Don_Anon

The silence is deafening.

The same way Milton Friedman reconciled opposition to the Ponzi scheme that is Social Security while continuing to collect it: One can and should avail oneself of anything on offer by society, even while opposing or working to reform it.

I believe in the educational philosophy that anything merely parroted does not become part of one's character. To be expressed with truly human energy, any thought or action must spring from one's interest or principles. The animating principle here is Conservatism, specifically that a minority in a democracy lives by the rules of the majority. A minority in a democratic republic may continue to criticize the aspects which they think are wrong or how it is run, and argue for their way, but failure to live by the verdict of the majority which runs a republic is failure to abide by the rules conditional to participate in the republic. This formulation is William F. Buckley Jr.'s.

Friedman's argument can be found elsewhere but specifically in National Review in a back and forth with Bill Rickenbacker:

In re your letter to WFB, I use Medicare and every other service and advantage that is legally available to me, though like you I oppose Medicare and Social Security and have for many decades written in favor of their abolition. I do not believe that there is any moral conflict involved whatsoever.

... A personal anecdote will perhaps explain best my justification for that behavior... The United States is in a way a club to which I belong, not indeed voluntarily but by reason of birth. However, I have not seceded from it. I bear the burdens it imposes. I am equally entitled to receive the benefits. I do not believe that either the one or the other should inhibit my urging upon the public the policies that I believe desirable.

Sorry I can't be pithy right now, I'm hungry. But if you want to sum it up; Clever Use of Game Mechanics.

Don't liberals wish to see them defend themselves? After all they're getting their lights for free so they can read a book and articulate their own arguments as to why they should continue to be enslaved by government dependency. Conservatives wish to dismantle the cycle of commodified poverty that entraps the poor, but I've never seen one Conservative rioting in the streets to prevent welfare recipients from availing themselves of the Conservative's charity.

Did you have any of those Ranulph Fiennes "Where am I going to bury my friend?" moments?

And did you see any crynoid pickle-barrel shaped leathery things with starfishes for heads, or is that the wrong pole?