Damn, Roger: this thread sounds more like an AA meeting! I sympathize with all the academics who are “conservative.” An anecdote: I went back for my PhD when I was 55. I sat in a class listening to a professor who was my age decrying the “fact” that Americans were undertaxed. He cited a NYT times article about the tax burden AT THE FEDERAL LEVEL. I pointed out that that the tax burden also exists at the local level–there were these things called gasoline, sales and property taxes. My PhD cohort was thunderstruck–they had NO idea that people pay taxes other than a federal income tax.

But that is just an anecdote, full of sound and fury and signifying nothing. My children who are both getting terminal degrees contantly regard me an Attila incarnate–I am struck by how little the “attentive public” actually knows. Have any of the commenters listened to a TV talk show and screamed at the screen–”hey doofus, that point was demolished on the web a day ago.” Our TV commentators are more ill informed than anyone who keeps up the blogs (left or right). A sad commentary on the American system.