ROGER KIMBALL: The Democrats are both cynical and naive.

Which leads me to the political principle a friend summed up in a pithy observation: “To be a liberal is to be unable to learn from the past.” Sometimes experience is a great teacher. Sometimes it is hardly more than a distraction. My friend’s point is that Democrats seem to derive no sustenance from their experience. The failure of their policies does not lead them to adjust their expectations or their actions. It causes them to double down on their mistakes.

The history of America’s welfare apparatus since the time of FDR and, especially, since the time of LBJ and the so-called Great Society programs, is a case in point.

Well, it depends. If the purpose of the Great Society was to make America better and happier, it was a mistake. If the purpose was to enrich a vast bureaucratic parasite class while holding the nation’s poor in government-funded serfdom, then it succeeded brilliantly. Just remember: The purpose of a system is what it does.