"It was just a reassertion of the basic values of American political culture: self-determination, individual aspiration and genuine community, as opposed to belief in the state as the fount of all social virtue."

Just a statement of unthinking, self-serving 'religious faith'. The stupid ideology of the American neo-liberal right has got the whole world into the present shitty economic mess. And despite that fact that most of their fatuous 'theories' (really just wild guesses based on selfish, avaricious, acquisitive hopes and dreams)have been shown to be complete rubbish, it seems that a lot of Americans just want more of the same!