Teetering on the brink of the chasm

Obama and the Democrats have pushed America to the edge of a precipice. We are teetering on the brink, and if we can't recover it's likely to be a long fall.

Over the last couple of years a lot of really first-rate minds (IMO) have been hard at work trying to find a way back from the edge of this chasm. While I haven't heard that anyone on our side has found a guaranteed save yet, one of the first steps is to recognize what's wrong.

In the short term, of course, the most obvious problem is having so-called "progressive" liberal Democrats running all three branches of government. But in the longer view, a writer I've found to be pretty savvy thinks the problem is that a generation of Americans have been taught that

• food comes from the store
• security comes from the UN
• having the right college credentials means the owner is smart, and
• money comes from a slot in the wall.

Accordingly, the first step in a long-term fix is to disabuse young Americans of these notions.

Each of these points, of course, is a metaphor for a larger teaching. For example, it's unlikely that anyone over the age of ten literally believes that food magically grows in stores. But government policies lead someone who doesn't live on a farm to think that might be true, because by their policies and rhetoric, politicians clearly don't think much of hard-working people.

That was far too diplomatic, so let me try again: Politicians--virtually all Democrats and at least half of Republicans (Rinos)--are utterly contemptuous of "average Americans." They couldn't care less about what you (we) think or want, as long as they can keep getting re-elected.

It's an article of faith to them that you're stupid, unsophisticated, religion-clinging wackos.

Part of this belief is because the columnists they read and the broadcasters they watch keep telling them this is true. And of course all their friends are solidly, uniformly of the same belief.

But part of this is sheer pig-headedness and arrogance: an immutable belief that they know what's best for both you and the country. It follows, logically, that anything you suggest must be a bad idea, which they must oppose--for the good of the nation, as they would have it.

Given this arrogance, you can hardly blame them for stealing elections (Washington state, Minnesota senate to name two recent ones) since--as they see it--they're the only party that knows what's best for the country.

Lord, I hope we can recover just by using the ballot box. Because if not, the only remaining option is the ammo box.