[goldstategop]

As someone coming from the neo-conservative tradition, David Brooks approach appeals to me as having the twin virtues of giving conservatives a governing philopsophy for the 21st century as well as putting the Democrats permanently on the defensive. I've never viewed dismantling the welfare state as politically doable. My thinking has always been we take what exists and use the instruments of the liberal state to advance what I regard as the RIGHT VALUES. If we do that, it doesn't really matter what the government looks like; what matters is what it does to enlarge American freedoms, encourage the growth of private intemediating institutions between the state and the individual, and strengthen personal responsibility and the state of the family. Call it reform, call it whatever you like and its towards these fundamental objectives to which conservative domestic policy should be directed towards the rest of this century.

[NutCrackerBoy]

What matters is what [government] does to enlarge American freedoms, encourage the growth of private intemediating institutions between the state and the individual, and strengthen personal responsibility and the state of the family.

Those are very strong words. Conceding the fight to dismantle the welfare state was the moral equivalent of punting on 4th down from your own twenty yard line. But even the "reduced" goals that you stated will be a titanic fight in the 21st century. Conservatives will always be painted as holding back the glorious future of The Nurturing Society.