"We've been looking for the enemy for some time now.
We've finally found him.  We're surrounded.
That simplifies our problem of getting to those dirty bastards"

And so goes a version of a quote by legendary US Marine commander Chesty Puller in Korea, outflanked by Chinese communists. More than a half-century later, limited government conservatives find themselves outflanked by the relentless Big Government Zombie. Flesh eating and all devouring; slave to numbing authoritarianism; and bulletproof.

Chesty Puller was only up against mere mortals, never having to mount a counter-attack against Obama's federal government, whose public relations siege, reinforced by the relentless incoming barrage from the mainstream media and panicked Beltway pundits, has closed off all escape routes.

We are learning a vital lesson from Senator Ted Cruz's gallant but flawed attempt at an ObamaCare funding showdown and now House Speaker John Boehner's tepid campaign to leverage the federal budget CR. The Big Government Zombie can't be stopped.

Amidst the media frenzy and Beltway hysteria, this CR impasse is simply an eyebrow-plucking version of the budget sequester, which was but a clean-up-and-trim 2% hair cut. The so-called government shutdown should be consequential but in reality is a gentle squeeze with most essential services still pouring out -- under mandatory statutory authorizations.

After all, the military is being paid, Social Security checks are being issued, Medicare and Medicaid claims are being processed, the IRS auditors are still harassing rugged individualists, FAA traffic controllers are still napping in their towers.  NOAA weather forecasters are still watching low pressure waves off the Azores and tracking blizzards in South Dakota, the White House press corps has its daily propaganda briefings, and Obama's military golf course is open.  Where's the shutdown?

The encumbered CR is but a trifle...far from the imaginary hardships chronicled by Obama and his scaremongers.  If ObamaCare websites are open, the government shutdown must be an illusion.

Indeed for true believers in limited government, while this pseudo-shutdown is long overdue and should be a precursor of more budget slashing, its effects so far should be frightening. How is it possible that the vast majority of government functions are still open?

Who's afraid of a government shutdown? Indeed, fears of a government shutdown are misplaced.  Be afraid of the Big Government Zombie, immune from flame- throwers and anti-submarine nets chained across the Potomac.

Big government is on autopilot with no means for anyone to pull a kill-switch. Isn't that the zombie-esque nightmare scenario for limited government believers?  Not some histrionics as the Department of Agriculture furloughs a few crop rotation experts, the Department of Education defers another Race To The Bottom boondoggle, or information booths are boarded up at National Parks.

Not only is the government shutdown a sham, the fears of a debt ceiling default are equally specious.  In 2013, the feds tax receipts will be at an all-time high, $2.7 trillion.

At the same time, debt service (interest) on the national debt will be just over $400 billion. A ratio of revenues to interest payments of almost 7 to 1.  The only automatic default mode would be the lack of common sense and fundamental incompetence of Obama's treasury officials if a US government default occurs.

Well, we know that to kill a zombie is redundant; all we can hope for is to immobilize one. And a zombie can be neutralized only by a gunshot to the head -- soft frontal lobe preferred. Chesty Puller would pull the trigger without blinking.

But will John Boehner take a page from the annals of Chesty Puller's exploits? Or will Boehner hand Obama and the Big Government Zombie an easy victory?