KEVIN D. WILLIAMSON on the progressive's view of Americans:

[Progressives] see the bottom half, and maybe even the bottom 80 percent, of citizens as passive participants in economic life, not people who do things but people to whom things are done, the direct object in Lenin’s summary of politics: “Who? Whom?” And from the point of view of the policymaking class — not just the progressive perches at Princeton but the policymaking class in general — it is easy to see the great majority of the American public as something like dogs exhibiting various degrees of ruliness while waiting for table scraps. People cannot be expected to live. It is up to “the nation” to “offer” them life.

For those of Professor Krugman’s persuasion, that usually means taking wealth from politically disfavored holders of it and transferring it to the politically favored, with the permanent class of professional welfare administrators charging a transaction fee in the process....

It's about control; it's always about control.