Something of historic proportions is happening. I can sense it because I know how it feels, smells, what it looks like, and how people react to it. Yes, a perfect storm may be brewing, but there is something happening within our country that has been evolving for about ten to fifteen years. The pace has dramatically quickened in the past two.

We demand and then codify into law the requirement that our banks make massive loans to people we know they can never pay back? Why?

We learned just days ago that the Federal Reserve, which has little or no real oversight by anyone, has "loaned" trillions of dollars over the past few years, but will not tell us to whom or why or disclose the terms. That is our money. Who has this money? Why do they have it? Why are the terms unavailable to us? Who asked for it? Who authorized it? I thought this was a government of "we the people" who loaned our powers to elected leaders who took an oath to uphold the Constitution.

We have spent two or more decades intentionally de-industrializing our economy. We have intentionally dumbed-down our schools, ignored our history, and no longer teach our founding documents, why we are exceptional, and why our nation is worth preserving. Students by and large cannot write, think critically, read, or articulate what they believe without excessive use of the word "like." Parents are not revolting, teachers are not picketing, and school Boards continue to back mediocrity.

We have now established the precedent of protesting every close election (violently in California over a proposition that is so controversial that it simply wants marriage to remain defined as between one man and one woman. Did you ever think such a thing possible just a decade ago?) We have corrupted our sacred political process by allowing unelected judges to write laws that radically change our way of life, and then mainstream Marxist groups like ACORN and others to turn our voting system into a banana republic.

The mortgage industry has collapsed, housing prices are in free fall, major industries are failing, our banking system is on the verge of collapse, Social Security is nearly bankrupt, as is Medicare and our entire government. Our education system is worse than a joke -- the list is staggering in its length, breadth, and depth. It is potentially 1929 x ten.

We are at war with an enemy we cannot name for fear of offending people of the same religion, who, in turn, cannot wait to slit the throats of your children if they have the opportunity to do so.

And finally, we have elected a man of who we know very little, the media won't investigate, and who has not run so much as a Dairy Queen, let alone a town as big as Wasilla, Alaska. His associations and alliances are with real radicals and everything we are learning about him -- drip by unsettling drip -- is unsettling if not downright scary.

I have never been so afraid for my country and for my children as I am now.

This man campaigned on bringing people together, something he has never done in his professional life. In my assessment, Obama will divide us along philosophical lines, push us apart, and then try to realign the pieces into a new and different power structure. Change is indeed coming. And when it comes, you will never see the same nation again.

And that is only the beginning.

As a serious student of history, I thought I would never come to experience what the ordinary, moral German must have felt in the mid-1930s. In those times, the "savior" was a former smooth-talking rabble-rouser from the streets, about whom the average German knew next to nothing. What they should have known was that he was associated with groups that shouted, shoved, and pushed around people with whom they disagreed. He edged his way onto the political stage through great oratory. 

And there were the promises. Economic times were tough, people were losing jobs, and he was a great speaker. And he smiled and frowned and waved a lot. And people, even newspapers, were afraid to speak out for fear that his "brown shirts" would bully and beat them into submission. Which they did -- regularly. And then, he was duly elected to office, while a full-throttled economic crisis bloomed at hand -- the Great Depression. Slowly, but surely he seized the controls of government power, person by person, department by department, bureaucracy by bureaucracy. The children of German citizens were at first, encouraged to join a Youth Movement in his name where they were taught exactly what to think. Later, they were required to do so. No Jews of course.

How did he get people on his side? He did it by promising jobs to the jobless, money to the money-less, and rewards for the military-industrial complex. He did it by indoctrinating the children, advocating gun control, health care for all, better wages, better jobs, and promising to re-instill pride once again in the country, across Europe, and across the world. He did it with a compliant media -- did you know that? And he did this all in the name of justice and change. And the people surely got what they voted for.

Many people of conscience objected in 1933 and were shouted down, called names, laughed at, and ridiculed. When Winston Churchill pointed out the obvious in the late 1930s while seated in the House of Lords in England (he was not yet Prime Minister), he was booed into his seat and called a crazy troublemaker. He was right, though. And the world came to regret that he was not listened to.

Do not forget that Germany was one of the most educated and cultured countries in Europe. It was full of music, art, museums, hospitals, laboratories, and universities. And yet, in less than six years (a shorter time span than just two terms of the U. S. presidency) it was rounding up its own citizens, killing others, abrogating its laws, turning children against parents, and neighbors against neighbors.

As a practical thinker, one not overly prone to emotional decisions, I have a choice: I can believe what the objective pieces of evidence tell me (even if they make me cringe with disgust) or I can believe what history is shouting to me from across the chasm of seven decades. Of course, I can hope I am wrong by closing my eyes, having another latte, and ignoring what is transpiring around me.

I choose to believe the evidence. No doubt some people will scoff and others laugh or think I am foolish, naive, or both. To some degree, perhaps I am. But I have never been afraid to look people in the eye and tell them exactly what I believe and why I believe it.

I pray I am wrong. I do not think I am. Perhaps the only hope is our vote in the next election.