“The sky is falling!  The sky is falling!”

Remember those words?  Bet when you hear them you think of Chicken Little, that poster poultry for Valium.  If so, you’ve got part of the story down.  Today, it should also bring to mind Republicans in Congress, who could also use massive tranquilizer shots.  

The Republicans seem to think that any change in the status quo of which they don’t approve – regardless of its scope – is the beginning of a slippery slope that will ruin our country and make miserable our destiny.  Odd, since the Democrats have rarely been united enough to even consider making changes on that scale.

Think about it.  While the GOP is happy to give up billions in future tax revenues through tax cuts and has told the Pentagon that their budget must be increased, the combination of which would do incredible damage to our economy and make much-needed infrastructure improvements virtually impossible, they see even the discussion of gun laws as the fist step that will inevitably lead to the wholesale disarmament of all law-abiding American citizens, leaving us to the mercy of gangstas, jihadists and – worst of all – our own government.

How does a person get there?  And why is it conservatives rather than bleeding-heart liberals who reached this hysteria?  More puzzling, how can anyone rationally deal with someone who refuses to apply his mental brakes?  Why is it reasonable to think legalizing same-sex marriage will lead to straight couples giving up the institution, our societal institutions crumbling and millions demanding the right to marry their pet goats any more than that cutting taxes on the top 2% will lead to eliminating their taxes entirely, leaving the ever-poorer working-class to pay for everything so that we ultimately collapse or are torn apart by revolution like the French or the Russians?

Neither scenario is plausible, yet only one side of the aisle recognizes that.

Even more ridiculous is the Right’s reaction to the Sandy Hook shootings.  The members of Congress who aren’t wholly-owned subsidiaries of the gun lobby have danced oh-so-daintily around the subject of improving gun laws, yet the Second-Amendment-without-limits crowd acts as if President Obama is already preparing to send tanks and militia throughout the land to collect every last rifle, shot gun and pistol, becoming the Grinch Whole Stole Hunting Season.

Far more frightening and more certain is the plight of the millions of Americans who are living on the edge and who would have lost the assistance they receive from the federal government if the GOP had held out for the Bush tax cuts for all.  Their fiscal cliff would have hit these people immediately and they would not have had the luxury of waiting the months or years it might take the “job creators” to feel comfortable enough in their wealth to live up to their name.  Their sky IS falling.

As a whole, the GOP need to take a good, old-fashioned chill pill.  Time to drop the Chicken Little routine.  Your sky is fully intact.  You haven’t even been hit with an accord.  Possibly a peanut.  Stop screaming, sit down and take a deep breath.

Now let’s talk about what’s happening in the real world.