I'm still trying to sort through reading materials for my freshman comp class at Rocky this fall. Lately, I've been rereading George Orwell's "Down and Out in Paris and London" -- a terrific read, by the way, by an author who is best known for what is not nearly his best work. Orwell describes the world as it existed before governments erected social safety nets. In that world, people who can't get work because they are sick or injured or crazy just slowly starve. It's no surprise that no country that ever gets past that stage ever votes to go back.

Which leaves me thinking that even the most dedicated free-market conservatives don't really want that sort of world again. We're all liberals; we just disagree on the price.