If Atlas shrugs sooner rather than later, we can thank politics-of-envy columnists like E.J. Dionne:
Those at the top of the heap are falling far short of the standards set by American ruling classes of the past. As John Judis, a senior editor at the New Republic, put it in his indispensable 2000 book "The Paradox of American Democracy," the American establishment has at crucial moments had "an understanding that individual happiness is inextricably linked to social well-being." What's most striking now, by contrast, is "the irresponsibility of the nation's elites."
Those elites will have no moral standing to argue for higher taxes on middle- income people or cuts in government programs until they acknowledge how much wealthier they have become than the rest of us and how much pressure they have brought over the years to cut their own taxes.
Your money is our money. Give it to us now, and we will be happy. We deserve it. You will burn in hell for having it.
Comments
Leo:
People like that ought to be REAL careful what they wish for...especially if "they" wind up on the opposite side of the fence and become the "haves"...
(and others demand from them in like manner)
Circle of life gig...never gets old, does it?
Good point Bob- and people ought to be REAL careful about what the preach against.
Ayn Rand, the author of "Atlas Shrugged"? She railed against Social Security and Medicare....until she got sick-then she signed up for coverage.
Tim Cavanaugh at Reason.com had this to say about Ayn Rand and Old Age Benefits.
Unless it's revealed that Rand didn't pay income tax or Social Security "investments" during her working life, I'm not seeing the hypocrisy here. You don't have the legal right to opt out of income tax. You also can't avoid paying into the Social Security pyramid unless you are a government worker (a piece of hypocrisy that is far more widespread and of much greater moment than the hijinks of an old lady three decades dead). Some commenters are making the case that Rand used her married name "Ann O'Connor" and thus must have been up to something sneaky, since she was using an assumed name. But wasn't "Ayn Rand" the assumed name? Presumably the O'Connor name was the one under which taxes and FICA were taken from her in the first place. It would be a scandal for more than libertarians if that were not the case, but details of Rand's life are as opaque to outsiders as the circumstances of L. Ron Hubbard's death.
Gadfly:
I didn't know that about Rand, but I DO know all too well that "we" have NO SAY in the taxing of income BY the government (FOR the government).
Wish I would have been given an option of paying into a PRIVATE situation that DID have MY retirement in mind to a much greater degree and didn't take "my" money and fund those that do not (want to) work.
Talk about your wrist shot from the BLUE LINE and into the net...very good, Gad.