Two posts on the deeper problems of the welfare-entitlement state

• From the Wall Street Journal comes an interview with Harvard professor and conservative political philosopher Harvey Mansfield discussing the challenge the entitlement state poses to American self-reliance and republican government:  The Crisis of American Self-Government.  Mansfield makes some excellent points, not just about the intellectual exhaustion and corruption of the Left, but also about the problems that beset the conservatism as well.  

• From the London Telegraph comes this op-ed by Janet Daley speaking the truth that few dare to mention on either side of the Pond:  The truth is that politicians are telling lies.  Well, yes, so what's new?  What's new, as Daley makes clear, is that politicians are lying about the basic math undergirding the cost of the massive welfare-entitlement state because voters don't want to address reality. However, numbers don't lie and the entitlement state that dominates both Europe and increasingly America is simply not fiscally sustainable. A smaller state is coming, not because of a shift in ideology to the Right or disenchantment with the ideology of the Left, but because of simple economic necessity.  But the politicians won't tell us this, because the people don't want to hear it.