Ever since President Obama was inaugurated in January, the American people have paid more attention to their government than in any period in recent memory. Sadly, it’s become axiomatic that most people never take heed to what their elected officials are doing until it hits them in the pocketbook. With trillion dollar deficits piling up as far as the eye can see and a health care initiative that will add more to the debt, while providing  less quality medical care than we are used to, people have become motivated to get involved. When I see crowded, contentious town hall meetings, populated with every age group, including a fired up contingent of senior citizens, showing their disdain for a plan that contains some very suspicious inclusions, I feel confident about our future. Let’s face it! Most other presidents have not been able to light a fire under the derrieres of a large segment of the population who have become phlegmatic about the excesses of their representatives.

I have a view of government that resembles the creature in a movie entitled, “The Blob.” You see, there’s this monstrous, amoeba-like ball that has landed from outer space and it grows larger, stronger and more frightening as it absorbs every living thing it comes into contact with. In order to survive, the beast must continuously find people to swallow up in its pursuit of complete control of the planet. Well, a cursory glance at Obama’s Cap and Trade plan, his control of the car companies, his health care plan and his unending appointment of tsars to supervise his myriad programs, gives me the eerie feeling that we are all being systematically absorbed into one huge, amorphous, insatiable blob. In the movie, the slithering, flesh-eating, mountainous tumor seems to be unstoppable until someone notices that it has an aversion to cold temperatures. The townspeople arm themselves with fire extinguishers containing carbon dioxide, which puts the creature in a deep freeze. Wouldn’t it be nice if we could freeze the government for awhile and keep it from draining our blood?
    
Yes, we need government, but we don’t need to have every significant section of the economy absorbed into a bloated entity that has never shown much capacity to be efficient or frugal with our tax money. How did we get into this economic debacle in the first place? It was a philosophy of liberal borrowing and spending on things we couldn’t afford. The problem with the system is that it has no accountability from those who create the mess. If Congressman Barney Frank had been penalized for his role in the collapse of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, others with liberal ideas might be forced to consider the repercussions before using their clout in such hair-brained schemes. Instead, Frank continues to pretend that his idea of providing a home for everyone, whether or not they can afford one, was sound economic policy.

Furthermore, he has no fear of being voted out of office, since he’s in a very safe, very liberal, district. It’s that assurance of electability that allows him to arrogantly answer the discontented attendees at his town hall meetings thusly: “On what planet do you spend most of your time?” Keep in mind; this is supposed to be a representative of the people whose salary and expenses are paid for by the people he’s hurling wisecracks at. Other so-called servants of the people, like Nancy Pelosi, who is also in a safe district, have referred to those opposed to their policies as Astroturf, Nazis, angry mobs and other snide comments. When did elected officials get the idea that they can insult their constituents who show up to protest the intrusion of government in their lives? The essence of democracy is the voice of the people. Yet, in view of the harsh invective toward the citizenry, how long can it be before we get arrested for speaking out?  

It appears as though the current administration has, as one woman at a meeting said, “awakened a sleeping giant.” If that’s true, it means that the president has, unwittingly, sown the seeds for another Republican revolution. Sixteen years ago the Clintons tried to take over health care and it led to the GOP “Contract with America,” the precursor to a Republican majority in the House of Representatives in 1994. If the Democrats continue to gobble up sections of the economy like a hungry blob of protoplasm, voters may have to use extinguishers and put them in the deep freeze next year.