As Americans learn more about President Obama's plans for us -- things we should have known before the election -- we can only hope that he is positioning himself for an electoral upheaval.

And if the town hall meetings are any indication, the mid-term elections should see congressional house cleaning on a significant scale.

By the time President Carter had finished with America, President Reagan had to bring oxygen masks with him to resuscitate the population from the asphyxiating doom and gloom of those years. Reagan won in a landslide by reminding Americans that we're the greatest country in the world, and that there is nothing we cannot do.

That America's strength and success is derived not from a gigantic centralized government, but from hard working individuals who are not afraid. These are the tenets of separation between our greatness and others' mediocrity.

There's a temptation to laugh at this bunch. That would be a mistake. As the Obama administration gobbles up the private sector, and our attention has been on heath care, the war in Afghanistan is falling apart, and America's strength and respect abroad is being systematically dismantled.

The terrorist who killed 270 is freed from a Scottish jail and returned to Libya where he is welcomed as hero for all the world to see. Obama's response, while walking away from reporters? "Highly objectionable."

And what message do we send our enemies when Attorney General Eric Holder attempts to neuter the effectiveness of the CIA through investigation at a time when we most need the CIA's intelligence for our protection?

It's tempting to be sad for America. I'm reminded of Alan Paton's novel about South Africa, "Cry, the Beloved Country." Totally unrelated to our predicament, it's the title I can't get out of my head.

How can there be so many among us who would march lockstep in support of the changes already implemented and not see the direction we are going? How can there be so many who do not remember or understand the principles of limited government, and how these principles relate to our personal freedom? How did we get to a place where Americans would call other Americans "mobs" and "Nazis" for speaking up? Do these folks not realize that to silence the voices at town hall meetings will be to one day silence their own?

Being sad would be thoroughly unproductive as well. These are not the relatively benign bunglings of a Jimmy Carter. This is something else. There's something seriously creepy going on. Much better that we stay aware and speak out.

Case in point. Meet Dr. Ezekiel Emmanuel, brother of Rahm and chief adviser to Obama on health care. On Thursday, The Wall Street Journal published the second op-ed piece by Betsy McCaughey entitled, "Obama's Health Rationer-in-chief." It further exposes who is behind and what is the true agenda of those who would reform our health-care system.

This piece contains startling comments by Emmanuel, in his own writings, that should demand every American's undivided attention.

Emmanuel blames the Hippocratic Oath for the over-use of health care and sky-rocketing costs. Better that doctors combine societal needs to those of the patient. In state interests, doctors should look closer at the ages of patients and their expected longevity before deciding the amount and methods of treatment.

The very young and old become the targets of Emmanuel's rationed care. If not horrifying enough, at the bottom of the piece is the kicker, and where we should pay our closest attention.

Emmanuel says, "every favor to a constituency should be linked to support for the health-care agenda."

Does this mean if your company or constituency needs government aid, you must first support government health care? Or does it mean that if you have already been bailed out by government, you now owe your allegiance to government's proposal on health care?

Either way, this is not the America I know, and statements like these should make all Americans nervous. It's time to look beyond health care to see where arguments like these can lead us in all government agendas. Where is this administration going?

As I recently pointed out on this page, we have seen governments like this before. Only not within our shores.

Geoff Cutler is owner of Cutler Tree LLC in Southern Pines. He writes for Pinestraw Magazine under the heading "Thoughts From the Manshed."