In the hopes of encouraging a more civil, and illuminating, discourse, here is another episode of William F. Buckley, Jr.’s “Firing Line”.
The welfare state has gone back and forth between being seen as a public benefit for the common good and being seen as a wrecker of society. From Newsweek declaring “We are all socialists” under Obama to the Trump administration floating Trump Tariff checks, the welfare state seems on the wax rather than the wane these days, but thirty years ago the Overton window was such that the reform of that Leviathan was discussed, and even the idea that we should privatize the welfare state was debated by Jerry Brown, Rebecca M. Blank, Joch, C. Goodman, Roy Innis, Robert Shrum, Pierre S. Du Pont, Robert L. Woodson, Sharon Daly and William F. Buckley Jr. in part I of a debate.
Until next Friday.
