Renaming the Estate Tax

Republicans in recent years have been successful in reducing and even raising the question of eliminating the estate tax. They couch their arguments in terms of loss of family farms or businesses and have renamed the tax as the death tax. This is one tax where progressives can easily change the terms of the debate.
A permanent estate tax was introduced in 1916 as a societal reaction to the accumulation of vast fortunes by the robber-barons of the time. It is one tax that helps separate America, the land of opportunity, from the old world of Europe from which many of us escaped. Many of our ancestors fled the class and property bound countries of Europe where a few families controlled all the available resources and emigrated to America where these resources--most notably land--were available to anyone willing to work hard enough to use them. This opportunity is what has built America into the modern wonder of the world.
For this reason, a better name for the estate tax should be the Landed Aristocracy Tax. It prevents the old world from descending into the new and taking away our common opportunities and placing them in the hands of just a few families who over time would come to control more and more of our resources. It helps in a small way to level the playing field across generational lines and preserve our country as the land of opportunity.
It also keeps our economy strong by helping to require those who would be successful to begin each generation anew with hard work and innovation. One can't entirely rely on inherited wealth for success in this country; one must earn it, and that's as it should be. So the estate or Landed Aristocracy Tax benefits us all; it provides needed money for the treasury and ensures that future generations will have the same opportunities that we enjoy today.