"Woof! Woof!" (The dog days are upon us!)

A few weeks ago, I began developing symptoms of severe stress. This started on or about 21 July, when I wrote my last full-length article here: “The Chickens Wander Home.” If you haven’t read it, it’s about the pending denial of some health-care services because the government is bankrupt and can no longer afford my burden on society. ObamaCare looms.

Those symptoms included acid-reflux [heartburn] so severe that it resembled an incipient heart attack, insomnia, nightmares when I did sleep, total loss of appetite, and a feeling that I was carrying around a five-pound rock lodged in my chest. Oh, and there was the return of the paralyzing depression that turned me into a blackout alcoholic thirty years ago. (I thought I had those demons vanquished, but I guess they never go away.)

Since getting drunk and screaming until my throat bleeds isn’t an option these days, I sat quietly and figured out why I was in such piss-poor shape.

I’ve been watching/reading/chasing too much news. From cable TV to the Internet to old-school written publications, there is too much information available. I no longer get input from firsthand assets, so I rely on television or computer screens, and turning pages, to keep me marginally tuned into the world in which I live.

Now, a well-informed, post-modern person will avail themselves of these media assets to form rational opinions about the state of the world. I like to think I’m one of these people. I don’t think I reached the point of “news psychosis”, but dealing with physical symptoms of stress made me realize that current events are, indeed, making me crazy.

Just as, during the lowest points of my life, I never entirely lost faith in God—preferring to proclaim “I don’t know!”—I have never lost faith in America. Oh, we’ve had our ups and downs; this country and my cynical self. I’ve never trusted the government, even when I was in thrall to it, and I’ve seen manifestations and abuses of power that will haunt me until my dying day. However, I always seemed to maintain some inherent patriotism and belief that the concept of America—if not always the practical reality—is the last, best hope of humanity. No one has come up with a better idea than the original concept The Founding Fathers staked their lives, fortunes, and sacred honor upon, and I don’t think anyone ever will.

That being said, I don’t think I’ve ever seen this nation in such a time of crisis. I’m sure that people who lived through The Civil War, The Great Depression, War II, and all points in between all thought the same thing, but I can only speak for the moment in which I find myself.

I used to make an oblique joke about wanting the parking concession for The Apocalypse. It was an amusing notion when I was a college sophomore, but I never dreamed that I would be a witness to the decline and fall of the last great nation on earth. America itself was something “too big to fail”, and I knew I could count on the country to be there for me if my puny efforts at self-sufficiency fell short. I’m not speaking of the “nanny state” here, but of the land of opportunity, where one can always remake oneself and start over afresh with an iota of ambition.

What we are faced with, and afflicted by today, is the collectivist alternative to the notion of individual achievement. Everyone is lumped into groups, and like George Orwell’s postulation that “some animals are more equal than others”, so are some groups more equal than others. Everyone is declared to be dependent on everyone else, and so must live their lives for the collective good of others.

I’m getting too philosophical here. Such thinking runs counter to my simple man’s approach to life. I ain’t a big brain, but I have a gift of eerie prescience, and know what’s happening when I see it unfolding. My grandmother spoke often of “common sense”, and one of the starkest debates I ever had was with my best friend and mentor about the very existence of “common sense.”

There is no commonality in the sense of a common digestion, whereby you eat and I am no longer hungry. There is, however, a common intellect, in that every person God ever made knows what is right and wrong for themselves. This is known as “selfishness”, and it is not an evil word. When people do what’s right for themselves, those around them are automatically taken care of. When people condescend and patronize others, they become tyrants.

Ah, but what’s all this got to do with my acid indigestion of late?

Just this: I have never seen a more malfeasant, incompetent bunch of wannabe criminals actually hold positions of power in this country. Faced with the common sense of the majority of Americans who want to expel them like phlegm from infected lungs, these careerist politicians and grifters live in denial and lash out like savage animals at those who wish to shun them and relegate them to obscurity. While fomenting their lies and pursuing their hidden agendas, these people have ripped apart the fabric of this country, all the while proclaiming “it’s for the good of everyone!”

Bullshit!

“Public service” means you are there to serve the public, not the other way around. The public is not here to serve you. In the non-collectivist sense, this means “Get the hell out of my way!”

The next four-and-a-half months are one of the greatest times of peril this country has ever faced. If there isn’t a political bloodbath in November, with vast numbers of scoundrels being sent packing, then America will have forfeited our last chance to redeem ourselves as that last, great hope of humanity. The rat race will be over; the rats will have won.

Even if we—the rational people—win, there will be an interlude of what The Bible calls “tribulation.” If Those People lose power and common sense reasserts itself, there will be “lame duck” sessions of Congress wherein the collectivists, in clearing their desks, will make one last attempt to ram through every destructive piece of legislation they’ve brainstormed since 2006.

This is my first call for you, the Constant Reader or the drive-by dilettante, to get out and vote come November. As Edmund Burke supposedly said: “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.” What he actually said was: "When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle."

A great many people may be sitting the elections out this fall, too cynical or apathetic to take a half-hour and go vote. Maybe you think your vote doesn’t count, or it’s yet another hold-yer-nose election. My rule of thumb is that the lesser of two evils is still evil; my other rule of thumb is vote against the incumbent unless they are proven to be, as Burke states, associated with the good. My third maxim is: If you don’t vote, don’t bitch about it later. You get the government you deserve.

Maybe it’s the summertime blues, or just following good advice, but I have backed way off the news. My stomach quit burning, my breathing is easier, and the depression went away without resorting to Zoloft, Paxil, Effexor, or whiskey. I’m sleeping six hours a night on average, without violent, bloody dreams. I feel like steak and eggs for breakfast today.

There is a sense of optimism in the air, and I still have that $100 bill on my desktop, wagered on the common sense of the American people. No one bets against me, and only a fool will bet against the people.

Whatever happens between now and this November is up to you. I’m only watching enough news to reassure myself we’re not into a nuclear war yet.

Do the right thing.