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Entry: Greenspan's Gambits Link: http://www.takimag.com/site/article/greenspans_gambits#5830 Post contents: Yes, Adriana, I am a small businessman. I am also a family businessman (the business was founded in the 1920s). My grandfather's estate was taxable, and my father's estate was taxable. I am a top-bracket taxpayer on the income from my business, and it's a wonder it has managed to survive the repeated mulctings it has suffered from government. You are damned right that I resent this. For every Paris Hilton, there are thousands of "millionaires next door" who seek only to live quietly and do their duties honorably by their families and neighbors. Most people who are in this position are there as the result of diligent work and thrift - often over several generations. They enjoy the benefits of inequality because they deserve them. People ARE unequal in intelligence, drive, and other personal qualities. To use state power to enforce a Procrustean egalitarianism is to violate the ancient principle of justice, "suum cuique" - to each his due. The existence of elites has never been suppressed by egalitarianism - rather, as in the former Soviet Union and in today's nominally communist China, egalitarian policies have led to the development of a stunted and perverse elite like the nomenklatura. We once had an aristocracy in this country. It produced men of the calibre of Washington, Jefferson, Madison, and Lee, who knew their position in society and the responsibilities it entailed. Joe Popuilist, when you studied under Russell Kirk it is unfortunate that you did not acquire his admiration for this strain in the early American character, exemplified by the remark of John Randolph of Roanoke (whose political biography Kirk wrote), to wit: "I am an aristocrat. I love liberty, and I hate equality." Indeed, liberty and equality are opposed ideals, rather than harmonizing with each other. To the extent the American elite shows decadence today - as we see in the present cult of celebrity, in which vulgar movie stars, sporting figures, politicians, heirs to old wealth and the nouveau riche all blend together in a frothy and nauseating whirl - it is because egalitarian social policies that have been in place for most of the last century have destroyed the circumstances under which an aristocracy that could produce a Washington, Randolph, or Lee existed. Instead we have Bush, Kerry, Clinton, and Giuliani. Weep! Sent at: 2008 11 22