It was one of the Jurassic Park movies - I can't recall which one exactly, but you hear a loud thud. Then another. The people in the scene look about in a confused manner. Someone - Jeff Goldblum, maybe Sam Neill is looking at a cup of coffee as the next thud hits the ground, and a ripple appears in the coffee. Then all hell breaks loose.

There is something going on in the country right now. It's a hard thing to quantify, or to put a finger on exactly. I'm not sure exactly what is coming, but I'm staring at the political coffee cup, and I see a ripple. I see a ripple and I'm thinking that all hell is about to break loose.

We're not talking the start of the apocalypse, or the end of civilization as we know it. I don't see the disaster scenarios making the rounds among those building bunkers and getting off the grid. I don't even see the dollar collapsing - mostly because even in our current difficulties, the dollar is still more stable than any other currency. 10 year treasuries are still selling like hotcakes, even after the stock market nosedive. Still, looking at the converging events of the past few years, I believe that America is moving to a defining moment.

These defining moments are rare in American history - removing the British crown, constructing a representative republic, concluding that slavery was immoral, fighting a civil war to enforce that judgment. Since then the defining moments have been rarer. I can only count America stepping up to lead the free world. You may have your own examples of moments that you consider defining. My definition is intended as a moment where the American people choose to assert themselves.

There is a constant cry from the Democrat Party for compromise. When the GOP compromises, at least as of late, we come up empty handed. We are not even going to single out John Boehner again, though he has a unique talent for coming up short. This has been an issue since Bush the father compromised and broke his "no new taxes" pledge. Even Reagan got hit a few times.

The reason behind our lack of success in compromise is that liberals do not compromise. They just don't. They stick to their guns and drive their positions with an almost religious zeal. It has been this way since at least the Nixon Administration, when the Democrat controlled congress defunded the Vietnam War. That act pulled the rug out from under our military, and condemned a free nation to death.

We conclude that this is not a time to compromise. The fundamental principles of the conservative view are entirely at odds with the liberal view. The conservative view is a federal government that enables a person to pursue his liberty. The liberal view is to shield all people from harm. They are two fundamentally different starting points. America is straddling these models. It is time for us to choose one.

To not do so is schizophrenic - a house divided against itself. What we have in DC is a very bad marriage of philosophies with irreconcilable differences. We are the judge in the divorce court. Or better, Lady Liberty has two suitors asking for her hand - she needs to make a choice. While we can work out many of the issues that face the country it is the details that the Devil always lives in.

I am deliberately avoiding the terms Democrat or Republican, which mean nothing. We have discussed the issue ad nauseam in these pages. There are far too many career politicians on both sides who are more concerned with cutting deals to keep the cash flowing into their campaign coffers. That is a separate issue that America needs to deal with as well. We hope that it does - soon. We have our suggestions (see Grumpy Old Men )

We have seen that it is possible to be a liberal Republican. Any Tea Party patriot can spout off a list. We have seen examples of the reverse - the conservative Democrat. We just need to reach awfully far back to come up with an example (JFK, Henry "Scoop" Jackson, and at least on defense, Joe Liebermann)

We are not asking that America become a one-party system, though one could make a convincing argument that we already are. We are proposing that America decides what our identity is. Do we re-affirm that we are a representative republic which enables individual liberty? Or do operate from the basis that the federal government is not limited and can do as it pleases to advance the ideas it feels are best? This is a time for America to choose.

The last time that America was in this situation - with an entrenched Democrat Party unpopular with the voters, an ineffective "opposition" party and a group of committed, issue oriented representatives within the opposition party, occurred during the period from the 1830's to the 1850's. This was the period that brought the Whigs to prominence (they were elected to the Presidency twice in 20 years - W.H. Harrison and Zachary Taylor).

The Whigs became atrophied and ineffective by a failure to take on the Democrat establishment on the issue of slavery and the plantation system. A group of anti-slavery expansion candidates created an insurgency within the Whigs, which became the Republican Party, leaving the Whigs to the dustbin of history.

The first Republican nominee - John Fremont in 1856 - had a strong showing, and the Republicans took the Presidency in 1860 by running a one term congressman who served as an organizer for the Whigs in the western states. He made an eloquent argument for the Republican cause of "free labor, free land and free men" which was rooted in the founding principles. The candidate was Abraham Lincoln. When elected he acted on his words, as did the Republicans elected in the wake of the Whig demise. With the exceptions of Grover Cleveland and Woodrow Wilson, these new Republicans dominated federal politics until the Great Depression.

We are in the same place now. The Democrats are as smug as they were on the 1850s, and the establishment GOP is as clueless as the Whigs were. The Tea Party wing of the GOP is the new incarnation of the original Republican insurgency. Whether they move within the party or break off and replace the establishment Republicans, they are now the driving force in conservative politics.

It's the ripple in the coffee cup - the approaching T-Rex, the hell that is about to break loose. The taxpaying American people are terrified of the Democrat agenda, and disgusted with the GOP's ineffectual response. They want fiscal responsibility, and an end to the arrogance of the ruling elite who are more interested in a deal than in doing the people's business. They are looking for serious people to deal with serious issues in a serious manner. No more smoke and mirrors that accomplishes nothing. We want adults in charge - not churlish children or RINO pseudo-conservatives.

The Tea Party wing can even claim the same mantle of the original Republicans - to be anti slavery. The public dole and the national deficit have taken the place of the plantation.  They bind us to spending more of our time working to pay off government obligations promised by our representation in our name. They bind not only us, but our children and their children. The Tea Party wing seeks to set us free of these masters, and return our liberty to us.

We do not predict the course, only the trend. If it is within the party, we have qualified candidates that can carry the message as Reagan did in 1980. If we go for a full on replacement of an ineffective GOP, there are candidates that can place themselves as a better way to go. It's not that we lack the talent. It is certainly not that the voters do not understand what we face. The Founders placed all faith in both God to guide us, and the voters to cut through the B.S. and demand accountable representation.

We believe that the GOP lacks the desire in it's current incarnation. We need a better spokesman than what we currently have. We see the goal, and we see the obstacles. We have the will. We have the talent. We need to act on it. So says Common Sense.

RLB