This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2011, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
I chuckle at the assertion by House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, R-Wis., that President Barack Obama is waging "class warfare" by asking the richest Americans to share the tax burden with the rest of us.
In A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century, Barbara Tuchman wrote about a peasant revolt in 1358 that began in the French village of St. Leu and spread throughout the Oise Valley.
At one estate, the serfs sacked the manor house, killed the knight and roasted him on a spit in front of his wife and kids. Then, after a dozen or so peasants violated the knight's lady, with their children watching, they forced her to eat the roasted flesh of her husband and then killed her.
Now, that's my idea of class warfare. Asking the super rich to share the nation's tax burden is not.
M.J. Ogden
North Ogden