The Leveler

President Obama and the democrats are mainly levelers, as Russell Kirk defined them in “Redeeming The Time,” always trying to pull down the prosperous classes through crushing taxation to pay for “entitlements” for an abstraction called the poor. This hurts the poor most by causing oppression of industry and commerce.

Things seem to be moving toward the bread and circuses Roman emperor who united with the mob to pull down the propertied classes with taxation until the ancient economy collapsed---the frontiers could not even be defended.

Many wealthy people are paying almost half their income on taxes. It is a struggle between the forces of individual achievement and the forces of equality.

Eric Voegelin said a tolerably just society is one where aspiring natures are free to exercise their talents, but the large majority of people, who desire merely a quiet life, are secured against oppression by the aspiring natures.

Are we headed for a Latin American brand of democracy---with class against class, with the economy periodically ruined by inflation---and with a semblance of order restored from time to time by the military?  Better to have our original constitutional vision of small independent states protected by a light federalism, and with economic nationalism.