But, what you subsidize, you get more of and what you penalize, you decrease. That's one of the oldest and simplest lessons in the book; yet it's one we never seem to learn.

Spending Money Like We're Never Going To Have To Pay It Back: Here's Peter Schweizer describing how the Soviet Union was broken by Reagan,

First of all, the Soviet Union has been in economic crisis, there was an economic crisis from the very beginning in 1917, but they'd always been able to figure out a way, working internationally, to bail out their system. They got western businesses that would set up industries, they got western banks to loan them money, they were able to get peace agreements with the West that would provide temporary relief to their economy. So the Soviet economy was always in crisis but they'd always been bailed out by the West. Reagan's administration is really the only one that never did that.

So, the Soviet Union relied on its enemies to keep it financially afloat and when they refused to do it any longer, it was the beginning of the end. Well, replace the "Soviet Union" with the "United States" and "The West" with "China" and ask yourself: doesn't it seem more than a little familiar?

What happens if China decides one day that they'd like to see us go the way of the Soviet Union and does to us what we did to the Reds? Do we end up with skyrocketing inflation that makes a dollar today worth ten cents tomorrow? Do we end up passing on such large debts onto our children that we will guarantee that they can never have the opportunity to grow up in the sort of great country that we did? The people spending our money? The frightening thing is not that they're coming up with different answers; it's that they're not even asking the questions.

Our Topsy-Turvy Approach To Illegal Immigration: Although we have laws on the books designed to prevent illegal immigration, they are systematically ignored or the people in charge of enforcing them are deliberately understaffed so they can't fulfill their duties. Bizarrely, people who merely suggest that the laws on our books should actually be enforced are derided as racists and nativists. Worse yet, to suggest that tens of millions of uneducated foreigners, many of whom don't speak the language or obey our laws, should not be able to benefit from breaking our laws by staying here permanently is treated as beyond the pale. Why, how dare we "break up the families" of people who have been shamelessly breaking our laws for so long that they've had time to start a family here?

Despite the fact that we've already had a "one time only amnesty" and drug violence is now regularly spilling over our borders, advocates of amnesty are unfazed. In fact, under Barack Obama we've actually gotten to the point where we're prosecuting people like Sheriff Joe Arpaio for enforcing our immigration laws even as we create 300,000 jobs for illegal immigrants with the stimulus plan.

If you don't have borders, you don't have a country -- and if we believe we can turn tens of millions of poor, uneducated, non-English speaking people with no love for our nation or respect for our laws, into productive, well assimilated, loyal Americans merely by granting them citizenship -- then we're engaging in exactly the sort of magical thinking that has helped undermine and destroy more than a few nations -- including most notably, the Roman Empire.