Would it be fair to put it this way? - conservatives' strength in recent years has been to take American constitutional and political thought seriously. But to propose significant changes in the welfare state more attention must be paid to preparing the ground - technically as well as rhetorically - for the detailed impacts.

I hope that is true. Yet, this is not just about rhetoric and even a response in technical details will not be enough. The argument will not be on principle, either. We are no longer in that state of mind; if we as a nation ever really were. The argument will be about how ending entitlement programs is of benefit to the self-interest of more than a simple majority of Americans. There is no general perception that this is true. It is on that idea that Republicans like Paul Ryan will be attacked. For any individual the government benefit they have been counting on or even living on, cannot be reduced or eliminated without individual distress. Through such benefits as Medicare, dependency on government's largesse has become so widespread that democracy and demographics pull against the success of any reduction of such programs. What is proposed is that self-interest will be rejected in favor of a virtuously republican self-abnegation? Not in our democracy, not in our culture as it is: I don't see it.

"even a response efficient in technical details" Sorry.

There is a very simple answer to Medicare and Social Security. Let the libs have their way and spend Medicare and Society Security in to the ground. Then the whole country will be in the crapper just like California and Illinois. Both the Stupid State and Illinois are in the crapper from entitlements like Medicare and Welfare. Hopefully this will teach the dim voters who vote for politicians that promise a free ride that there is no free ride.

I was in a grocery store yesterday and the couple in line a head of me had food stamps to pay for their groceries. They had two kids and were dressed well. The man had beautiful pierced ear jewelry and a gold necklace. The mother was dressed nicely and the kids had new shoes on. They did not speak English very well as they had a hard time conversing with the grocery clerk on the filling out the food stamp checks. On their way out they stopped at a concession that had stuffed animals in it. The father put some change in it and tried to mine a stuffed animal out. Then from there the got into a fairly new Chevy Colorado pick up truck with new rims and wheels. It sure looked nicer than my 15-year old truck.

Must be nice to have nice things and have someone pay for your food. Too bad Marxism doesn't work for all of us.

Steve, sure that is true, but there is a kind of crowding out within center-right politics that doesn't have much to do with constitutional discourse. The broad center-left has been talking more about these issues for a lot longer and were ready when their moment came. Look at the messaging of the broad center-right (the top Republican politicians, the conservative populist media, and blogger-activists) on earmarks vs. health care and entitlement policy. How many people have heard of Mitch Daniels' HSA/catastrophic coverage program vs. the Bridge To Nowhere? Well, the Democrats have Obamacare and last I heard the Bridge To Nowhere wasn't being built. So how come everybody isn't happy?

cowgirl, you could get a book, or at least a lengthy chapter, analyzing and contextualizing all the pathology you squeezed into that first paragraph.