Yup.
And it'll get a hell of a lot worst before it gets better.
That's if it gets better.
It'll creep up on us an inch at a time -- until it reaches a critical mass, at which point it'll pick up speed. But the direction -- and the ultimate outcome -- is certain.
The only thing that frightens me more than the incessant incrementalism of the left is the idiocy of the "right". You can be certain that any report revealing the ratcheting up of the agenda will be countered with a collection of inane taunts, insults, "chicken little" comments, and so forth from a variety of posters.
Or maybe its not a "variety". Maybe it's just "the usual suspects". (I'm just waking up now, and my painkillers haven't really kicked in yet. I overslept -- I went a whole five hours without waking up -- and now my spine is paying me back for that lapse of common sense.)
How grand it is that we can come to a putatively "conservative" venue, and be taunted by putative "conservatives", for voicing the "paranoid" idea that the left really is up to no good.
I guess the seminar poster battalion would probably leave us alone if we stuck to an acceptable script. Maybe if we didn't say anything more "controversial" than "Yay, Dubya!", "Kerry is French!", and "The GOP's plan for the economy is fantastic! But the RATS plan sucks -- bigtime!" -- maybe if we stuck to the program, we'd get a buncha attaboyz, instead of getting pissed on for saying the wrong thing.
Of course, if I ever did find myself behaving like that, I'd never respect myself in the morning. And since "morning" comes on avg. three times a day for me, you can easly see how that's a pretty significant issue for me! ;)
Seriously, though, my own solution to the "FR going to the dogs" problem is simple. I find myself avoiding the place more and more, and frequenting it less and less. I don't need the BP hassle. I'm already on enough cardiac meds to kill a horse, and I don't need the grief. And while yes, it conceivably could be interpreted as "letting them win", I've reconciled myself to the fact that they've for all intents and purposes already "won". Any thread that gets too far from the "accepted path" (as defined by the seminar posters) will be quickly torpedoed by them, and then get consigned to virtual hell (the "backroom"), or, deleted outright (for "flame wars").
It's a neat little system they've got going. Shout down the opposition, and then get "the crowd" broken up by "the man" because of all the shouting. Mission accomplished, soapbox neutralized.
Wish you'd hang around more. I like reading you. But if your health is at stake, then it's probably best. And you don't know how much distress saying that brings me.
On a number of topics. Getting really friggin' old...