As Shout Bits completes its second year of commentary, some readers have justly criticized it for becoming more negative in the face of Washington’s vigorous assault on freedom and prosperity. Shout Bits can only plead that it had no idea how radical and high-handed Pres. Obama would be. A leftist, certainly, but Obama has also shredded property rights (e.g. the Chrysler theft and BP shakedown) and any semblance of ethics (the various blatant payoffs to lawmakers to enact socialized medicine). It is hard to remain optimistic even in the greatest nation. Still, here are some words of hope: everything Obama has done will be undone eventually, and the best advice is to live like Obama never happened.

Of course Obama and his Democrat lieutenants have dealt a serious blow to the US with their regulation, spending, and socialist takeovers, but their excesses are nothing new. Countries like Russia already tried the collectivist route and failed. Other countries like Greece and much of Old Europe tried socialism-light, and are only now failing. Obama’s socialist experiment comes very late to the party, with the US emulating Europe just as Europe is ready to give in and admit failure. While it has taken 60 to 70 years for Europe’s socialist experiment to fail, Obama’s experiment will not last nearly as long. Europe socialized long before its debts became un-payable, but the US enacted the final piece of socialist paradise when its debts were already clearly out of hand. The bill for Washington excess will likely come due before Obamacare even fully takes effect.

Reality will force the failure and repeal of everything Obama has done, along with the creeping socialist agenda of nearly every modern President before him. If not, the US itself will fail like Greece. Either way Obama’s theft or destruction of the US system of freedom and prosperity will not stand even to the end of the new decade. As an absolute certainty, something will change, and that is good news.

Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged tells the story of a capitalist who gave up on a world eerily like Obama’s US. Galt, Shrugged’s hero, built a new liberal paradise of capitalism and property rights. Galt’s hidden mountain paradise, however, is as impractical as Rand’s book is tedious. Outside of idealized fiction there is simply no choice but to carry on.

Obama’s policies, every one, will fail and be abandoned. Whether Obama is replaced with a return to a rule of law, individual rights, and a capitalist system or anarchy is the choice of businesspeople and libertarians. Even though Obamacare ironically encourages people to drop their health care, pay for it anyway. Even though Obama will double the taxes on investments next year, invest in the US’s future. Even though Obama’s spending squeezes the profit out of employing people, look for talent among the unemployed. Even though Obama has claimed the lion’s prize of the wealth of this nation, for now accept what little Washington has yet to claim. If only for show, keep the capitalist engine running because someday soon the US will abandon socialism and today’s optimists will be best poised to prosper.

In other words, keep living like Obama never happened because collectivist experiments always fail and someone always emerges from the wreckage to restore prosperity. Accepting Washington as the new guardian of our lives will only extend Obama’s lost years.