So very late in the day

Daren Jonescu at The American Thinker captures the essence of what today is all about: It's a referendum on civilization.

I've yet to see a more perfectly distilled explanation of why FHer-care is so poisonous:

Government health care is a perfect microcosm of what real oppression will look like on a daily basis, an important and constantly needed reminder for people still hoping to preserve the idea of freedom in their own country.  Those whose air has at least been perfumed with the (dissipating) vapors of genuine liberty all their lives can easily regard oppression as more foreign and strange than it really is.  The natural tendency among citizens of "the land of the free" to identify tyranny primarily with the nightmare world of Kristallnacht or the Ukrainian forced famine has facilitated the efforts of freedom's enemies to push America onto its current collision course with the more quotidian brutalities of "soft" oppression. 

Or why "compromise" is simply unworkable in our current climate:

Treating leftist authoritarianism as one side of the nation's healthy political debate is by definition a violation of the American founding.  Socialism cannot be put into practice to any degree without violating the Declaration's primary rights and the Constitution's delineations of the role of government.  By allowing leftist policy to metastasize through all branches of the federal government for generations, a large portion of the population -- including, sadly, many who see themselves as conservatives -- have unwittingly forsaken most of what America, as a philosophical idea, stands for.

Or why the current ridicule with which the defense of liberty is treated marks a grim juncture:

If the American majority finally comes to absorb the view, already accepted as policy by the Department of Homeland Security, that "reverence of individual liberty" and "suspicion of centralized federal authority" are indicators of an antisocial threat, then there will literally be nowhere left on Earth where one is allowed to love freedom without ostracism, or worse.  There will be nowhere left on Earth where Jefferson, Madison, or Washington may speak or be spoken of without ridicule.

His metaphor for America's current situation is spot-on:

A man is hanging from a cliff, with only his fingers still gripping solid rock.  The prevailing impetus is all downward, but the man continues to dangle in one place as long as that grip holds out.  If he lets go, however, his fall will be short and decisive. 

Modern civilization is that man.  America is his final, desperate grip.  On November 6, 2012, that man will either be left alone to continue his brave, heartbreaking struggle for another day, or a boot will come down on his fingers.

The entire piece is well worth your time.