I am reminded of two separate events that are seemingly unrelated;  a conversation I had  with a
friend who lives in California and the incredible movement
which has been begun by Glenn Beck on Fox News.

Glenn has started the 9-12 Project to mobilize people
across the country to take a long, hard look at values;
what they are, and how to keep them in the face of what
we all now know is underway.

My friend  is bearing the burden of working in a
profession which is , if B. Hussein Obama has his
way, soon to become yet another “service” offered by the
government, with little or no regard for those who are
“obliged” to provide the “service”.

Glenn Beck is urging America to unburden herself of the
notion that we are alone against the tides of fascism
that have swept across America which were begun with
the Bush “bailouts” and have now been accelerated at a
breakneck pace by the Obama administration.

In Medicine: The Death of a Profession Leonard Peikoff
argues eloquently and persuasively against socialized
medicine and illustrates in graphic terms what will
happen to medicine, doctors, and their patients if
socialized medicine comes in full force to our shores.
With the proposals of B. Hussein Obama, and the
relatively minimal opposition he has encountered as a
result of those proposals, it is safe to say that our
doctors and we as patients are soon to be socialized.  My
friend, the doctor, understands this all too well.

“Dr. Beth” (i am withholding her name out of respect for
her privacy) has overcome tremendous obstacles to get
where she is today.  She is working in internal medicine
in a major U.S. city and is now experiencing the so called
“brain drain” described by Europeans who watched as
medical students and doctors fled socialized medicine in
Europe.  “Dr. Beth” is dealing with nurses, interns,
P.A.s, and fellow doctors who suffer from a serious lack
of discipline, knowledge of proper medical methods, and
a basic lethargy when it comes to their own work.

These are the effects Dr. Peikoff warned about in
Medicine… .  ”Dr. Beth” tells me she lives in terror of
incompetent associates, budget cutting bureaucrats, and
litigation minded patients.  She has confessed to me that
she is considering quitting her profession.  The only
problem she tells me, is she has no other skills.  I
empathize with her.  I have had my own experience, as
I’m sure all of us have, with badly performed medicine
and those who are more concerned with the bottom line
than the treatment of illness, disease, or trauma. And we don’t even have the full-on socialized medicine of Europe yet, but just wait for pole-vaulting Pelosi and her reconciliation.

Glenn Beck has mobilized millions to get together to
work on solutions, to network, and to move forward to
stop the runaway train that is surely heading our way.
While I applaud his efforts  I am becoming more and more
convinced that our Government has become too
corrupted from within to be very effective  and too apathetic and greedy to change  without drastic push back by us.

What remains clear, despite the obligatory nod to
individualism,  hard work , and entrepreneurship by the
folks at Team Red Obama is that they have no interest in
resolving the underlying causes of the economic meltdown:  the sense of entitlement, the lack of ethics,
the quick profits at the expense of shareholders and the
public; and thru it all, as a canker on the face of our
Republic-the willful refusal to accept even a modicum of
responsibility for this mess by our government leaders.
We are being told over and over “keep working hard,
sacrifice for the public good, keep spending Mr. and Ms.
Consumer-we’ll get through this as long as you band
together to provide one neck we can then wrap our
noose around.”

In Atlas Shrugs by Ayn Rand, men of ability chose to simply go on
strike in their own professions rather than be used by
those who believe that the rights of the individual must
be sacrificed to the needs of the “public good”.  Perhaps it is
time that “Dr. Beth”, and those like her who love their work and cannot bear the
thought of it being corrupted (at every level of talent and ability),   to have the courage to stand
and say “enough” and
organize a strike that has not yet been seen;  a strike of the men of the mind.

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So the sky will fall, our dollar will collapse, inflation will spiral out of control while Britney
Spears becomes minister of the car police (or
whatever Barack decides to call that ridiculous
car czar), right?  Lest you think that I am all nay
saying and finger pointing, let me point out that
pessimism is not the same as fatalism.

I believe that good will come out of  the latest
fiascoes, if we recognize that change-not “is
coming”, ala Mr. Obama, but must come.
Fortunately for all of us B. Hussein Obama was
only elected to a four year term.   I suspect that
calmer heads will  prevail in 2012, when Mr.
Obama’s term is up.

America has the most productive, straight
thinking and goal oriented people on Earth.   We
have some goal to achieve:  Nothing less than
the complete top to bottom restructuring of our
government, our economy, and the means by
which we relate to the world.  That is some tall
order, and I doubt the Republicrats are suited to
the task.  If the Libertarian party doesn’t refine
its public persona away from the “legalize
drugs-taxes are bad-the media sucks” platform
that most Americans believe that party is about
(and  is the platform most quasi-libertarians have
run on), then surely some other party will pick
up the slack.  Hell, I can be an optimist when
the time calls for it.

Wall Street Journal writer  Peggy Noonan  sums up our
decidedly “optimistic” culture.  Ms. Noonan
said  of the then President-elect:  ”people are angry
but don’t have a plan, and they’ll give {Obama}
unprecedented latitude and sympathy”.  I hardly
believe that his  Lordness is the man suited to
the times we are about to experience,  but I
believe someone out there must be.  Heaven
help us if we one day fall into the kind of trap Hitler laid
out for the German Republic in the 1920s/30s.

This is where pessimism comes in.  We must not
fall for the mind numbing, “there’s a gold mine
in the sky”, “don’t stop thinking’ about
tomorrow” rhetoric that is sure to come from
the next crop of king of the hill wanabes in four
years.  That is not optimism.  It’s fantasy speak
for “trust me, I know what I’m doing-just don’t look too closely”.

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