He believes in government of the wealthy, by the wealthy, for the wealthy.

He believes in government of the wealthy, by the wealthy, for the wealthy.

"The Tom Perkins system is: You don't get to vote unless you pay a dollar of taxes...But what I really think is, it should be like a corporation. You pay a million dollars in taxes, you get a million votes. How's that?"

Have you heard the latest from Tom Perkins? This is the guy who, last month, had a letter published in the Wall Street Journal that likened the "progressive war on the American one percent," to the Nazi demonization of Jews prior to Kristallnacht . Of course Rush Limbaugh praised him for defending the rich. I hope you're not surprised. Anyway, here's what Mr. Perkins has to say now:How's that, Mr. Perkins? I'll tell you how's that. Your system (and, by the way, everyone in this country pays taxes) is nothing other than the logical conclusion of all Republican thinking on wealth, from the 47 percent , to takers vs. makers (note: Paul Ryan said 60 percent of Americans are "takers"), to having " skin in the game ," and right on down the line.

The right complains that President Obama won only because people "dependent" on receiving "stuff" from the government vote for Democrats (of course, the "stuff" never includes corporate welfare or bailouts, in their thinking). The clear implication of that Republican thinking is that people who are "dependent on government" shouldn't vote. Tom Perkins is merely the only right-winger brave enough to say it. Just as Ayn Rand is the intellectual foundation of contemporary Republican conservatism (even if Mr. Ryan wants to pretend he doesn't think so), the "Tom Perkins system" exposes the elitism and fundamentally anti-democratic ideas the Right secretly believes but knows, correctly, it ought never utter publicly if it wants to win elections.

You know who else believes the vote should be restricted based on wealth, specifically property ownership? The president of Tea Party Nation, Judson Phillips. When conservatives mean they want to take America back to the glorious spirit of its past, this is clearly a big part of what they mean. Here's what Phillips had to say in 2010:



The Founding Fathers ... put certain restrictions on who gets the right to vote. It wasn’t you were just a citizen and you got to vote. ... One of those was you had to be a property owner. And that makes a lot of sense, because if you’re a property owner you actually have a vested stake in the community. If you’re not a property owner, you know, I’m sorry but property owners have a little bit more of a vested interest in the community than non-property owners.

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