As I go through our archives, I'm noticing that while I've written about 90% of the articles on the site, I've contributed few of the very best. Basically, I'm most of America and our other writers are like the richest 1%.

Anyway, now that we're stuck with a liberal President, this old Soviet joke that James posted back in May 2006 is especially appropriate. Enjoy!

Seen at Volokh:

So if you're concerned that only the top 5% will ever afford getting higher IQ for their kids, that seems highly unlikely. And if you're concerned that only the top 70% will afford it, and oppose the technology because of the bottom 30%, then I think you have the wrong set of priorities. Work on ways to eventually make the technology accessible even to the bottom 30%, rather than denying it to the top 70%.

There's an old Soviet joke about the man who visits Hell. (Actually, there are many different Soviet jokes about the man who visits Hell.) In Hell, there are three giant cauldrons in which the sinners are being boiled. On the rim of one stands a regiment of demons, shoulder to shoulder, constantly using their pitchforks to smack down the sinners who are trying to escape. On the rim of the second walk a few demons, who occasionally whack someone down. The rim of the third is empty, but no-one is getting out.

What's going on here?, the visitor asks. "There are three kinds of people," the Devil says. (In the original joke, they are Jews, Russians, and Ukrainians, but in honor of the 2004 Orange Revolution I've sworn off Ukrainian jokes.) "The first kind is in the first cauldron. When one looks like he's trying to escape, all the rest follow him. We need a lot of demons to manage them.

"The second kind is in the second cauldron. Occasionally someone is trying to escape, but the others don't pay any attention. It takes just a few demons to deal with this kind.

"The third kind is in the third cauldron: When one is starting to escape, all the others drag him back down by the ankles."
Don't be that third kind.

This joke is an example of everthing that I think is wrong with the Democratic party. It seems to me that the Dems want to pull everyone down to a single common denominator, the lowest of the low. If a poor man makes too little money, the Dems look for ways to make sure that the rich man earn less, instead of looking for ways to help the poor man earn more. That's no way to live your life. That's no way to run a country.