Tim, I read that interview with Johnston with a blend of amazement and nausea. Let’s just take the example you quote about flat tax. I’m no expert on Athenian taxation (where’s Victor Davis Hanson when you need him?), but to say, as Johnston appears to say, that under a flat tax “everyone pays the same” seems, perhaps deliberately, to confuse a flat tax (as we now use the term), where everyone pays the same rate with a poll tax where, broadly speaking, everyone pays the same amount. To suggest that a modern flat tax is an indicator of tyranny is nonsense. Just ask the Estonians.