Let me say that again: this mindset is why we lose. Because that's exactly what Progressives – openly – count on.
What you mean "we"?
What your post highlights is that there is a fundamental difference between small-l libertarians and small-c conservatives. I am without a doubt a small-c conservative. I don't buy into any of the "Let's mandhandle new-fangled evangelical notions of power and control of the whole (read abortion, etc) into national Conservative policy," but I do think that change in and of itself, while a great thing for individuals, is a very difficult and often a bad thing for nations. Stability is good. As national revolutions go, I wish that all nations could manage to model themselves on Canada.
I think that something can be in and of itself morally wrong and yet be the morally correct choice.
Welfare state? No, it is not moral. No, I do not think it should be dismantled tomorrow. I think it is immoral for a state to implement social policies that create class systems and then leave the various victims of those class systems--the welfare babies, the small business owner who paid onerous taxes for years and then lost everything, in no small part because of the onerous tax burden he bore for years--high and dry and begging in the streets, before there are adequate non-governmental systems for keeping the devastation of poverty at bay. Right now, many private charities, for example, are structured to address welfare gaps. They don't target the non-homeless destitute, because those people are in large part cared for by the government. Many programs actually require that one have been turned down for government services before their rules permit them to assist. I absolutely abhor any kind of Randian revolution in which anyone not sufficiently handy in Galt's Gulch is left to die. Couple reasons for this, one of which is that it is generally a huge negative in any society to have a large underclass without the resources for its members to improve their lives.
I think the welfare state should be reformed, with legislation that requires and allots funds for assessment and further reform after a period of time. I support incremental scaling back of the welfare state. I think it's more appropriate to begin with things like adding higher copays for medicare/aid, or limitations on non-essential services, or to cut back on the number/type of stores that accept foodstamps. I think it would be appropriate to build greater disincentives to using the system and make changes that make it easier to get off it and more difficult to stay on it (for example, to get ON straight cash benefits type welfare, one currently must go about thirty days with no/minimal [under $200/month] income of any kind. In my experience, this makes it hard to use welfare cash benefits as a stopgap to get over a hump, instead, the process of getting on it, gets one--to mix metaphors a bit--further into the hole. I was just lucky this happened for me right before Christmas when some family members gave me gifts of cash. But this type of system means that once one is on welfare, one tends to be very hesitant to get off of it. So, I support, for example, instead of cutting off benefits (except in some few cases) after two years, tapering benefits after, oh, four months or so. Don't cut off benefits entirely as soon as one gets any income--that is foolish and discourages taking any risks to try to build self-sufficency; it creates a welfare class that at first is afraid to do better and after a generation or two can't be bothered to do better and after another generation or two doesn't even think about trying to do it differently and has no concept of better. Offer a tax incentive to families for the year after they have gotten off welfare. Right now all families on cash assistance qualify for medicaid. Right, if we want to end welfare, let all families qualify for medicaid for twelve months after getting off cash assistance.
Don't get rid of foodstamps immediately, lower the amount of foodstamps. No family of three needs $526/month in food to eat well, let alone to survive; to offer it is to subvert thriftiness and makes these families more likely to fail at budgeting when they get off foodstamps. Section 8 housing? Right now the way it works is you get on a waiting list and after months or years, you get a voucher that covers all or most of your rent, unless your income rises. Seriously? So, this program is not designed as a safety net to prevent people from becoming homeless and therefore a drain on everyone else, but to encourage people who stay poor for long enough to get on the program to stay poor for longer. No welfare program should be set up to continue indefinitely. Those benefits should also taper off--after a longer period of time, to allow people to build self-sufficiency. A family is in a $900/month apartment on Section 8 that they cannot to pay the rent on? Offer an option to taper benefits down, or to accept assistance with moving costs to move into more affordable housing.
Sweeping change hurts more than it helps. There is no Galt's Gulch and there is no way to isolate the "righteous" from everyone else and the widespread economic and social collapse that will occur if all government social welfare programs--from cash benefits to social security to medical benefits to student financial aid to public schools and universities--disappeared overnight. You think that in simply dissolving vast segments of government and the work they do, you are going to somehow avoid insurrection? That there won't be gangs of men and women with rifles seizing the "palaces of government" and whatever else they want?
I live in a capital city. I'm not particularly fond of the thought of downtown Lansing being a sea of vacant buildings, and several thousands of newly unemployed and destitute ex-government workers squatting in the ruins.
The progressives--at least in the US--believe in widespread sweeping change that spends more, adds more, employs more, all by seizing incremental amounts from the productive classes. This may be immoral--and I think that to a degree it is--but it tends to lead to less chaos and insurrection than the converse, widespread sweeping change that dismantles and destroys and fires, and in the process secures incremental gains for the productive classes. It would not lead to Galt's Gulch, it would lead to chaos, disaster, and the smoking ruins of a lot more than downtown Lansing.
Oh, and speaking of downtown Lansing, do you know how many hard-working private small business people your revolution would destroy? The failure rate of businesses in this town would approach 100%.
Why should we have mercy for "them"? 1) Because they are people, and we are people, and it is moral for a person to have mercy for other people. 2) Because "they" buy "our" products and services, and we don't want our income to drop by 50% for long enough to render a tax savings of 90% moot. 3) Because it is immoral to, as a nation, build a system of civil service and build property interests in those jobs and then then simply dissolve them. 4) Because I don't want to robbed at gunpoint if I dare leave my house by gangs of disenfranchised government workers and former welfare recipients. 5) Because it is immoral to deliberately destroy people by the thousand for your own arguable idea of morality. 6) Because there is no "them" and "we." Claiming that that is the case is very popular with foolish people who over-intellectualize morality and the expense of good sense. I do not want to live in a world that we have utterly destroyed for the sake of morality.
And so I maintain--cutting spending radically is painful. As a conservative, I consider sweeping change difficult and often not a good thing. Sometimes it is warranted. To the point where it destroys the entire nation in order to serve an extremist view of "morality"?
Um. No, thank you.
I'll stick with being a conservative on this point.
