So on the one hand you support the right of people to do as they please with their money and on the other hand you object to people structuring their affairs to avoid exposing themselves to the estate tax that they don't support. Must everyone always comply with the way you them to comply?
Two branches to your concern. First, certified infertile incestuous couples nullify your concern. Second, does the state have an interest in preventing birth defects from women who've entered into their late 30s and early 40s and so present a higher risk profile for delivering a Down's child and does the government have an interest in policing the coupling of Jewish couples who are both carriers of Tays Sachs?
What exactly does it mean to minimize equality of opportunity? I have my own ideas on the matter but they're not at all anchored in the liberal mindset. Is there an age limit at which your vision of this society declares that the unequal outcome of an individual has been caused by their life choices and not by a lack of opportunity? Is this merely a shorthand for saying "Society will help you get an education up to the undergraduate level and then you're on your own" or do you envision handholding up until they die from old age?
What are liberals such as yourself willing to give in return for a minimization of opportunity inequality? One of the primary drivers of growing inequality is immigration. If we have a leaky bucket, and you're trying to equalize the water level, then you need to constantly pour more water into the bucket in order to just stay even. We're importing poverty and we're importing people who come from populations with little, or no, record of replicating the success we see in the US. We're heading to a future of racial and class division. I get that your are focused on avoiding the class division and you think that "sharing the wealth" is the key to overcome such a future scenario, but I know of no society which has prospered by focusing on sharing the wealth. Your vision of a community working together in pursuit of shared values is being eroded by the liberal fetish for diversity. The more you push diversity the greater will be the fracture of community and shared values, and this will, and already is, causing pushback against schemes to share the wealth.
I'm just no seeing a cohesive vision coming from the wealth redistributionist faction.
That's not for me to say. I have no business intervening in people's life choices. This is, after all, the mantra of the left. Yes, I know the left has a sex fetish issue and they want to let a thousand flowers bloom with no interference on sexual issues from interested bystanders, but it sure strikes me as odd that as soon as freedom and choices run against the left's anti-family ideology, then all bets are off and it's just fine to judge and intervene in people's life choices.
Why not simply take solace from the truism, "From shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves in three generations." Fortunes get diluted over time because they get split finer and finer with each passing generation. The ambition and moxy required to build a great fortune are rare talents and history is replete with examples of families not being able to replicate the talents of the patriarch. Even now, the great fortunes in the US are those of self-made men. We have to go far down the list to find the first instance of a fortune that has passed through more than one generation.
In short, time will heal the wounds that you think are being caused, so let time work its magic instead of raping the personal sovereignty of people and imposing a moralistic viewpoint on how they should lead their lives.
You're sounding like a naive school kid - we both know that tax revenue goes into general revenue and then politicians disperse it to their cronies. Even taxes designed for specific purposes get railroaded into general revenue.
If that's the outcome that you're seeking then why not encourage wealthy people to create 10,000 scholarships and avoid using the violence of government to compel such an outcome? That removes all of my objections for it results in freely made choices and it takes government out of the picture and the money is spent in the fashion that the donors wanted the money spent.
