"If America does not wake up to what is happening, there will be much suffering through a long dark night."

-- "The End of Prosperity"

Democrats could not justifiably talk about "taking the country back" Nov. 4.

This wing of the party has never held power before.

They are virulently pro-abortion, anti-religion, pro-homosexual and so blindingly pacifist they might not put up a fight if an invading force landed in San Francisco.

They are pro-union, anti-trade. They are against every form of energy known to man, and will so weaken this country in its energy policy that it could become a national security threat.

Most alarmingly, they believe in government. They believe in using government to redistribute wealth. They want to use the government to even things out in life: no losers, no winners.

That means, of course, that any lip service they give to the "American dream" is only lip service: How can you put a cap on a dream? This wing of the Democratic Party does, by essentially saying, "Dream all you want, work all you like -- but if you get too much money, in the government's view, we'll take it and give it to others."

THE THRESHHOLD has been drawn already: Barack Obama considers anyone earning over $250,000 "rich" and therefore fair game for confiscatory taxes. He has acknowledged, for instance, that increasing the capital gains tax rate actually lowers the amount of dollars it raises, but wants to raise it out of fairness.

They also give lip service to freedom of "expression." But in practice, they will use the bridle of government to rein in opposing speech.

That may sound overly dramatic. We assure you, it's not. They will bring back the "Fairness Doctrine," in which the government "facilitates" political speech on television and radio. So any conservative speech that's not counterbalanced by liberal speech will be silenced.

They also plan to have citizen (comrade?) groups monitoring local radio stations for "fairness." Those stations deemed unfair -- to what, the "greater good" as determined by the government? -- will have their federal broadcast licenses held over their heads.

IN SHORT, THIS country's voters seem prone to change the nature of this country fundamentally, and perhaps forever, from a free-market republic to a European-style socialistic nation.

You cannot, after all, have a true free market when the government involves itself heavily with rigging things to prevent losers and punish winners -- without regard to work ethic or sweat equity. We don't care how you got the money; you've simply got too much. Give it to us.

Investors Business Daily notes how Obama uses the term "economic justice" in some speeches without defining it. But IBD knows what it means: "It's a euphemism for socialism," the newspaper says.

"In the past," says IBD, "such rhetoric was just that --- rhetoric. But Obama's positioning himself with alarming stealth to put that rhetoric into action on a scale not seen since the birth of the welfare state.

"In his latest memoir he shares that he'd like to 'recast' the welfare net that FDR and LBJ cast while rolling back what he derisively calls the 'winner-take-all' market economy that Ronald Reagan reignited (with record gains in living standards for all)."

We understand why people want change. We want change. The Bush administration mishandled the war and managed to outspend every administration in history.

But the kind of change that the socialist wing of the Democratic Party will bring is both fundamental and frightening to those of us who believe in constitutional principles of limited government and individual liberty.

SOME READERS haven't appreciated our editorial criticisms of Barack Obama over the past year. Nor do we enjoy being critical of him. But we thoroughly and utterly believe that his view of government is dangerous to the most basic of American values and freedoms.

We believe he is, in fact, a socialist.

This is not a paranoid, abstract guess. Most reporters who have shown any curiosity at all have come away with the evidence: Obama's mentors in his youth included a communist named Frank Marshall Davis. Obama's "community organizing" associates were schooled in the teachings of Saul Alinsky, a socialist who wanted nothing less than a socialist revolution in America.

"Throughout his career," Investor's Business Daily writes, "Obama has worked closely with a network of stone-cold socialists and full-blown communists striving for 'economic justice.'

"He's been traveling in an orbit of collectivism that runs from Nairobi to Honolulu, and on through Chicago to Washington."

Change? You bet.

Change for the better? Only if you're a devotee of Hugo Chavez.

This election threatens to change this country fundamentally, and not for the better.

Columnist Thomas Sowell has called Obama "a danger of the first magnitude in the White House."

"Conservative-friendly media better get ready," warns Brian C. Anderson, editor of City Journal , predicting that an Obama-Pelosi-Reid triumvirate will "launch a full-scale war" on conservative thought, particularly in talk radio.

IT WON'T ALWAYS be with the strong arm of government, either: When WGN-AM in Chicago hosted several conservative writers one day, the Obama campaign bombarded the station in an attempt to silence the conservatives. Notably, the Obama camp had been invited to have someone on the air, but declined. They just wanted the conservatives off.

The news media love to tar conservatives as "radical." This group of liberal Democrats is the most radical ever to be so close to the seat of power in this country.

Unless conservatives and moderates wake up and mobilize by Nov. 4, they may not recognize this country after the election.