Redux

Despite the "findings" of a handful of libertarian economists, nearly every westernized country in the world has some form of progressive taxation.

And an overwhelming majority of economists and public policy makers is those countries understand why.

Put simply, it is the best guarantee of maintaining a vibrant middle class....by enabling those whose income may not exceed (or only marginally exceed) the cost of basic necessities of life to keep a greater proportion of that income than the wealthiest with much greater disposal income.

And despite the cherry-picked quotes from Jefferson, he understand that as well and expressed it in numerous letters.

He also understand that the other safeguard for a middle class was to have a government role in ensuring through regulation that the wealthy merchant/industrial class never be allowed to control the economy at the expense of the common farmers and workers to the point that it could become as despotic as the governments controlled by the ruling classes from which those before him fled to this country.

There is a reason why there has never been a successful libertarian free-market-based, socio-economic system in the modern world. It represents the interests (primarily economic interests) of very few at the expense of the overwhelming majority of the citizenry.

Which also explains why it is a marginal voice on the US political scene.

But I wish you well in creating the Republic of Mercenaries and Urbane Guerrillas and other such "freedom" loving MUGs even further on the fringe waving their signs of ignorance and bigotry and calling for the spilling of blood to rid the nation of those nazis, socialists, and other anti-democratic demons that only exist in the deep recesses of your minds.