Detroit is today, sadly, the poster child for Obama’s vision of prosperity. Teetering on the brink of bankruptcy, refusing to yield to common sense, too absorbed with its past to see clearly its present, and paralyzed by the inexorable dictates of a failed ideology, it fails a fundamental test of freedom: are people capable of ruling themselves?

In Detroit we have two distinct economic world views: The Entrepreneurs led by The Fords and Illitches who believe in Detroit and have, primarily through private investment, provided hope and pride to thousands by building winning franchises reflecting time-tested principles of providing value to people who recognize it and are willing to pay for it – whether in cars, pizzas or sports teams.

The others are all those holding handouts led by GM, Chrysler, Democratic Union Political Machines, the governing authorities in Detroit, and the thousands who line up expecting to get some “Obama cash.” Whether holding out their hands hoping for a benevolent bureaucracy to toss tidbits their way or holding out their hands to pickpocket the unsuspecting, the results are the same: vacant buildings shadowed by vacant reason.

Sadder still is that for some reason, mysterious to behold, the others seem to hold a hypnotic power over the general public and have convinced an ever-growing segment of the population that taking and spending other people’s money is a productive way of addressing the crippling apathy that steals a man’s, a city’s, a nation’s soul.

“The price for apathy in public affairs is to be ruled by evil men,” so says Plato. And evil men (and women) are eager to annex the feeble to the lifeline of control that energizes their lust for power.

Saddest of all, like Detroit, eventually we all come to accept Deterioration as the new normal. Squabbling over tidbits as reasonable governing. Insatiable corruption as the cost of doing business. Hopelessness as the rule of life.

Justice Roberts, in his now infamous decision, declared that he couldn’t save Americans from the consequences of their election choices. Conservatives are beating their breasts; Progressives are beating their drums; Pessimists are beating their plowshares into swords; Optimists are beating their Bushes looking for a silver lining. The facts, however, are clear: essential liberty in America is taking a beating.

With each passing day, each new regulation choking life out of liberty, each new mandate squandering our pursuit of happiness, the deterioration sets in, the squabbling amplifies, the corruption grows more brazen, and the hopelessness deepens.

…one of the worst mistakes anybody can make is to bet against Americans. –Ronald Reagan

Americans, under the protection of Divine Providence, once pledged their lives, their fortunes, their sacred honor to dissolve the political bands which connected them to a government which, through a “long train of abuses and usurpations,…evinced a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism” (The Declaration of Independence).

Obamacare began as a long train of abuses and usurpations and clearly “evinces a design to reduce us to absolute Despotism.”

The question today is not: can Romney be the right man, can we elect a new president in time, can we change the make-up of the court, can we repeal Obamacare, can we reduce the size of government, can we stop the out of control spending and reduce the debt?

The only true question for true Americans today is: “whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends – deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed to secure our right to Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness – it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness” … Will we do it again?