On the surface that was another post smothered in vortices generated by spin with a radial velocity approaching lightspeed...but yet, it was refreshing to see you freely admit that the Republican base is still what it's always been: The wealthy elite.

Such honesty is rare these days, as the NeoRepublicans have put on the sheep's clothing of positioning the Party as somehow the champion of the little guy. One of the strangest of pairings of political bedfellows is the alliance between the Red state "salt of the earth" voters and the elites who would never give them the time of day if they didn't hold the votes that the elites need. It really is sad to see those Red staters line up behind the NeoRepublicans and their false promises to make things right with hotbutton social issues like abortion and gay marriage; and to see that they're betrayed every time after delivering up the votes. But they keep coming back for more.

It's those people I'm interested in reaching, Techie. But not you, I'm afraid, because you really are an elitist at heart...or a wannabe elitist, in reality. In addition to those the Republicans simply lie to, there's another group of envious people who aspire to join the wealthy elite, and see their only chance as joining a political party that promises to distort the playing field to make it easier to become wealthy. How often do they deliver on that promise? When has the elite ever parted with wealth in exchange for votes? Understand, they view our political system not as a means of sharing power equitably, but rather as a tool to be used to acquire and hang on to power.

In other words, I'm interested in people who haven't given up on democracy yet. People who still believe as the Founders did that an equitable system of government and a consequent just social order arises from widespread opportunity, minimal barriers to success, and the broadest distribution of wealth; they believed in meritocracy. Not a regime of entrenched power using its wealth to consolidate its position and erect barriers to success for those who come after them.

The Founders saw concentration of power in the hands of a few individuals as a pernicious evil, and they set out to fix it. How in the world can anybody believe that they'd look favorably at today's world that's an oligarchy in all but name? Would they be more inclined to submit to the rule of "commerical princes" than feudal princes? Is it any more acceptable to submit to a master who's an abstract corporation than a flesh-and-blood overseer?

I wonder how much experience you really have with the wealthy, Techie. I've known a great many rich people through business and various nonprofit activities, and a handful of the fabulously wealthy. The majority are very much the narrow, one-dimensional types fixated on money to the exclusion of all else. Truly miserable excuses for human beings. But yet I've known a handful of exceptions that encourage me to think that great wealth doesn't always have to corrupt, and much depends on the social and political environment and how they condition people to approach wealth. In one family of my acquaintance, the patrician bequeated to his children only enough money to make them comfortable millionaires, and used the bulk of his fortune to endow a huge charity; and today the kids devote their lives to administering a charity with an endowment measured in tens of billions of dollar. At that level it's far more than a rich person's hobby, it really makes a difference in the world. Noblesse oblige is not dead, but it 's not to be found in the GOP.

So you can blather on all you want about what you'd like to think is my unreasoning prejudice against the wealthy, but the fact of the matter is that I have the experience to distinguish between the good and the bad uses of wealth, and I've seen how it can change people either for the better or for the worse. Money is a neutral abstract, but what people do with it is far from neutral. My concern in the realm of politics is how the wealthy use their wealth to distort and undermine our democratic system, and to that I'm unshakeably opposed.