Posted on 01/11/2013 10:53:22 AM PST by LucianOfSamasota
One of the distinguishing features of America from the founding throughout our history has been classlessness. In recent years, especially since 2009, there has been a relentless assault by the progressive left on what it considers the unfair income distribution between the rich and others, propounded particularly in academia as I discussed in Inequality. That blitzkrieg has contributed to a significant rise—by around 20 points—in the percentage of our population that now believes there is a sharp and intensifying class conflict in America, which some on the left would turn into class war.
Central to President Obama’s reelection strategy was his campaign’s devastatingly effective demonization of Governor Romney as the rich embodiment of a predatory capitalist economic system, as I described in Postmodernism and Governance. A Pew Research exit poll (Andrew Kohut, “Misreading Election 2012,” The Wall Street Journal, November 13, 2012) found that while 10 percent of voters said that President Obama’s policies generally favored the rich, 53 percent said Mr. Romney’s policies favored the rich. An overwhelming 87 percent of those who saw Romney’s policies as oriented towards the rich voted for Obama. (Karl Rove, “The President’s ‘Grand Bet’ Pays Off,” The Wall Street Journal, November 7, 2012)
(Excerpt) Read more at nas.org ...
Unless something unexpected happens, there will be no Republican Party in 2016.
Anyone brings this rich BS up, ask one question.
Did you ever get a job from a poor person?
Usually shuts a libtard up.
Nice post! From the article:
The view of the rich also stems from what our children have been taught in public schools for now decades. In Marxist Justice, I noted that:
By the time most American students leave high school they have often been instructed in Marxist theory, social justice, anti-capitalism, and class envy against the rich by public education….
You can also ask them what product has the Government ever produced that has made them money? (Besides entitlement programs)
To be historically accurate though, there was a fair amount of vilification of the rich during the first half of the 20th. Century (Progressive Era through the New Deal).
I wonder how many of these people who say they hate the rich play the Lottery hoping to become rich without working for it.
I don’t disagree;
But part of the American view of the rich emanated from our Judeo-Christian heritage; the idea that the Lord is our provider, and a wealthy man is blessed by the Lord. Hence, rather than envy the rich, we work hard “as unto the Lord”, and expect God to bless us. This might also be called the ‘Puritan work ethic’.
Marx could make small inroads until this aspect of our weltanschauung was eliminated.
The defining element of class in the US was not heritage but money. This is a good thing and a bad thing.
Right now, we’re being crushed by a fantastically wealthy political class. Many of them, including Obama and his nasty family, made their money after being anointed by the über wealthy (Soros, the Saudis, et al.) to run. Others, like Gore, made it by exploiting their connections or their new- found power.
Think last days of Rome, folks. The freedom to make money has been interpreted by them as the freedom to oppress, but that is because most of them made their money from government or from being favored by government.
All I know is that when I was a kid my aging relatives would sit around a table and swear and curse Andrew Carnegie....fifty years after he had gone back to Scotland and died. Some of them might have gotten on a boat to go p*ss on his grave if they could. All of it rooted in the perceived mistreatment/underpayment of his people in the mills.
Probably a ‘Burgh thing, driven by Democrats and the Unions around here.
This modern group doesn't want a job. They want a subsidy - for being born.
Or maybe Carnegie really was a horse’s a$$ who mistreated his people?
Did they hate all rich people or only Carnegie in particular? The Marxist judges a rich man guilty solely on the basis of his wealth, without any knowledge of how that wealth was acquired or used.
I think defending the ultra rich is a stupid position for conservatives to take and likely costs a lot of votes. Middle class people who have obeyed the laws and played by the rules and are struggling should not be expected to defend the ultra rich who obviously have not - Bank bailouts, tax loopholes, off shore accounts.
No one can deny that there is a growing disparity in wealth in this country and that the middle class is vanishing. All folks have to do is look at their pay checks this month and see how they were gouged with a FICA hike which disproportionately affects them in comparison to the new tax hikes on the rich. And what about all the pork for the film industry etc in the new tax bill.
Repubs are on the wrong side of this and it allows the left to paint us as the party of the country club set. Why are we swallowing this line when we know in our hearts it is not true. The wealthy pay more of the country’s taxes because there is a giant gaping divide in wealth. They hold the vast majority of the country’s wealth. The taxes they pay or evade affect them a lot less than some poor sucker making $30,000 with three kids to feed.
Based on the following excerpt from Thomas Jefferson's writings, in his time the rich uniquely paid the taxes to keep the federal government running.
"The rich alone use imported articles, and on these alone the whole taxes of the General Government are levied (emphasis added). … Our revenues liberated by the discharge of the public debt, and its surplus applied to canals, roads, schools, etc., the farmer will see his government supported, his children educated, and the face of his country made a paradise by the contributions of the rich alone, without his being called on to spend a cent from his earnings." --Thomas Jefferson to Thaddeus Kosciusko, 1811.
But also note that most of the delegates to the Constitution Convention were wealthy, George Washington the Bill Gates of his time. So not only did the delegates draft the Constitution, but by signing their names to it it they were essentially committing themselves, their rich friends, and other rich citizens, to uniquely bear the burden of paying for the federal government to operate.
On the other hand, and this is a major point, regardless that the rich were paying for the federal government to operate, Justice John Marshall had officially clarified that Congress is prohibited from laying taxes in the name of state power issues, essentially any issue which Congress cannot justify under the Constitution's Section 8 of Article I.
"Congress is not empowered to tax for those purposes which are within the exclusive province of the States." --Justice John Marshall, Gibbons v. Ogden, 1824.
In fact, note that the only federal government service that citizens should be regularly paying for, as evidenced by Clause 7 of Section 8 of Article I, is postal services. In other words, based on Justice Marshall's clarification of Congress's limited power to lay taxes, it is the individual states, not the federal government, who should be taxing and spending for government services like retirement, healthcare and public schools.
As a side note to Jefferson's statement about the rich uniquely paying taxes, note that the US postal service did not start selling postage stamps until the late 1840s.
The bottom line is that the problems that we are now experiencing with unconstitutionally big federal government are a consequence of parents failing to make sure that their children are being taught the Founding States' division of federal and state government powers evidenced by the Constitution's Section 8 of Article I, Article V and the 10th Amendment. And many times I think that constitutionally indifferent voters can sleep in the bed of constitutionally unauthorized federal taxes, federal taxes which Congress cannot justify under Section 8 of Article I, that they have made for themselves.
While there is nothing wrong with being wealthy, Romney certainly didn’t help the cause of the Republican Party and the Rich with his incredible disconnect with the vast majority of Americans who don’t have overseas bank accounts.
Romney was so obtuse that he failed to comprehend the bad “optics” of his La Jolla mansion’s car elevator, his wife’s dressage horses, his comments about the 47%, his “my friends own NASCAR race cars” comment, his “my wife owns several Lincolns” comment, his tax secrecy, and his snubbing of sanitation workers.
The GOP Establishment is so wedded to wealthy, out-of-touch, country club candidates and so venomously hostile to GENUINE, Bible believing conservatives, that a viable future of the party is hard to imagine.
The Republican “brand” is dead. Most Americans view Republicans as buffoons and hypocrites. The sooner a GENUINE conservative party replaces the GOP, the better.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.