Voters are learning that by electing the right politicians, they can take what other citizens have earned and redistribute it to themselves. Our Founders called it "mob rule" or "mobocracy," and it scared them. Once it gets rolling, it will be unstoppable. The take will get larger and larger, like a snowball rolling downhill.

For a while, the mob will celebrate, thinking they're in the driver's seat. But they won't be. Their rulers, who will effectively control the bulk of the nation's economic activity, will become entrenched and unbeatable. No one will be left who could effectively challenge their rule.

Inevitably, we'll end up with a society with only two classes, a ruling elite at the top and everyone else on the bottom. With luck, we'll avoid devolving into a brutal dictatorship, as previous experiments with taking and redistributing have done.

Bob Snyder

Hilton Head Island