horrible things he did while he was in office--things he did to satisfy his own ego, and for essentially "photo ops" for the history books.
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