Derision. Accusations of lunatic notions. Images of tinfoil hats and basement bomb shelters. Reactionaries. Chicken Littles. When I moved to South Carolina as part of Christian Exodus just two years ago, this was the general reaction to our movement, at least in some quarters, even some conservative quarters, even some Christian conservative quarters. I told my colleagues, however, that it was only a matter of time before national affairs grew so ominous that people would see that we were right in the things we foresaw.

Then a bunch of events started to fall into place. In brief, the "Republican" administration started to act ever more vividly like a comic caricature of the party described in one of the books that began the opening of my political eyes so many years ago - Phyllis Schlafly's classic, A Choice, not an Echo. In that book the peerless Phyllis depicted a party that has long been just there so that those of us who saw through the more obvious demagoguery of the socialist Democrats would vote for a veiled surrogate for that same party - a "me, too" outfit that carried forth the Democrats' agenda "under the radar," then self-destructed on cue so that those Dems got re-elected pretty much by default, and could claim a mandate for their draconian all-consuming government programs.

Mrs. Schlafly showed how a long line of Republican presidents and presidential candidates had fit this paradigm, and I later followed the foibles of succeeding Nixon, Ford, and Bush I administrations with this paradigm firmly in mind. They all fit it to a T. Thus, I (and many of my Christian Exodus cohorts) knew what to expect from George W Bush. Most Americans - with their world famous lack of historical knowledge - most certainly did not.

But by the 2006 elections, the administration's adoption of so many Democratic causes (from National Monuments, wetlands, and endangered species tyranny to Bush's mandatory universal "mental health" screening {and forced drugging} proposal to the Law of the Seas Treaty {including UN taxation of Americans} to the federal takeover of education under {Teddy Kennedy's} No Child Left Behind to affirmative action to the negative income tax {EIC} to the slap on the wrist to Sandy Berger for his major security felony to various continued Clintonista coverups to the acquiescent reaction to the Eminent Domain decision to especially the failure to come anywhere close to securing our borders) had the party's conservative base sufficiently turned off as to sweep into power a group of essentially Marxist tyrants on the Democratic side of the aisle.

What has transpired as a result has greatly amplified the alarm factor among the American electorate. Far from the far-out fear-mongering freaks we in Christian Exodus were once labeled as, we are increasingly being seen as having been what we were - just a couple of years ahead of the curve in terms of realization of the threat under which America lies (do I dare say "prophets?"). I wish it were otherwise. I'd be much happier to have been proven to have been an unmerited alarmist, and slink back into the woodwork, than to see America face what she is facing today.

As for that new Marxist Congress, ushered in by the engineered "ineptitude" of the compliant "opposition party" the Republicans have become, here is but a sampling:

...and too many more abominations to mention in this small space.

The Republicans themselves - especially in the realms of national leadership - do not have clean hands in the wave of frightening developments, either (with the pretty much full support, not surprisingly, of the Democrats):

the Department of Transportation's mandate to the Texas legislature: repeal the near unanimously passed bicameral interdiction of "Trans-Texas Corridor" construction (a major part of the NAU scheme), or lose all federal highway funds (themselves merely Texas taxpayer money filtered - through a corrupt Washington bureaucracy - down to a small fraction of its original value, and with many more strings besides this one),

There is no need to exaggerate in terms of the above cataloguing. The facts speak for themselves, and they are just a small sampling (forgive me if your pet paranoia was left out).

Will President Bush veto these measures (did he veto McCain-Feingold, or pardon the border agents when he pardoned all those drug dealers, or even seek to see to it the agents remained free pending appeal)? These bills and many more like them will certainly pass; the Democrats control both Houses, and they vote in a block, having shot down every single amendment to the thought crimes bill, even one that simply exempted churches from the speak-no-evil-about-homosexuality provisions.

What will America look like once these horrors are in full force? Clearly, it will take the utter coercion of government to enforce many of them - especially the ones that pertain to religious free speech. Will we be distinguishable from Nazi Germany or some Soviet Satellite at that stage?

Christian Exodus was formed by people who perceived this onslaught on the then-horizon. People who observed generation after generation of Republican-appointee-dominated Supreme Courts nonetheless toeing the Democrat, and even Marxist, line in ruling after outrageous ruling. Who saw the nation moving steadily toward bigger government, fewer individual liberties, and deeper foreign entanglements no matter which party was in power (even though the Republicans gave lip service to opposing such things) and discerned a pattern.

Now that pattern has become so stark, so pervasive as to be etched into the American landscape, and into the veritable psyches of those with eyes to see and ears to hear. So much so that it is not surprising that the Christian Exodus gameplan suddenly looks worth the effort to many more than previously were willing to listen.

The hour, unmistakably, is late.  Will you join us?