Tell me, does the following sound at all familiar?

We've GOT to act. NOW! There's NO TIME for debate. We're on the PRECIPICE. We're staring into the ABYSS. The government has to spend BIG and it has to spend FAST, before it's TOO LATE!

Yes, yes. We heard it just a few weeks ago, remember? Right before the government spent big and fast so it could avert the financial crisis. Which continues today, quite unaverted, because no one bothered to require that the government spend WELL or -- yes, I know this was always a long shot -- WISELY.

So we're still in the same mess. And we're not trying to get out of it yet, because for some among us, messes -- especially messes that can be credibly described as crises -- have their uses.

When Joe Biden said during the campaign that President Barack Obama was going to face a crisis right out of the gate, it wasn't a wild guess. He was stating half of the elemental strategy of the Obama administration: Have a crisis.

Biden went on to say that when that crisis arose, Americans should stand shoulder to shoulder with the Dear Leader, no matter what he chose to do, and he warned that "initially, it's not going to be apparent that we're right."

It's true that Biden started out talking about foreign policy, but toward the end of his ramble, he worked his way around to, "This is more than just a capital crisis, this is more than just markets, this is a systemic problem we have with this economy."

Obama's chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, gave us the other half of the administration's strategy soon after the election in a talk with Wall Street Journal staffers: "You never want a serious crisis to go to waste. And what I mean by that is an opportunity to do things that you think you could not do before."

So, have a crisis and use it to get things you want that you couldn't have gotten from people who weren't frightened. Repeat as necessary.

Want to appoint a tax cheat secretary of the treasury? Just tell everyone you're in a big hurry because of the financial crisis.

Want to hand out, in one fell swoop, more pork and more paybacks to more favored political constituencies than anyone has ever handed out before? Write a spread-the-wealth bill like the one the House of Representatives just passed. Just be sure to call it a stimulus.

Want to grow government beyond comprehension and make it the master of health care, energy, education, finance and, through regulation, business? Don't declare the crisis solved until you've passed enough phony stimuli to complete your whole hidden agenda.

There is only one thing that can be done to block the socialist agenda that's so clearly visible just beneath the Rahm Emanuel useful-crisis strategy. Fortunately, it's something every American can do.

Refuse to fear.

If your congressional representative voted for the stimulus, call him up and chew him out. If he voted against it, call to say thanks. Then get on the horn to your senators and demand that they do whatever it takes to stop this cynical power grab. You can get to every one of them through the U.S. Capitol switchboard: 202-224-3121.

Obama and company aren't even trying to be subtle. Nancy Pelosi is incapable of subtlety.

These people are telling you exactly what they want to do, and they've been telling you since long before Election Day.

They've even told you that the lever they'll use on you is the crisis.

And by putting forward a plan that's 3 percent stimulus and 97 percent leftist goody bag, what Obama is telling you is that he's not at all eager to make the financial crisis go away. He's going to "fix" lots of other things under the cover the crisis provides.

Then it will be on to the next crisis and the next set of underlying projects.

There's no sense being scared. Angry would be appropriate, though. And vocal: 202-224-3121.