The modern conservative is too easily satisfied. He does not ask for much. He asks only that whatever little he desires be supplied in timely fashion and according to design. But he very infrequently reworks the design itself. This is unsurprising, for it fits the conservative mind, which is happy with the bicycle and would conserve its function, no matter that it is obsolete.

I can endure this conservative, and I had better, since I am him. But there is another type of conservative that must not be endured. This is the man who wants to conserve more than a bicycle. He would conserve broken pedals, the ones that keep him from getting anywhere. He is a peculiar logician. When the broken pedals inevitably lead to falling and scraping his knees, he protests—and protests boldly—the scraped knee while insisting on preserving the broken pedals.

This problem is afoot in the recent Somalian daycare debacle in Minneapolis. Conservative man rages at the injustice. He laments the waste, the deception, the funding of Somalian pirates. He is concerned that Captain Phillips will have to go through the whole saga another time because of the American taxpayer. And good on him for being kept up at night by the fraud and abuse.

But it seems to me that a large segment of conservatives would sleep soundly if those Somalian daycares were properly funded. If they were cleaned up, full of Somalian children, the bookshelves were filled with Korans, and every child had his own sajjādah, then one could get a decent night of sleep.

It is a noble cause, of course, to care for the littlest among us. And there are conditions in which it is perfectly reasonable to have grandparents or Aunt Betsy watch the toddler for a couple of hours. But we are now fifty years into bad decisions on modern daycare, with Minnesota receiving 185 million annually for “childcare.” The average American today finds the five-day-a-week toddler townhouse normal.

But the Somalians are apparently our betters. They have done a bang-up job on their daycares. We should rework our design according to this new plan. If we must have federally funded, communal daycares for the youngsters, may they be dingy, dark, and empty.