[southernnorthcarolina]

We aren't taxing rich people. The rich people are dead.

We are taxing their poor heirs, who just lost a loved one, and now watch as half their loved one's worldly possessions are taken by the government.

That might be the best brief summation of the estate tax that I've seen.

[goldstategop]

As Rush Limbaugh has said, how does stealing from the rich put a dollar in my bank account? Its the politics of class envy. Making me poorer doesn't make any one else richer. No one is made happy by income distribution. And you're preventing by design, the poor from becoming rich. That's exactly why liberals like man made barriers to living the life one enjoys. If you're a rich liberal, that's OK; what you don't want is the blue collar riff-raff crashing into your gated community and disrupting your privileged lifestyle. Just make sure those peasants are kept at arms length.

(Denny Crane: "Every one should carry a gun strapped to their waist. We need more - not less guns.")

[Toby06]

I can shorten it: Governmental capital confisction.