While you were busy watching political cynicism rise and your retirement fund fall, you might have missed something truly startling that happened: several classes of Americans have disappeared! Well, the people themselves haven’t actually isappeared, but the class they once belonged to has been politicized away! This is a serious problem that requires our urgent attention.

Where once were three major classes of people in the U.S. There was an upper class, a middle class and a lower class. In the past, such things as income, culture, education, profession or family might have been associated with a particular class. To suggest that a class could have any social significance is to imply that one group might be somehow superior to another group, and that can’t be said in public. Today’s political correctness determines class by income only.

By considering only income, two American classes have simply ceased to exist. The former “upper” class is gone. People who might once have been thought of being as upper class (but were not necessarily wealthy) no longer have a place in our social hierarchy. Socially and politically they have been replaced by the “elites.”  Elites come in a variety of models, such as Ivy League professors, movie stars, billionaires, professional “social advocates” and all-knowing media personalities. Former upper class people who were wealthy are now merely the “rich.” The only remaining function of the rich is to be used as tax farms to pay for liberal political goals.

The formerly “lower” class has also disappeared. It might seem laudable that everyone is doing better, but the truth is that their economic standing has changed very little. The only real change is that, by political fiat (from one political party), they have been upgraded into the giant middle class. They are now part of the ninety-five percent of the country who are going to get a “tax break.”

However, there are drawbacks to their new standing. When it becomes necessary for liberal politicians to justify their socialistic “sharing the wealth,” programs, the former lower classes are resurrected, and relabeled as the “poor.”  Politically, the poor are in need of additional “tax-rebates,” (taken from the no-class rich) to raise them back into the middle class.

Will international organizations arise to supplant nations? Let’s look at the record:  Imperial Rome was the last really effective international government, and its “Roman peace” was maintained by almost constant war to conquer and control its territories.  The price of the Pax Romana was very high as the empire was robbed for the benefit of Rome itself.  In more modern times, after WWI, the League of Nations was ignored out of existence and today we have the U.N., which has deteriorated into an ineffectual, costly and often corrupt tool of an entrenched bureaucracy. Just how many of the 192 UN countries have any interest in the welfare of the U. S.?

Will international organizations arise to supplant nations? Let’s look at the record:  Imperial Rome was the last really effective international government, and its “Roman peace” was maintained by almost constant war to conquer and control its territories.  The price of the Pax Romana was very high as the empire was robbed for the benefit of Rome itself.  In more modern times, after WWI, the League of Nations was ignored out of existence and today we have the U.N., which has deteriorated into an ineffectual, costly and often corrupt tool of an entrenched bureaucracy. Just how many of the 192 UN countries have any interest in the welfare of the U. S.?

We need to speak and to act, before we are all classed (and taxed) out of existence!

by Rod Paramoue Guest Columnist, Marietta Daily Journal ,  October 28, 2008