Do you ever get the feeling, watching the news out of Washington, DC, that you’ve been transported to the Twilight Zone?

Wouldn’t you be relieved if suddenly Rod Serling appeared on your TV screen and said, “You're traveling through another dimension--a dimension not only of sight and sound but of mind. A journey into a wondrous land whose boundaries are that of imagination. Your next stop: the Twilight Zone!”

Then you’d know for sure that what you’re seeing and hearing wasn’t real, it’s just science fiction. Unfortunately, that’s not the case.

At the end of the program, an old man who watched quietly as all this came about would show up at his doctor’s office and discover he has to choose between a red pill and a white pill. One pill would end his life. The other would prolong it. The only problem, the doctor couldn’t tell him which was which. The old man has to choose for himself. Fewer people, you see, means better healthcare for the living.

In the real world, if healthcare-reform legislation becomes law, under universal, government-run healthcare when people arrive at their doctor’s offices they'll just discover a lot more people in the waiting room because there are far fewer doctors than before.

When they finally see their doctor and discover they have a life-threatening illness, they’ll have to wait a long time for the necessary procedure, and if they’re too old it may not be available at all. More people will die prematurely, like they do in Canada and Great Britain, making the wait times for the living shorter. Sound like the Twilight Zone?

In a Twilight Zone episode, governments around the world would unite to combat catastrophic man-made climate change. They would sign treaties to tax and regulate CO2 emissions in the world’s top industrialized nations and redistribute their wealth to poor and underdeveloped countries. They would promise a new world order based on “green” economies and “green” jobs. Governments would offer “cash for guzzlers” for every gas-burning vehicle destroyed. Wind-mill farms would replace coal-burning power plants. All manner of new energy saving technologies would begin to appear.

At the end of that episode, however, the young, female climate-change activist who worked so hard for the cause finds herself working on a commune in California. She’s disillusioned because governments taxed and legislated fossil-fuel energy sources out of existence before solar, wind, and other alternative energy sources were capable of meeting the world’s energy requirements. Industrialized societies had become agricultural societies. Hundreds of millions of people died as food, medicine, and energy production waned.

Then, one day, she overhears a high-level government official visiting her commune joking with a colleague that catastrophic man-made climate-change predictions were a hoax to expand government control over peoples lives.

In the real world, scientists never subordinate their research to the need for grants or put dogma above science. Man-made climate-change fanatics never become rich trading carbon credits, and those who oppose the conventional wisdom are never attacked and ridiculed. The industrialized nations will never forfeit their sovereignty to a world government. America, China, Russia and other powerful industrialized nations will never sign a treaty that establishes one or redistributes their wealth to the underdeveloped world.

The US Congress, however, will pass “cap and trade” legislation that will wreck the US economy. Americans will end up on communes, but not the Russians or Chinese. Sound like the Twilight Zone?

In a Twilight Zone episode, government would have to temporarily destroy capitalism in order to save it. In an extreme economic crisis, government would buy up auto manufacturers, banks, and financial institutions and provide billions of dollars to bail them out. It would regulate bonuses and salaries and raise taxes on everyone to pay for everything. Small businesses would dry up for lack of credit. All the while, government would tell us everything was working precisely as planned. Capitalism would be just fine.

In this episode, a small Chicago businessman with a company exploiting cutting-edge technology finally must shutter his doors and let his 50 employees go. They all end up working on a highway construction gang on a government stimulus project. Their hopes and dreams are shattered. They realize the standard of living of their children’s generation will be lower than their own.

As the episode ends, the businessman comes to the realization that government wasn’t trying to save capitalism after all. It took advantage of the crisis to replace it with a centrally-planned government-run economy it believed better promoted economic equity and social justice.

In the real world. . . well, you get the idea.

If you think the news out of Washington, DC, these days sounds like a series of Twilight Zone episodes, you’re not alone. What's really scary, however, is that this real journey into a wondrous land we're on may have a Twilight-Zone ending.