Frankly, this particular board is turning into Democrats.com Junior, and it's getting old. Don't know what flew up your pants leg lately, but the last thing this venue needs is another Bowser or Donald.

You're not the only one to notice a change in the tone of CE. You're right, more threads started with posts reflecting a Liberal point of view, and the posts by some of the more radical Liberals are becoming more aggressive in tone.

What's changed? Why are you posting less and initiating fewer threads, Tom?

I think that it's because it's not as much fun to post these days as it was when Republican power was at its zenith. You felt confident and strong, the world was your oyster, and you could revel in rubbing the noses of the wretched Liberals in their powerlessness.

Couldn't you have anticipated that the political wheel would eventually turn? Are you surprised to be at the receiving end of that treatment now?

I think that perhaps you got a little too comfortable in the role of political 900 pound gorilla, got set in the ways of easy rhetoric and cheap shots from a height. It's a shock to the system to have your world suddenly turned upside down and have to face life at ground level. Again.

It's in anticipation of that reaction that I started talking about rebuilding the center and reasserting the moderate middle. You don't have to suffer the same slings and arrows that you shot at the Liberals back in the glory days. I'll need to get a little of it out of my system, because frankly I've earned a great big "I told you so!", but I don't have any stomach in the long run for simply turning the tables on you and rubbing your nose in the Republican fall from power. To do that would be to remain trapped in the past, and we need to be looking at the future. Can anybody dispute that America needs to get out of this poisonous rut of bitter partisanship?

I'll never quite understand how you reconcile Libertarianism and NeoRepublicanism. The conflict between the two is, interestingly, at the crux of my thesis about concentrations of wealth and power.

I know that there are a myriad flavors of Libertarianism, but most of them seem to take a dim view of concentrations of wealth and power. Googling 'Libertarian "concentration of wealth"' produced about 17,000 hits, among them gems like:

All those hippies complaining about big corporations might just have a point. The government has been subsidizing merger-mania for decades. New corporations are at a major disadvantage due to securities regulations and other regulations. A libertarian society would have more businesses, with less concentration of wealth and power in the biggest corporations.

(emphasis added)Libertarian Party of Bunscombe County (NC)

Couldn't have said it better myself (and god knows I've tried, all those times when I said that I'd welcome a free market in America).

Where I'm coming from is the belief that I share with some Libertarians, the Founding Fathers, and Adam Smith, that the best society is one which maximizes the liberty of the individual; and I share with them the recognition that concentrations of wealth breed concentrations of power that threaten individual liberty.

Seriously. Maybe you've forgotten Smith's critical descriptions of the corporations of even his day using their wimpy concentrated economic power to circumvent the free market. How did it go? Something about a conspiracy to fix prices automatically arising when two or more merchants get together? I know you've heard it, but I could look it up if you want to be a stickler about it.

To maintain that concentration of power in the hands of government is bad while concentration of power in the hands of corporations and individuals is a good thing is simply insane...or at a minimum self-serving, when mouthed by those in power. Are you any more free if your life is controlled by a corporation than when it's controlled by a government? The only fact that matters is that to the extent that your life is controlled by others, you are not free.

Tom, try to understand this: You get to vote for the leaders of the government and they are answerable to you (in theory). You only get to vote on the leaders of a corporation and their actions if you purchase the right by buying stock, and your voice is only as loud as your wallet is big; and you have no say at all in the actions of wealthy and powerful individuals. The only thing standing between us and a restoration of feudalism is the government designed 200 years ago to protect us from feudalism.

I'd say the Founders would view the slavish big-business boosterism of modern Republicans as a case of out of the frying pan and into the fire. Modern Republicans are trying to undo what the Founders accomplished when they thought they'd neutered the power of the wealthy nobility over the people.

I think you miss out when you automatically assume that I'm advocating some form of collectivism and then tune me out. One of the minor yet intriguing threads of Libertarianism is the idea of the "socialization of capital". It arises from the observation that the particular instrument of control that arises from concentration of wealth is the control of access to capital. There's no more cost-effective way to freeze out competition (in the marketplace as well as in the halls of power) than to deprive it of the resources to arise in the first place. This ties in to the relationship between wealth and political power because it reduces the competition trying to influence the government and gives a small number of entities greater resources to corrupt the government. We'd see less corruption and favoritism in government if a larger number of less-powerful entities was lobbying the government; most of their efforts would cancel out.

One way to decouple the power of wealth from political power is to break the monopoly on capital. You don't need government intrusion in the form of laws trying to control how private capital is used. You simply need the government to make capital available through alternate channels. Channels it happens to possess in the form of the central banking system. Fold the Small Business Administration into the Federal Reserve and give it a huge source of capital, and watch what happens. You want a free market? You'll see a free market!

Is the idea that outrageous? Let's riff on the Republican line that America should be run as a business. If so, then you and I are shareholders, and we have a right to expect some benefits from it. Wouldn't you rather receive a dividend from the government than to pay it taxes? Of course you would. And shouldn't you be able to leverage your equity into an investment that increases your wealth? Of course you should. You can put up shares of blue chip stock as collateral for a business loan. Why not shares of The United States, Inc.?

Isn't this more fun than trading rhetorical volleys about George W. Bush?