William Voegeli’s essay on Social Security in today’s Wall Street Journal is a must read. It is a long piece (albeit shorter than the original published in The Claremont Review of Books) but it is, I repeat myself, a must read. It explains very clearly what Social Security was meant to be and to do, and what that has to do with the heart of the Democratic Party, and why, therefore, Democrats are doing everything to try to stop any attempt to change it. Indeed, they are trying--and I am not yet persuaded that they are being successful, despite MSM reports--to make sure that a real conversation about Social Security cannot take place. 
Conservatives have lost their zeal for advocating minimal government not because they have decided that big government is desirable, but because they have wearily concluded that trying to reduce it is hopeless, and that even the task of preventing its further growth will probably exceed their strength.
This seems most telling. And most troubling. Caving in on principle for political convenience
Isn’t that what we continually lambast the other side for? And my conservative friends wonder why I vote Libertarian.