"The myth of a democratic socialist society funded by capitalism is finished."

When democracy turns to tyranny, the armed citizen still gets to vote.

"You can . . . decide to debauch the currency which underwrites the market economy, or you can dispense with democracy."

What is being challenged is nothing less than the most basic premise of the politics of the centre ground: that you can have free market economics and a democratic socialist welfare system at the same time. The magic formula in which the wealth produced by the market economy is redistributed by the state – from those who produce it to those whom the government believes deserve it – has gone bust. The crash of 2008 exposed a devastating truth that went much deeper than the discovery of a generation of delinquent bankers, or a transitory property bubble. It has become apparent to anyone with a grip on economic reality that free markets simply cannot produce enough wealth to support the sort of universal entitlement programmes which the populations of democratic countries have been led to expect. The fantasy may be sustained for a while by the relentless production of phoney money to fund benefits and job-creation projects, until the economy is turned into a meaningless internal recycling mechanism in the style of the old Soviet Union.

Or else democratically elected governments can be replaced by puppet austerity regimes which are free to ignore the protests of the populace when they are deprived of their promised entitlements. You can, in other words, decide to debauch the currency which underwrites the market economy, or you can dispense with democracy. Both of these possible solutions are currently being tried in the European Union, whose leaders are reduced to talking sinister gibberish in order to evade the obvious conclusion: the myth of a democratic socialist society funded by capitalism is finished. This is the defining political problem of the early 21st century.

Janet Daley is correct, but I am not as optimistic as her that such a contradiction can be solved electorally. The collectivists, when faced with the checkmate of their appetites within the legal system, will simply resort to violence. We already see that in the Obamacare intolerable act -- "You will comply, or else."

We are not Europe, to be lorded over forever by a mandarin class of our "betters." For one thing, we have the means of resistance. The only question is, will enough of us have the will to use those arms when the collectivists' push comes to our shove. I think we will.