We could make this a regular feature. Just recently we profiled Papa John’s Pizza, whose founder and CEO remarked that Obamacare might force franchises to cut employee hours. They, of course, have been enduring threats of boycotts and verbal spitballs from various precincts of the left. This week’s focus of derision is a seemingly benign arts and crafts chain named Hobby Lobby.

The idea that the American left would delight in the political demise of conservative white males certainly comes as a shock to no one. That theme has animated talk radio since the election. And let’s give the Democrats their due — they have, with the assistance of media and entertainment, mastered political warfare and left the GOP flailing, unsure and uninspired.

Woody Allen once quipped that there are two sides to a person, one being the side that aspires to such nobler things as art, beauty and pondering the meaning of life, and then there’s the other side that has all the fun! It was an appeal to the latter that sealed victory for the Democrats, although with economic stagnancy on tap for the foreseeable future, the Democrats can hardly claim to offer anything fun.

What will conservatives and libertarians do once persuasion has proven futile and the electoral process has been exhausted? What if President Obama wins re-election? Of course, nothing here should imply that a Romney win will assure freedom’s resurgence. But an Obama win would surely seal the perception, by way of tacit voter approval, that America no longer aspires to be Reagan’s city on a hill. We want to be France, with their free health care and guaranteed vacations.

It is time we started calling liberal Democratic policymakers what they are. We all too frequently lament the ever-reaching ‘nanny state,’ but that term violates a cherished cultural staple — nannies are Mary Poppins or such maternal substitutes as the TV character played by Fran Drescher. Statists are not nannies, they are bullies.

Calvin Coolidge’s life and governance were a living testament to the words he spoke with such simplicity and eloquence. While he epitomized frugality, hard work, common sense and independence, sometimes even his followers today miss the humanity in his speeches and writings. He also famously noted that it is more important to kill bad bills than to pass good ones. Yes, you read that correctly! Such blasphemy would be an impeachable offense today, but Calvin Coolidge drew his faith not from legislation but from God and the virtues of America’s most humble, hardest-working citizens.

In short, North Carolina matters, certainly to the Democrats, who are holding their convention in Charlotte later this summer. North Carolina matters because it is a case study in contradictions. Once solid red, the “experts” only reluctantly paint it purple. The last Republican governor was elected in 1988, but Republicans controlled the legislature as of 2010. The state went for George W. Bush twice but for Obama — barely — in 2008. We are center-right but remain a Democratic stronghold.

It may be too early to tell, but the Republican Party appears to be shedding its draw-no-blood, lose-gracefully approach to campaigns that has kept conservative voters either frustrated or stubbornly at home on election days. The freedom-loving American can only hope that the GOP’s backbone wasn’t found too late.

Conservatives have been programmed to cushion any criticism of big-government policy with the cloying, irritating disclaimer that liberals and Democrats mean well, but their ideas are just not practical. Why is it always Democrats and liberals who “mean well”? Are statists really motivated by benevolence or by a bloated sense of their own importance? If we must justify the very fundamentals of our existence, then the crowds outside are not hordes of over-protective social workers. The barbarians are clamoring at the gate, determined to get in.

The “mainstream” media is all aghast at a childhood bullying incident of MItt Romney’s, but the real bullies in America exist primarily in government and primarily on the left. One could fill volumes recounting liberal Democrats kicking sand at the little people to gain and maintain power. Government, just by its nature, resembles a schoolyard bully, exerting its power through judicial fiat, often nullifying the will of the people, and then there are unelected bureaucrats, regulators and executive orders — some compatible with liberty, many not.