While we cringe at how Russia and China have mixed the worst of capitalism and extremely limited democracy with socialism and communism, something like that is creeping up on us, only the other way around. How tragic can it be?
The counter-culture revolutionaries planted the seeds of socialism in our institutions during the 1960's and 1970's, nurtured them through 1980's and 1990's, and brought them to bearing fruit at the turn of the century.
Coupled with the religion of environmentalism, there is now no separation between church and state. We seem to have established our own brand of self-destructive government and capitalism within our "anything goes" society. USSA: the Union of Socialist States of America. That's how tragic it is.
Those who don't believe that will become believers if Barack Obama is elected president and the Democrats take over with a veto-proof Congress. Surely, this outcome is not what our Constitution meant when it was established by the people on the basis of securing the blessings of liberty to themselves and their posterity.
Indeed, it's up to the majority of us who are still independent thinkers to undo the tragedy. Particularly when the radically deadly faction of a religion is bent on destroying us and the freedom of western civilization.