City on a Hill
On how Freedom became central to the Republican party's
campaign for word domination.
Nunberg notes there are lots of metaphors for the state
—a ship adrift, an actor on the world stage, a city on a
hill, a house with crumbling foundations—and there is
simply no reason to think one of them structures our
political thought. We should all thank Nunberg for
suggesting that there is no thread, metaphorical or
logical, that runs through the contingently evolving
packages of partisan commitment.
-- WW