Pardon Me For Being a Bit Concerned

Some background first and be patient, because I cannot reach the eloquence of Professor Hayek in his Road to Serfdom.  The essential premise is that central planning will ultimately progress to totalitarianism, by one of several paths.  One way in which we could lead to totalitarianism is that the people will rise up and demand it.  Nooooo, couldn't happen.  In support he points to several facts.  Among those is that Adolf Hitler may not have been elected, but his party was overwhelmingly elected and even his opposition party wound up appointing him at the demand of the populace.  (BTW, Benito Mussolini's Fascist Party was also duly elected)

Ok, but Why would anyone choose dictatorship?  The problem with socialism (corporatism and crony capitalism as well) is that there are limited things that can be done, and those in charge of the central planning must allocate limited resources in the "best possible manner."  People and industries will compete for their group to be allocated more resources, given a larger share.  This will either lead to gridlock, the inability to make any decisions (sound familiar?) or massive corruption and vote buying.  <cough cough>

In response the populace demands order, demands that things be done and that rules be suspended, power be ceded to a specialized group....a Super Committee, if you will.  Ultimately this too could fail or fail to produce results fast enough.  Then someone floats the idea of suspending elections or operating outside of Democracy, just until we pass this crisis or that crisis. 

I know, you're saying to yourself...but none of this is happening.  I mean, yeah, we have gridlock and we have corruption...and yeah, to get past that gridlock we've made this supercommittee charged with setting budgetary and tax policy, but that's just for the greater good.  And no one is going to talk about suspending elections (at least, no one credible).

First, read this article on how our biggest problem is that voters are dumb:

http://www.cnn.com/2011/09/27/opinion/granderson-broken-government-voters/index.html?hpt=hp_c2

and pay attention to the comments.  These are your fellow citizens.

Then we have this gem...

http://www.tnr.com/article/politics/magazine/94940/peter-orszag-democracy?page=0,0&passthru=MGU3YjMxNDdlN2UyMjM2MTNhZGZjNDE2MjE2NjE2Nj

discussing how a little less democracy could really help us out of this jam, but really, it's only for this little bit...really...cross my heart.

And finally, the Governor of one of our united States, Bev Perdue says the following: 

"You have to have more ability from Congress, I think, to work together and to get over the partisan bickering and focus on fixing things. I think we ought to suspend, perhaps, elections for Congress for two years and just tell them we won't hold it against them, whatever decisions they make, to just let them help this country recover. I really hope that someone can agree with me on that. The one good thing about Raleigh is that for so many years we worked across party lines. It's a little bit more contentious now but it's not impossible to try to do what's right in this state. You want people who don't worry about the next election."

Read more:
http://projects.newsobserver.com/under_the_dome/perdue_suggests_suspending_congressional_elections_for_two_years_was_she_serious


The title page of the article suggests she was joking...and I PRAY that she was...but I'm afraid that I don't have a whole lot of faith in that proposition. 

Are we indeed on the road to serfdom?  Is there any way off?