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Molinillo: Swollen Fortunes is a great take on the 100 year attitude shift towards the responsibilities of the wealthy from today’s roots as the party of conservative, responsible government and today’s Republican party run by K-street and the rich. For background on the death tax, and its amazing journey from pundits laughing at the Mars fortune’s heirs hiring their lobbyists to today’s repeal of the tax, check out this Wash post story.

The day job is also becoming the night job and the weekend job, and I’m researching alternate interfaces to musical instruments, so my time is becoming quite limited. I named this post, “The End of the Experiment,” because I think we’re there. American democracy has jumped the shark.

The experiment known as American democracy is officially coming to a close, as we codify into law a class-based caste system, in which each class has rules which apply to it based on income level, but in the opposite direction Teddy Roosevelt saw.

Instead of the rich bearing the majority of the tax burden because they derive the most benefit from society (i.e.—security in the fact that the masses don’t rise up and unjustly take everything from the rich), the new Republicans have a better idea: make the poor responsible for their actions (like in this week’s bankruptcy bill) but exempt the rich from the results of theirs. It’s the ultimate rejection of American fairplay and, well, equality for all under the law.

Have a great week.