[Jim Noble]

The middle class is unsuitable for politics.

The experiment has failed. To prevent genocide we need a Sulla, or a Pinochet.

[Alberta's Child]

Part of the problem here is that the term "middle class" doesn't even mean anything anymore.

This country has always had a "middle class" -- even before the industrial revolution (despite what the author says). Before the Civil War we called them sharecroppers or tenant farmers. They weren't slaves, but they didn't live much better than slaves. Eventually they could be free men, but not necessarily.

The difference in the last 150 years is that this "middle class" can now vote, and has become part of a class structure that would never exist outside a democratic process whereby people feel entitled to use their government to reach their hands into someone else's pockets in the interest of "fairness."

The "middle class" as we know it today is little more than a fictional construct that we use to avoid facing the reality that we simply cannot afford what we have come to see as our God-given standard of living.

[robowombat]

Sulla was a product of pagan civilization. No real sense of moral boundaries but very intelligent, ruthless and with some guts. General Pinochet was a true Christian gentleman with a very strong sense of duty. What he did, at first with some reluctance, was to join and lead a movement of national salvation. In this he saw his sense of duty to his nation trumping paper administrative and legal norms those who were intent on ‘fundamental transformation’ used as political tricks to hide behind

[DesertRhino]

It always amazes me to see that childlike impulse among some conservatives for a dictator or a murderer like sulla or Pinochet. Think it all the way through if you’re saving the American Republic by having a murderous dictator, you’re kind of missing the whole point

[BroJoeK]

Jim Noble: "The middle class is unsuitable for politics."

Based on what principle, logic or definition of terms is this not just nonsense?
"Middle class" meaning who, you and me, or somebody else?
"Unsuitable" meaning what, unable to distinguish right from wrong?
And this applies to how many, 10%, 50%, 90% -- all?

And for this reason we must suffer under a military dictatorship??
It brings to mind a quote from Lincoln on the alleged virtues of slavery:

"I have always thought that all men should be free; but if any should be slaves it should be first those who desire it for themselves, and secondly those who desire it for others."

You want a dictatorship?
Go and live in one, there are plenty to chose from.

Send us a post card on how you like it there, FRiend.