[WS:] That makes all the difference in the world, no? The neolibertarians & Co want a "social contract" without offering any assistance. It is like throwing a floating device to a drowning person vs. telling him "you are on your own, swim if you can".
I understand that Brits tend to view their family as a "castle" and as a principle oppose any outside intervention in it. This is, in a way, an extreme case of the conservative "subsidiarity principle" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subsidiarity. I do not have such sentiments - far more people are screwed up by their parents, husbands, patriarchs etc. than by state institutions. So for me, the question is not whether the state intervention in dysfunctional family life is justified - it is as a principle - but on what terms. The interventions of the liberals prefer honey, those of the conservatives prefer a stick. The Marxist alternative, a balance of honey and stick seems like a reasonable approach to me.
-- Wojtek
"Modern conservatism is just a neoliberal gloss on medieval domination."