Mark Steyn, who's sounding quite pessimistic about the election results, writes today about this country's lurch to the left. Here's his conclusion:

I disagree with my fellow conservatives who think the Obama-Pelosi-Reid-Frank liberal behemoth will so obviously screw up that they'll be routed in two or four years' time. The president-elect's so-called "tax cut" will absolve 48 percent of Americans from paying any federal income tax at all, while those who are left will pay more. Just under half the population will be, as Daniel Henninger pointed out in The Wall Street Journal, on the dole.

By 2012, it will be more than half on the dole, and this will be an electorate where the majority of the electorate will be able to vote itself more lollipops from the minority of their compatriots still dumb enough to prioritize self-reliance, dynamism and innovation over the sedating cocoon of the Nanny State. That is the death of the American idea – which, after all, began as an economic argument: "No taxation without representation" is a great rallying cry. "No representation without taxation" has less mass appeal. For how do you tell an electorate living high off the entitlement hog that it's unsustainable, and you've got to give some of it back?

At that point, America might as well apply for honorary membership in the European Union. It will be a nation at odds with the spirit of its founding, and embarking on decline from which there are few escape routes. In 2012, the least we deserve is a choice between the collectivist assumptions of the Democrats, and a candidate who stands for individual liberty – for economic dynamism not the sclerotic "managed capitalism" of Germany; for the First Amendment, not Canadian-style government regulation of approved opinion; for self-reliance and the Second Amendment, not the security state in which Britons are second only to North Koreans in the number of times they're photographed by government cameras in the course of going about their daily business.

In Forbes last week, Claudia Rosett issued a stirring defense of individual liberty. That it should require a stirring defense at all is a melancholy reflection on this election season. Live free – or die from a thousand beguiling caresses of Nanny State sirens.

Don't miss the whole thing “ it's Mr. Steyn at his best...

But somehow the phrase “Nanny State sirens” and the reality of Nancy Pelosi, Hillary Clinton, etc. seem a bit, er, at odds...

What Am I?

From my mom:

One morning a blind bunny was hopping down the bunny trail and tripped over a large snake and fell, kerplop right on his twitchy little nose.

“Oh please excuse me,” said the bunny. “I didn't mean to trip over you, but I'm blind and can't see.”

“That's perfectly all right,” replied the snake. “To be sure, it was my fault. I didn't mean to trip you, but I'm blind too, and I didn't see you coming. By the way, what kind of animal are you?”

“Well, I really don't know,” said the bunny. “I'm blind, and I've never seen myself. Maybe you could examine me and find out.”

So the snake felt the bunny all over, and he said, “Well, you're soft, and cuddly, and you have long silky ears, and a little fluffy tail and a dear twitchy little nose. You must be a bunny rabbit!”

The bunny said, “I can't thank you enough. But by the way, what kind of animal are you?”

The snake replied that he didn't know either, and the bunny agreed to examine him, and when the bunny was finished, the snake asked, “Well, what kind of an animal am I?”

The bunny had felt the snake all over, and he replied, “You're cold, you're slippery, and you haven't got any balls... You must be a politician!”

As the Instapundit would say: Heh!

The Pigs Are Lining Up...

The pigs being large corporations, and they're lining up at the Congressional trough to get the “free money” that the government is pouring out of the sky. Scott Adams has it exactly right:


Sigh. What else did we think was going to happen when we started bailing out large companies with incompetent management, who knowingly took and lost big bets?

It took the Democrats about two seconds to realize that this was the best opportunity they've ever had to force their agendas down the throats of American corporations. Pelosi and company are greeting the industrial beggars (like GM, Ford, and Chrysler) with big smiles and open arms. Why? Because they know that if they can cut a deal with those corporations to suck at the teat of the American taxpayer, they will be running those corporations.

Which means that they will be able to manipulate those corporations for their own, personal benefit. For example, imagine that the environmentalist wackos start agitating in Pelosi's district. Whattya wanna bet that within a few days GM will announce a “major initiative” to build solar-powered cars, thanks to the “visionary leadership” of Pelosi? Buried in a footnote somewhere will be the hundred-billion-dollar development subsidy and the fifty-thousand-dollar per car production subsidy.

I can hardly wait...