More on the "S" word.

Again, it's good to see a contrarian Republican such as Colin Powell add some healthy perspective to the accusations that Obama is some kind of socialist wolf in the henhouse.

Partisan GOP types are angrily scrambling for ways to rationalize being wrong about pretty much every prediction or prescription they coughed up over the past eight years. Demagoguery, as Powell pointed out today, is what has resulted.

Much of the demagoguery relates to the notion that Obama just lives to institute a highly progressive tax, with rich folks being taxed back to the Stone Age -- taxed so exorbitantly that they'd rather stay at home eating bon bons than creating new jobs for stiffs like you and me. I even saw one letter-writer to a conservative newspaper threaten to to sit on his hands and "let China make some money for a change."

Boy, we should be frightened by these rich people's sudden threats to become middle class. But when exactly can we expect them to start downsizing and stop attempting to keep up their home in the Hamptons? And, unless you were being taxed, oh, around 97% on every dollar over $100,000 a year, why would you stop working so hard...?

The Obama-bashers need to realize that Adam Smith himself favored a progressive tax. Smith, the father of modern capitalism, felt a progressive tax was appropriate and moral, given how a society's haves are naturally more invested in that society than the have-nots.

Think about it: Who has more to lose by an invasion by foreign powers -- Warren Buffett or a street person? The homeless guy is happy to take his chance on the next regime.

And who places greater demands on local police -- a poverty-wage single mother or a Beverly Hills tycoon?

If Adam Smith understood this, why don't today's Republicans?

As a quasi-libertarian, I'm actually more of a flat-tax person than Smith. But, for most sane and responsible people, all bets are off when even a country's "small-government conservatives" don't believe in paying as you go. At that point, the door opens for progressive taxes and other remedies.

"Socialist"? No. Let's have a real discussion here.