Like I said, the whole issue of the social safety net really does depend upon what one believes is just to impose upon the individual.

In your, er, polemics, you like to rail against the left and their 'stalinism'. Frankly, what distinguishes the crackpots/stalinists frome the liberals is, for me, if they have the notion of an individual as a moral entity deserving of certain rights- and if that notion of the individual includes the sense that the individual is a positive thing, not something to be held in check, and something that must be defended*.

I think you will find that the real difference between the 'left' and the nefarious screwballs of the world is their notion of the individual.

Davin L.

* oddly, I often feel like the far right thinks of individual people as innately bad, sinful creatures that need the rod of punishment and constant obseravation by 'moral' authorities.