2008 and Choices

It seems to me in the big picture that there are several individual choices for Presidential candidates but that there are just two choices in direction. I won't take in post about individual candidates but about direction.

We can take the path of least resistance, the easy way and the populist's road: Redistirbution at some level of the wealth, multiculturalism, health care, disability, guaranteed unemployment and other "universal" entitlements, the embrace of Marxism and pacificism in the face of hostility.

We can also take the highest of roads, the correct and responsible course: Free markets, traditional American values, and defense of liberty at any cost.

Once upon a time, and not really that long ago, there weren't two directions for America. Both Democrats and Republicans thought along similar lines. Once upon a time, whole groups of Americans didn't cheer against us, didn't hope for America's defeat, didn't think think the country was evil. But that time has passed and may never return.

But in our time, there are fewer of us to choose the right direction for America. Will we have the courage to stand up those who have truly lost their wits or their nerve or their sense of morality? Will enough of "them" snap out of it and help set us right? And what will happen if America chooses the "low road" and falls into the death spiral that Europe finds itself in? Will we, could we pull out of it?