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George Will -- Thank Conservatives for the Welfare State. Quotable:

The welfare state, beginning with unemployment relief, was pioneered in part by European conservatives, Disraeli and especially Bismarck, to reconcile people to change -- to the frictions and casualties of economic dynamism on which, such enlightened conservatives saw, national greatness would depend in the industrial age. It is sound social policy, and simple justice, that the party who benefits from free trade -- the nation as a whole -- should be taxed to ameliorate the discomforts of those who pay the short-term price of progress. That is the case for education and job training for persons needing to change their skills. Such assistance is especially imperative when the casualties of change bear no responsibility for their fate .. ".