Why don't we add a line to the OR tax return that is for voluntary taxation. One state in the NE does it, I want to say Maine but not sure. They have something like a 2.5% participation in the program. So for those Oregonians who feel that they don't pay enough, let them pay to their hearts content.

A search of google for: Philip Crowley Zelaya

turns up articles saying that Hillary Clinton, at the OAS meeting in June, warned Zelaya against trying to get a referendum on the ballot that would call for a constituent assembly that could rewrite Honduras' constitution.

I'd say a paralell could be drawn between the peasants' condition at the hands of the Church, nobility and royal court, prior to the convocation of the Estates General in France in 1789 and the condition of the peasants at the hands of the oligarchy in Honduras over the past century.

Certaily noble sentiments Steve. However, I believe that many; if not most of those same liberal nobles still ended up guests of Le Guillotine.

Certainly not a historical perspective one would want to lose their head over.

Exactly! by '93, the warm and fuzzy; largely for show play to the masses was forgotten and nobles were all invited to play and do The Dance.

Steve,

Thanks for this note. I hope to keep hearing more from you here and elsewhere.

As I think you imply, one of the great class traitors was FDR himself, especially when he was provoked to flash his anger at the "malefactors of great wealth" just when he was working hardest to save their socioeconomic system for them.

Too bad there are so few who can break free of luxury and privilege and face vicious rejection by their peers, our social betters. We can't be counting on them.

such as E.A. Filene, the Boston department store magnate and ally of FDR ("why shouldn't the American people take half my money from me? After all, I took all of it from them")

Bob T:

Filene was free to give away half of his money all along. Besides, he didn't "take" money from the American people--he sold them things for the money.

Bob Tiernan Portland

Stephen Amy:

I'd say a paralell could be drawn between the peasants' condition at the hands of the Church, nobility and royal court, prior to the convocation of the Estates General in France in 1789 and the condition of the peasants at the hands of the oligarchy in Honduras over the past century.

Bob T:

Hondurans who like Zalaya can vote for someone with the same agenda in the same party, so why don't they do so? When "success" depends on this leader getting the constitution rewriten so he can stay in power until he's in his 80s, then there's something wrong with that agenda.

But then, leftwingers have a love affair with dictators like Castro and murderers like Che "kill your potential opponents so you can stay in power" Guavera.

Bob Tiernan Portland

Do the "great" Kennedys still have that off-shore trust fund so they pay next to nothing in inheritance taxes? And oil drilling revenues set up as a trust so they pay little on that as well?

Bob Tiernan Portland

Bob Tiernan: the U.S. had no term limits on the presidency until after FDR, as you know. And that was undertaken merely out of GOP fear of Dem domination.

But, anyway, do you know what was specifically being proposed for changes to the Honduran constitution?

And, anyway, my point was that Hillary lecturing Zelaya not to try to bring about a constituent assembly would be like a foreign power warning against the convocation of the Estates General of France in 1789. Shouldn't be any of Hillary's business, but, as we know, Honduras has been dominated by U.S. interests for over 100 years, so everything there is, sadly, the U.S.'s business.

Obama & Hillary keeping most aid in place, refusing to call this a coup (which would necessitate cutoff of all aid), maintaining U.S. military presence in Honduras, seeking to expand U.S. bases in Colombia and enlarging the support for the Mexican government's military crackdowns are last, desperate attempts to maintain the same, old Monroe Doctrine garbage that the U.S. has always practiced.

"Change You Can Believe In"

Rob Kremer,

If you work on controlling tax exempt foundations as wealth shelters, I'll work on preserving the estate tax. Economic justice has many fronts.

Welcome to the battle, comrade!

Bob Tiernan wrote,

Filene was free to give away half of his money all along. Besides, he didn't "take" money from the American people--he sold them things for the money.

Ah, the beautiful simplicity of libertarianism! Too bad it works about as well as the typical perpetual motion machine.

Rob Kremer: Of course Robespierre was the most visible face of The Terror, and no doubt it was murderous and tending towards totalitarian, but it was not a kleptocracy: they didn't call Robespierre "The Incorruptible" for no reason. And he wasn't even a socialist. He sought to have a private business class that would serve the public with affordable goods, sought to have a state religion based on some New Agey kind of Supreme Being, and of course sought to eliminate the traditional strata of society.

I can't think of anyone associated with the Jacobin or Cordeliers Clubs who sought personal, monetary gain from The Revolution.

Rob Kremer: okay, I misunderstood what you meant by kleptocracy.

But your defining the redistribution policies of the Jacobins/Cordeliers as kleptocracy makes me want to ask you what you'd call the tax policies of France prior to The Revolution, when only the Third Estate paid taxes (royals, nobility and clergy exempt)?

Rob Kremer,

Isn't that the basis of neo-conservatism, that redistribution of wealth through taxation is governmental theft?

It's a quite understandable conviction - even if it is a naive principle that would lead to a capitalist system with brutal inequality of wealth. But then, human suffering does not bother modern conservatives very much, hdoes it?

Classical conservatives, such as Russell Kirk, argued that conservatism must be based in experience, not ideology. It's quite well established experience that the concentration of wealth resulting from capitalism damages society unless wealth redistribution is practiced.

Back to the ‘traitors to their class’ of the warm and fuzzy days; Did they just do it out of fear, hoping it would save them from the guillotine, or did they really suddenly become ‘nice’ people? And, as it looks like it didn't save them, is the lesson we have learned, and apparently are teaching at our business schools, “Take what you can as long as you get away with it”?