The semi-annual occasion when, as WFB explains the format, "the tables are

turned, and the host of Firing Line becomes the grillee. Three dragons are selected as executioners, and, traditionally, they have done their job with obscene zest, notwithstanding diligent efforts, alas unavailing, to bribe them." The topics in this lively and often substantive exchange include abortion, national health insurance, charity (as opposed to welfare), and the reasons why non-Catholic children go to Catholic schools. One sample: HP: "In an interdependent society such as the one in which we live, in which poverty and unemployment is often not the fault of the individual person, is there not a basic principle entitling them to at least a minimum security income without having to beg--which is indecent and inconsistent with the American way, as far as I'm concerned." WFB: "I don't think so. Certainly the Bible does not consider mendicancy humiliating.... I think this: that one should recognize a moral obligation to look after one's fellow man, but for you to recognize that moral obligation on behalf of yourself is different from your coercing a similar moral obligation on the part of somebody else."