by Kurt Schlichter

It’s already happening – the liberal dream of a perpetual social welfare state where deadbeat liberal constituencies feed off of the work of productive conservative citizens in perpetuity is dying.  There’s no doubt about that; the only question left is how long and hard the process will be as the hideous leviathan the utopian liberal establishment has created convulses and dies.

It’s going to die hard.  And ugly.

The collapse is well-underway in Europe – Greece has gone from the cradle of democracy to a cesspool of union-fueled mobs – but America faces the same trauma.  As the contradictions inherent in the visionof a societal plan based on the notion that an ever-expanding pool of Democratic-voting serfs sucking the wealth away from the mostly Republican-oriented producers who labored to create it become more apparent, the reactions and rear-guard efforts of the terminal liberal elite will grow more extreme.

We are already seeing the liberal elite lash out in anger and frustration at what is a perfect storm of failure.  Glenn Reynolds, the legendary Instapundit, chronicles the daily disintegration, while the brilliant Mark Steyn’s cheery new book, After America: Get Ready for Armageddon, drops on August 8, 2011 – I’ll race you to Amazon to get a copy.

As the three components of the liberal establishment – the media, the unions and politicians – rage at the dying of the liberal light, the insanity meter will swing far into the red.  It’s already begun.  The Tea Party has dared to speak the truth, and the uncomfortable realities it has pointed out have destroyed the bogus consensus that has allowed the debt Titanic to sail giddily on toward the iceberg.  That’s why the establishment response is to demonize the popular movement.  We’re “terrorists” or “lunatics” or, bizarrely, “hobbits.”  Our crime is telling the truth.

Never mind that the Tea Party candidates were absolutely clear about their debt crisis solution when running for election – the voters spoke.  Apparently, the only polls that matter get taken around the tables at Manhattan and Georgetown dinner parties – and, oddly, the results are always unanimous in favor of a “compromise” that tries to shore-up the crumbling status quo.

The problem with the Tea Party is not what it does – at best, right now, it can only make a moral and political case; it does not have the numbers to make anything happen without non-Tea Partiers joining it.  The problem with the Tea Partiers, in the eyes of the liberal establishment and the pet moderate GOP enablers, is that it dares to point out the indisputable truth that must be hidden at all costs:  That the social welfare state is unsustainable and will collapse.

But the demonization campaign does not seem to be working as expected – amazingly, the Tea Party caucus was able to provide the missing spine to the go-along/get-along gang running the House and present a primary-based incentive to the collegial Senate Republicans who have to face the voters next year and don’t want to join booted squish ex-Utah senator Bob Bennett in his new sinecure as the MSM’s go-to, slam-the-conservatives, pseudo-GOP nobody.  While the resulting deal was terrible, it was still a massive humiliation for the liberal establishment.  They are not in a forgiving mood, and it’s easier to hate on the Tea Party than face the fact that they’ve driven us to bankruptcy.

So when demonization doesn’t work, government lifers like Senator Kerry advocate silencing the opposition.  One might think that a United States senator demanding that the media refuse to report the views of his political opponents because too many people are accepting them might stir some outrage in the media.  But then, if you did, you probably might believe in unicorns, leprechauns and global warming as well.

Instead of a chorus of outrage at this creepy fascism, the media elite seem to think this is a great idea.  But that should not be a surprise.  The media – at least the old media (call it the MSM) – is dying, killed off not only by technology that allows conservatives to evade the gates it used to defend to prevent the political discourse from being contaminated with ideas that challenge its foundational liberal premises.  It is grasping at a life preserver, trying to take in a few more lungfuls of air before it sinks under forever.

With the establishment politicians far “out of their depth” in response to the coming crisis, watch for more moves by the Left not to resolve the situation but to kill the messenger.  Do not put it past the elite to actually try again to limit debate using law and/or regulations.  They still salivate at the notion of killing off conservative radio by resurrecting the Orwellian Fairness Doctrine, and the government at one point argued that it had the right to criminally prosecute citizens for publishing a book critical of pol... until it backed down.  Note that the MSM strongly supports these forays into fascism – not surprising sincethey think that the Constitution that allows conservatives’ voice t...

But it will be impossible to regulate conservative opposition out of existence – not just because of the First Amendment but because the coming reckoning will be so severe that it can no longer be swept under the rug.  Yet, rug sweeping will become their next strategy.  Playing off the demonization tactics, they will continue to attempt to engage moderate – read “squishy” – Republicans toward some sort of “compromise” that will give them just a bit more time before everything comes crashing down.  Watch for this when the “Super Commission” comes back with its plan.  Their goal – get past November 2012 then hopefully use the crisis to their advantage to turn the ship of state even harder to port

Excerpt read more @ biggovernment.com