Ever since the primary season, when it became clear that Obama and McCain would be the nominees, I've had this uneasy feeling that I haven't been able to put my finger on. Then, when the tide was flowing in B.O.' s direction and his win became inevitable, that nebulous feeling grew. With the Messiah's ascension victory, the feeling became one of slight nausea, but what was it?

It wasn't the mere fact that the Democrat won. That doesn't bother me (much). It was some kind of sensation that the country was on the wrong course, regardless of who won. Today, Mark Steyn on National Review nailed it for me with The Death of the American Idea. The title sums it up well. Countries around the world are drifting to the left, including the U.S. Here's a statistic that gets more depressing as each year passes and it grows larger and larger:

"...federal spending (in inflation-adjusted 2007 dollars) has gone from $600 billion in 1965 to $3 trillion today."

That's right, government is five times bigger today than 1965, at least in terms of spending. Can you imagine how horrified our founding fathers would be at the size and scope of the federal government?

The monstrosity that is our government has changed the mentality of many Americans. A majority of people now feel entitled to pay little or no income taxes, placing an ever-increasing burden on those who are particularly productive, yet the same free-loaders expect to be provided for and coddled from cradle to grave. The government paying for daycare, schooling, welfare, prescription drugs, healthcare? Yes, we can! The mentality extends to the rest of the economy as well. Bailing out insurance companies, banks, and auto companies? Government intervention, regulation, and even ownership of so-called private industry? Sure!

Mr. Steyn's money quote:

The President-elect's so-called “tax cut” will absolve 48 per cent of Americans from paying any federal income tax at all, while those that are left will pay more. Just under half the population will be, as Daniel Henninger pointed out in the Wall Street Journal, on the dole. By 2012, it will be more than half, and this will be an electorate where the majority of the electorate will be able to vote itself more lollipops from the minority of their compatriots still dumb enough to prioritize self-reliance, dynamism, and innovation over the sedating cocoon of the nanny state. That is the death of the American idea — which, after all, began as an economic argument: “No taxation without representation" is a great rallying cry. “No representation without taxation” has less mass appeal. For how do you tell an electorate living high off the entitlement hog that it's unsustainable and you've got to give some of it back?

The left loves to talk (and talk...) about "sustainability." The increasingly liberal nature of our government is unsustainable and should be an affront to all Americans. It seems unlikely to change anytime soon.