Is This Election the Last?

What are the consequences, this time, of a sweep of the elections? In other words, if the American public delivers a substantial House majority, a filibuster proof Senate, and the President, all of one party, what can we expect? More to the point, can it be good?

First up is a piece by Peter Robinson over at at Forbes.com. Go read the whole thing, but the reader's digest version follows:

"Then there is Thomas Sowell, the economist and political philosopher. He prefers an older way of looking at American politics--a much older way. In his classic 1987 work, A Conflict of Visions, Sowell identifies two competing worldviews, or visions, that have underlain the Western political tradition for centuries. Sowell calls one worldview the "constrained vision." It sees human nature as flawed or fallen, seeking to make the best of the possibilities that exist
within that constraint. The competing worldview, which Sowell terms the
"unconstrained vision," instead sees human nature as capable of continual
improvement."

After explaining the effect these two visions of mankind had in terms of the American Revolution, and the French Revolution, he goes on...

What role have the two visions played in the campaign? Sen. John McCain, who is trailing, has by and large embraced the constrained vision; Sen. Barack Obama, who is leading, the unconstrained vision. Asked if Obama represents the purest expression of the unconstrained vision since Franklin Roosevelt, Sowell, himself an African-American, replies: "No. Since the beginning of American politics. This man [Obama] has been a left ideologue for 20 years."

He goes on then to outline, in frightening detail, one might expect from such a scenario for the Supreme Court, the War on Terror, and the economy. And the money quote:

Take it all together, Sowell believes, and this election will prove decisive. "There is such a thing as a point of no return," he says. If Obama wins the White House and Democrats expand their majorities in the House and Senate, they will intervene in the economy and redistribute wealth. Yet their economic policies "will pale by comparison to what they will do in permitting countries to acquire nuclear weapons and turn them over to terrorists. Once that happens, we're at the point of no return. The next generation will live under that threat as far out as the eye can see."

The unconstrained vision is really an elitist vision," Sowell explains. "This man [Obama] really does believe that he can change the world. And people like that are infinitely more dangerous than mere crooked politicians

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Next up, is a piece by Laura Hollis entitled "Don't Be a Media Dupe-Vote to WIN" over at Townhall.com. The quote here is:

"Further, you’re assuming that you’ll get another chance at an election. But what if you don’t? Last week, I said to a family
member that what really worried me about an Obama presidency is the risk that we’d get hit again by terrorists, or face some other catastrophe. “And on the heels of that,” I said, “what’s to stop Obama from ‘suspending’ elections? I can hear his sonorous voice now, proclaiming in the most presidential tones, that ‘we cannot afford the divisiveness and partisan bickering of national elections, when the current crisis demands that we be unified as a nation!’ And to those who’d challenge (legitimately) the constitutionality of such a move, our President Obama would simply quote the Great Liberator, Abraham Lincoln, who asked what would be gained if he ‘los[t] the nation, and yet preserve[d] the Constitution?’” And then what would you do?"

Go read the whole thing. Then ask yourself, would an Obama administration do such a thing? The truth is that I do not know. But millions of people are prepared to take that risk, if the polls are to be believed. Personally, I weep for my country.