America is Engineering. Applied Science in the name of invention.

“Most ‘scientists’ are bottle washers and button sorters.” R.A. Heinlein

Inventive genius is far more impactive than entire generations of scientists, who fully develop what genius has revealed.

“The American model is Thomas Edison and Henry Ford.” “it’s not where you actually have to practice”

I imagine that ‘luck’ had nothing to do with Ford’s actually making the production line work. As for Edison, when asked how he felt about repeatedly failing to design a working light bulb, he replied; “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.”

You’re confusing Hollywood fantasy with the Heartland’s reality.

The generosity shown in Reagan’s day may indeed have been abused. What’s apparent now is those days are over no matter what congress is elected this fall nor who succeeds Trump. For a number of reasons, including 9/11 and the rise of terrorism, as well as the hollowing out of our manufacturing base, we are pulling back into a defensive posture. As to your statement that the Chinese are primarily stealing Hollywood copyrights, if only that were the case. Unfortunately it goes well beyond.

Here’s the key quote from Otto’s book. It’s by Robert McKee and describes the American archetype:

“I think that the American ethos is not science-friendly and never has been. The American model is Thomas Edison and Henry Ford. [Bill Gates anyone?] Guys who never went to college and who were geniuses and invented things, and people like them. The inventor versus the scientist. Somebody who can go west, discover gold mines, and create a lot of money without an education. Unlike Europe or Japan or India, or even China these days. In those cultures they admire and compete to be a really well educated person in some field. That is not the American dream. The American dream is Hollywood, sitting in a drugstore and somebody says ‘You ought to be a movie star.’ It’s an attitude that life is a game and that what you gotta learn is to play that game well, but it’s not on a gridiron where you actually have to practice, it’s a game of manipulation and most of that game is somehow bullshit.”

Enter Donald Trump. And post-modernism.

Today’s immigration policies allow anyone who is anti-American to come here, live off taxpayer money without working, and help vote in the totalitarian policies of the democrat party.

Back in President Reagan’s day the door was open to those who wanted to come here, work hard to improve their lives, while advancing the cause of American Liberty.

What’s wild is that most of the intellectual property the Chinese steal from us is Hollywood styled entertainment. Having the plans to build something is not the same as having the ability to do so.

Whatever happens with tariffs and trade is not going to make a lot of difference in the long run. The era of free trade is over. Contrast those last sentences of Reagan’s address with current policies. Night and day.

“The past few days when I’ve been at that window upstairs, I’ve thought a bit of the ‘shining city upon a hill.’ The phrase comes from John Winthrop, who wrote it to describe the America he imagined. What he imagined was important because he was an early Pilgrim, and early freedom man. He journeyed here on what today we’d call a little wooden boat; and like the other Pilgrims, he was looking for a home that would be free.

“I’ve spoken of the shining city all my political life, but I don’t know if I ever quite communicated what I saw when I said it. But in my mind it was a tall, proud city built on rocks stronger than oceans, windswept, God blessed, and teeming with people of all kinds living in harmony and peace; a city with free ports that hummed with commerce and creativity. And if there had to be city walls, the walls had doors and the doors were open to anyone with the will and the heart to get here. That’s how I saw it, and see it still.”

America has no exception from economic principles. In reality, there is no “too big to fail” economic principle.

Bombing Syria while chatting with Chinese leaders ring a bell for anyone?

Note the pejorative verbiage used to denounce the expulsion they would otherwise have to support, because Russia’s The Great Enemy now.

https://www.politico.com/story/2018/03/26/russia-expelled-484752

“The Trump administration is expelling 60 Russian diplomatic officials it says are spies to punish a nerve agent attack in the United Kingdom that has been widely attributed to Moscow.

The dramatic move continues a two-faced U.S. policy toward Russia – further escalating official diplomatic tensions even as President Donald Trump continues a friendly approach toward Russian President Vladimir Putin.

In a phone call with Putin last week, Trump personally congratulated the Russian leader on his reelection but did not mention the attempted murder of former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter with a banned nerve agent in the U.K. earlier this month.

Trump was involved “from the beginning” and “personally made” the call to take the steps announced Monday, which also include the shuttering of Russia’s consulate in Seattle, according to a senior administration official who briefed reporters. The official said Trump has not spoken to Putin since their phone call last Tuesday.”