As liberals in Congress and the media push America into the clutches of a socialist oligarchy, they fail to mention that as part of this utopian fiction we’ll be giving up most of our personal freedoms. In exchange for government handouts and subsidies, Americans will sacrifice prosperity. In exchange for free medical coverage, Americans will sacrifice their personal health. And, in exchange for ‘fairness’, Americans will give up their right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. It’s a bad deal all the way around. The few who understand just how bad a deal this is are outnumbered 100 to 1 by the idiots who think they’re getting something for nothing.

When thousands stand in line for a flu shot, are denied a heart bypass because they’re too old, or are turned away for medical treatment because their racial quota has already been filled, it will be too late. America is turning itself into a socialist monster of unparalleled dimensions. Unlike Russia and China, which were largely underdeveloped and ethnically homogeneous when communism was imposed, the US is a huge and diverse society with a titanic, sprawling economy. What inequities exist will now by vastly magnified as the ‘experts’ from Washington try to micromanage our lives and livelihoods. For every stupid and short-sighted fix there will be dozens of unintended consequences, each radiating outward and interacting with other stupid and short-sighted fixes. These socialist dilettantes actually believe that they know what they’re doing. And we are their guinea pigs.

That’s where the true genius in the Constitution lies — it created a simple but rigid framework upon which to build a dynamic society and a robust economy that allowed the people, not the politicians, to direct their common fate. No micromanaging required. Society and markets regulate themselves. It may not be terrifically efficient and it occasionally gets messy, but it beats socialism hands down for one simple reason: the innate human drive for personal betterment trumps mediocrity imposed from above.

It’s too bad that most Americans are so totally self-absorbed that they missed the passing of their personal and economic freedoms. Somewhere between NFL Monday night football and that second helping of potatoes and gravy Americans forgot why we exist and what purpose America has served. For all of those sleeping off the stupor of too many pork rinds and beer, this is a gentle reminder: We are the children of those who came here to make a life that would be impossible to duplicate in the Old World. We are the children of those who brought Europe and Asia back from the brink of totalitarianism not once, but three times. (If you’re thinking only WWI and WWII, don’t forget the Cold War). When calamity strikes anywhere in the world, all eyes turn toward America. No country has ever defeated us. Instead, we have defeated ourselves from within, a not a single shot was fired.

What Communist Russia and the Peoples’ Republic of China had tried to do unsuccessfully for decades, we managed to do ourselves. No one was minding the store. America reveled in its material success, in its puerile fascination with sexuality and permissiveness. We allowed a culture to develop that apologized for sloth, stupidity, depravity and dependence. And while the party raged, politicians, bureaucrats and the liberal elite took apart our guarantees and opportunities. The news and entertainment media played the part of rodeo clowns, distracting us while the power elite took aim at American principles and ideals. Our government grew explosively, eating away at the GDP and our personal incomes. And now, some are wondering if our best days are behind us.

They are. It may take a half-century to right the ship of state with no guarantee it will ever sail like the one commisioned by the founding fathers. The damage to the American psyche, to the spirit of optimism and self-reliance is considerable, and probably mortal. Who knows if we’ll ever recover. At the moment, those who benefit from government largesse can out-vote or out-lobby those who actually pay taxes. Once that dynamic is in place, the situation corrects itself only when the treasury is completely empty and the parasites have nowhere else to turn. It won’t be pleasant. But, it will signal bottom.  From there, it’s anyone’s guess.

Americans, on average, make for really lousy serfs and servants. A couple hundred years enjoying unequalled freedoms, a largely classless society and social mobility make Americans a very independent sort of people. They chafe and complain under too much authority and too many rules. Better get used to it. A life of servitude awaits at the end of the Obama song and dance routine. Even the parasites who voted in the Anointed One and the creatures inhabiting Congress will find that life won’t be so rosy once the Gang of Three takes over. Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid will begin where Lenin began. Hopefully, they won’t end up where Stalin did.

They’ll shake down the rich. When the rich are no more, they’ll shake down the merely affluent. When the affluent are gone, they’ll start on the ‘middle class’. One detail Obama omitted in his oratory: There aren’t enough wealthy people to give the masses what they’ve been promised. The top 2% of wage earners can’t begin to pay for the other 98%, even if the government took away everything they have. It does not compute. But, most Americans have been so poorly served by the public education system they can’t figure it out. Hhmm.

The Democrats will be swept into office by pandering to the parasites, promising them the riches earned by the producers. And, those parasites aren’t necessarily the stereotypes that first come to mind. In fact, the most pernicious, coldly effective parasites are members of the liberal elite. They are affluent, educated, politically connected insiders. They firmly believe in class distinctions provided, of course, that the prevailing social structure puts them at the very top. Everyone else is here to carry their bags and wash their cars. In cascading order will come the others — bureaucrats, moneylenders, unions, and at the very tail end, the people who truly need to be helped.

It is stunning that so few Americans are uninvolved in something so important. A recent study suggests that fewer than 15% of Americans know who Nancy Pelosi is, even as she endeavors to take food off their tables, money out of their wallets and boost energy costs into the stratosphere. But what Americans don’t know and don’t care about will condemn them to a life of servitude. The promised change is coming.