I don't normally write about politics here, but this seems like a historic United States presidential choice for a plethora of reasons.

With the realization gradually dawning on me that Barack Obama has won the White House, I am experiencing a slow sense of horror washing over me.

Some of his policies, if they become reality, are positively terrifying, and I mean that in every sense of the word. One need only look at the utter debacle that the spectre of social security has subjected us to for the past 73 years to predict how well Obama's planned socialized healthcare program will work out.

Mark it down now: we will wind up with a huge chunk of cash taken out of our paychecks to get us healthcare so shitty and ineffective that we will all still need to pay for our own healthcare on top of it. Sound familiar? Yes, it will be just like how we pay vast sums of our hard-earned money for a social security program that can't even sustain itself, one that affords us a living below poverty level when we retire, all the while forcing us to put yet more vast sums of money into personal 401k programs and IRAs just like we would have to if the damned program didn't exist in the first place.

I have a question: why not just take the same money and give us a voucher to pick our own healthcare program? Oh, wait-- that's what McCain wanted to do.

But what really keeps me awake at night is the fact that once we do it Obama's way, we will never be able to undo it. Just like social security. It's a slippery slope to socialism alright.

And I don't buy for one second Obama's statements that only people making an arbitrary $250,000 or more will flit the bill for this. I couldn't get the envelope math to work out favorably for McCain's much more logical healthcare proposal, much less Obama's abominable monster. And that's forgetting the fact that the precedent of punishing people for being enterprising, hardworking, and successful is as against the American dream as anything I can imagine.

Obama's plans for education are just as bloodcurdling. Pour money into "Head Start" programs? Another way of looking at "Head Start" is considering it for what it is: "subsidized daycare". Why funnel even more money into an education system that is rotten and flawed right at its core?

There is only one way to fix it: rather than fund schools with property tax money, give parents vouchers so they can send their kids to any damn school they want. The bad schools go out of business, the good schools thrive. What's really funny, is that this is exactly what McCain was proposing. We were this close to electing someone who has a clue about how to fix our education problem and we blew it.

Literally the only positive I can glean from Obama's victory is the fact that the rest of the world won't hate us so much-- McCain's comments suggesting things like circumnavigating the UN if things don't go our way there is not the right way to do things. But honestly? I don't care if the rest of the world loves us if we are driving our own country into a cesspool.

And with the liberals controlling the house and senate, Obama will likely have unfettered control to get all of his favorite socialist policies adopted, policies that will stand for all time because once they are adopted we won't have any damned choice but to keep them forever. This is truly a frightening time to be an American.