Many Americans; democrats, republicans, and independents who actually believe in working are scared, very, very scared. Those who do not believe in working, who think our government is a bottomless money pit, were told they were victims and promised ice cream cones if they voted for a Change to Believe In. Many republicans have given up hope on their own party and our nation. Why? Our economy was doing fine until 2006, when we elected a liberal Congress, and our President and many other republican legislators joined the liberal crowd and spent money like a spoiled stepchild. In fact, the biggest whiners right now are republicans who stayed at home on election day. Many showed up but decried the chosen republican nominee, and that enabled Obama to become elected.

Now, with President Obama still promising ice cream cones, our country is rapidly plunging headfirst into a major economic depression. In the two-months after Obama was elected the DOW plunged over 25%. Many jobs and businesses have been lost and many more will. Some people have even lost half of their retirement. Yes, it is going to get worse before it gets better, but it will eventually get better. Then, when it does, we will be facing double digit inflation because of the Obama government now printing money while businesses are losing money. The things that have propelled the United States to the forefront of the world in regards to success, personal freedoms, and privacy are being destroyed right before our eyes; in order to keep liberals getting re-elected.

In times of world or national crisis, we have always depended on our President to reassure us, to remove our fears and our doubts. However, our new President has failed us there miserably and has been using our fear, and in fact, magnifying it to get support for his runaway spending spree. The President and our Congress are spending like Paris Hilton with a gold card in a party store. Do we get reassurances? No, we get more smoke-blowing than untaxed free cigarettes at a NASCAR race.

Yes, the President inherited a recession, but he took his inheritance and tossed it down into the deep, dry well of Depression. It has not dawned on him that you can never tax your way into prosperity, that in every country where the government takes care of everybody and distributes the wealth, it never, ever works. Human rights disappear. Freedoms come with strings attached. When the economy is in a freefall, you throw it a parachute, which is called "tax breaks," as many as possible. Socialism has never worked and has always failed miserably, but licking those free ice cream cones; nobody cares, because the ice cream tastes so good.

I have never seen our freedoms, rights, and traditions so quickly eroded and so much apathy about such demise. On top of that, buying the line about a "Change to Believe in," many voters not only elected Obama and re-elected the Congress with the lowest popularity ratings in history, but they added even more liberal legislators to the Congressional tax-and-spend clique. Obama and this Congress want to punish people for making money, and then are surprised when those same people will not play that game. Those who make lots of money, KNOW the stimulus plan will only make matters worse not better. Gas and oil rates are down but will sky-rocket before long, because the government has stopped our drilling offshore in the Gulf of Mexico, although China is drilling to its heart's content a little further out. Millions of acres of land with oil and natural gas underneath have been closed to drilling by Interior Secretary Ken Salazar simply because oil or gas rigs might be seen from National Parks lands a mile or so away.

Amazingly, Obama's approval ratings are high at around 60%, but he is still blaming GWB for his problems and getting away with it but not for long. Now, for example, close to 70% believe Obama's mortgage salvation plan will not work, and they are right. When incentive is removed, people do not try to succeed. The old cliché "the rich only get richer," does not work when they get punished for getting rich. The rich are protecting what they have and will not work to make more to get punished for it, so the poor do not get jobs or money anyway, as a result.

However, the good news is that we can recover and recover quickly. What goes down, will come up. The country might be in a depression, but I refuse to be in a depression. Please join me, and we can bring America back to, well, becoming America again. If you hold a pencil in your fist and push on the upper half with your thumb, you can break it easily, but if you hold a large group of pencils together, you cannot break them with both hands no matter how strong you might be. We will survive this by working together, doing what is needed to regroup, turning to God for help, and getting back to solid, real conservative principles.

When the Bogeyman goes to bed at night and is ready to turn off his lights, his heart pounding and his breaths rapid; he slowly, carefully looks under his bed then moves to his closet and opens the door with a whimper, then a relaxed sigh. The Boogeyman then jumps into bed very relieved that I am not hiding anywhere in his room or closet. That has been my attitude my whole adult life, and it must be the attitude we need to survive anything. That is precisely the attitude we Americans must get back to in order to survive this frightening ordeal we are all going through.

            There are specific things we must do to get our nation back from those who woo the lazy masses who want a guaranteed rocking chair at sunset, redistribution of wealth, and undeserved government handouts:

1.  We must target and call-out Republican legislators who vote with the democrats on tax or spending bills, and then we must back their opponents in upcoming primaries.

2.  We must only elect conservatives, not phony conservatives, and get back to Reagan-like conservative politics.

3.  We must act now to help elect conservatives to Congress in 2010. We must also elect conservatives to our state houses and in our state gubernatorial races.

4.  We must take a very hard line on any republican politicians who feather their own nests for personal profit or power.

5.  Finally, we must get united behind one very conservative Ronald Reagan-like Presidential candidate starting now.

Our hope lies in God we trust and a united, unbending stand for true conservatism which built America and made America great. Nothing else will work.  If Obama stops spending and cuts taxes like crazy, especially business taxes which are the highest in the free world; that can end the Recession and coming Depression, but he will not. He needs the ice cream cone lickers in order to get re-elected. As George Bernard Shaw said, "A government that robs Peter to pay Paul can always count on the support of Paul."

If you believe in hard work, just rewards, personal freedoms, lower taxes, the US Constitution exactly the way it was written and intended, and keeping Big Brother out of our private lives; please join me in a fight for America. Where do we start? Our nation is being knocked down on our knees. From there, we can only look up, and that is also the perfect position for prayer.

Don Bendell, 62, is an author of 25 books including his newest novel, DETACHMENT DELTA, about modern day Delta Force, which was released worldwide in January, 2009 by Berkley Books (Penguin-USA), with over 1,500,000 copies of his books in print worldwide. Don is a popular editorialist who has appeared on FOX NEWS LIVE, and many national radio shows. A 60% disabled vet, Don served as an officer in 4 Special Forces (Green Beret) Groups, including a 1968-1969 tour on an A-team in Vietnam, as well as in the Top Secret Phoenix Program and has two sons in Special Forces.  A 1995 inductee into the International Karate Hall of Fame and a Grandmaster in 5 martial arts, he and his black belt master wife, Shirley, also own karate schools in southern Colorado. Don lives in Florence, Colorado. Write him at don@donbendell.com