I believe that it is inevitable that the voters today will give the United States a hard-left government, and our lives will change for it. We libertarians have been very critical of the Bush administration — and rightly so — for its wars, its economic interventions, and its crushing of civil liberties.

Yet, I believe that what is to come will make the Bushies look like clones of Ron Paul. The Democratic Party of today is not the Democratic Party which gave us Jimmy Carter or even Bill Clinton. It is the party of people like George Soros and Billy Ayers and ACORN, and do not think for a second that these people do not realize that there will be no barriers at all to implementing the hard-left state. The political correctness that people think was only confined to the modern university campus will have no restraints at all, especially after Obama is able to fill numerous vacancies on the U.S. Supreme Court.In the past, we have been able to write critical material of both Republican and Democratic politicians and policies and be able to do it without paying a real price. That day will be past. Not only will the airwaves be “re-regulated” to make sure that no critical word of the Regime will be uttered, but the Internet itself is going to fall under the kind of political control that we now see in communist countries. What has been the remnant of the rule of law will be officially dead, and legal outcomes now will be determined solely by the political “merits” of the case.

Don’t forget that Obama already has called for bankrupting the coal industry, and I believe that the energy, transportation, and medical industries will decimated in the way that the government went after the tobacco companies. Wal-Mart will be smashed beyond recognition.

Furthermore, soon into his presidency, Obama will sign legislation that basically gives labor unions the power to organize any company or entity at will, and he also will sign legislation removing any “right-to-work” legislation from the states. We will be forced to join labor unions if we want to be able to work at all.

We can talk about gold as money all we like, but the Federal Reserve System will be empowered, not weakened, by this new government, and there will be no restraints at all on the Fed as it destroys the dollar. When prices go up, the government will blame businesses, levy price controls, and then put business owners in prison for “price gouging.”

Our children will be conscripted into “national service” and anyone who resists will go to prison. There will be no exceptions, and that includes people from religious groups like the Amish. Our taxes will be raised to ruinous levels, and when businesses are bankrupted, the government will blame businesses and call for even more socialization.

Don’t look for churches and non-profit groups to be exempted. This is a government that will not tolerate dissension and any church that does not toe the line on environmental and sexual dogma from the state will lose its tax exemption and ultimately be shut down.

On the environmental side, one of the first things Obama will do is to sign an executive order claiming carbon dioxide is a “dangerous pollutant,” which will mean massive cost increases being dumped upon us. Furthermore, we will be forced to purchase “carbon credits” if we wish to travel anywhere, and look for the prisons to be filled with thousands of people who have traveled “without permission” from the state. The criminal penalties for violation will be severe, and I predict that many readers of these words will end up being incarcerated.

I do blame the “conservatives” and especially the “national greatness” conservatives” for leading us down this path, just as Herbert Hoover led the country to Roosevelt. Their wars and economic interventions not only weakened our economy and the very fiber of this country, but they also still claimed the mantle of “low taxers” and “small government.”

Because this non-existent state of affairs failed — as it always will — the Left has been able to claim that free markets “don’t work” and that their “vision” of economic planning must be implemented.

When I was in college, my professors held places like Cuba, North Vietnam (before the Vietnam War ended during my senior year), China, and North Korea to be the real “workers paradises.” People even more radical than they now will be in power, and they will make sure that they never will lose power again.

My wife and I adopted three children from Third World countries, and all of them left behind lives of poverty and certain disease and early death. Yet, as I watch the United States implode forever into a virulent, hard-left state, I cannot help but wonder if we did the right thing. I don’t know, but I do know that the freedom and liberty that I have cherished will be gone forever.

We are like the Cambodians who hopefully greeted the conquering Khmer Rouge with flowers and cheers. The same day those soldiers came into the capital city, they began their campaign or murder, terror, and forcing people into the countryside, where a quarter of the population died. We hope that the new people in power will be gentle, but I believe that the groups that now control the Democratic Party are so anti-liberty (except for promoting unlimited abortions) that they are just one step above the Khmer Rouge.

To re-phrase Sir Edward Grey, the lamps are going out all over the USA, and they will not be lit in my lifetime or the lifetime of anyone else.