One of President Obama's dogmas demands that "the rich" pay more in taxes - paying their "fair share." We've heard from the news media about the lofty one percent, those who (like Obama himself) have made a lot more money than the average American. Modern liberalism abhors economic inequality, instead preaching the gospel of the redistribution of wealth or economic equality.
Yet while the left constantly preaches economic equality, it promotes political inequality. In a word, liberal dogma wants to remove the power of the people to govern themselves, in favor of a centrally planned, command economy, where considerably less than one percent of the population holds all the power.
This is what's at stake in the rancorous division between liberals and conservatives - the left's almost slavish devotion to "fixing" economic inequality versus the right's concern that any such economic system will require central planning, and a government that has usurped all power from the people.
The funny thing about history is that it does indeed repeat itself. The one historical lesson we learned from the Twentieth Century was that governments that promoted centralized economic planning stepped on its own citizens in order to produce a "fair" system. In some cases, the Soviet Union and China come to mind, centralized planning led directly to dictatorships and the subsequent death of millions.
The outrage the left can muster over someone who makes more money than another hides this terrible fact: Any government with the power to centralize its economy and redistribute wealth, also has the power to ignore the will of the people and turn itself into a fearsome and despotic dictatorship.
Rich people don't bother me. They can have their yachts and penthouse condos. What bothers me is the liberal trend to grant government more and more power, putting all the tools of ideology, power mongering, and greed, into the hands of a few individuals who "know better" than the rest of the people what's best for us.
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