The rise of democracy was driven by the citizens' desire to escape from the paternalistic and arbitrary charity of those with money. They accomplished this by replacing charity with a fair, balanced, arm's-length system of public obligation. The principle tool of that obligation was taxation.

Indeed you can usually tell when the concepts of democracy and citizenship are weakening. There is an increase in the role of charity and in the worship of vol…

There is absolutely no reason why we have to deal with the mid-life crisis of our social policies by putting a bullet through their heads.

The state-initiated referendum has always been a part of this [anti-democratic] logic. Stop the talk, we're going to decide, yes or no. At this point the citiz…

'I think we should take money from everyone,' I told her, 'regardless of their ability to pay. After all, this is America.'

The wisdom of man never yet contrived a system of taxation that would operate with perfect equality.

By comparative standards, the country is undertaxed. And it's also regressively taxed, the tax burden falls mostly on the poor. What we need is a progressive t…