I'm reluctant to agree with you, ann. Pat Buchanan has been sounding this same alarm for a while. It's an unpopular, ungenerous-sounding position to take. But think about the consequences of doing what we're doing. The IRS, Benghazi and AP scandals will come and go, but if we fundamentally transform this country... Ann is smart. I pay attention to her.

Wow! Rand Paul for president! I saw some of Carl Levin's performance and agree it was disgraceful. Fortunately, our government has become such a caricature of onerous bullying pomposity that I'm sure the Apple executives don't lose a minute of sleep over what jerks like Levin say. And they shouldn't.

Great column, Mish. A lot of information. Thank you.

Big picture, small picture...long term, short term. Liberal/progressive/Democrats prove themselves to be hopeless idiots about issues like this. So I'm afraid I disagree with the several commenters who earlier warned that payback would be satisfying, or that liberals would wake up when they realized the shoe could someday be on the other foot. That never seems to happen. They are too willing to grab the quick win. Dangle a bauble in front of a liberal and it's game over. And for all their faults, Republicans (never mind actual conservatives or libertarians!) are reluctant to break the rules. They try to offer honest arguments and to play fair, and get their heads handed to them year after year. (And many of them aren't too bright--look at the "legitimate rape" issue! And Mitt Romney!) I'm convinced this is the human condition, and that we are destined now to actually suffer worldwide failure. What in the past was the "rise and fall" of this or that empire will now be the permanent "fall" because of mass communication, travel and the Internet. Where are you going to find a quiet corner in which the primordial soup can simmer any more? Where in the world will we find a leader with the principles of George Washington? Coming out of today's educational institutions? Yeah, right! It's looking pretty bleak.

If humanity is determined by intellectual ability there are an awful lot of sub-humans walking around.

Starting (for me, anyway) with Brokeback Mountain, Hollywood has attempted to de-sensitize us to homosexual displays of affection (now including sex scenes, of course). These scenes continue to be extremely cringe-worthy for the vast majority of normal people. So much for the new normal.

I really like Ann. She's brilliant and funny. And I'm much closer to her on this issue than to Rubio. I also recommend the recent articles by Malkin and Buchanan--we can't afford to deceive ourselves that huge numbers of unskilled people seeking handouts can be good for the economy. But we need somebody to actually unravel this complicated immigration issue. The Wall Street Journal does NOT advocate for open borders or for admitting immigrants who have no skills. They HAVE made a point that SKILLED immigrants like engineers create two or three support jobs for every one they take. I agree that they are basically pro-immigration. One major point is that our birth rate is below the replacement rate. Without immigrants there will be nobody to fund Social Security and Medicare in the future. This doesn't imply in any way that we should tolerate illegal immigration. And secondly, to honestly unravel this issue requires getting past the false dichotomy of "amnesty" versus "border security." It's far from that simple. Consider that it is much more important that we secure our entitlement programs than that we secure the border. We had a relatively open border for most of 200 years. Take the incentives away and unskilled people won't be so anxious to come here.

So my point is, Mr. Falin, that looking for ideas for government to solve the problem is barking up the wrong tree. And it means that the indoctrination of our population, generation by generation, in both public and private schools should be addressed directly. It's an evil that must be stopped. I realize that's difficult because of tenure, freedom of speech, etc. But the problem isn't what's taught, it's what is not taught. It's what is prohibited by "hate speech" codes, etc. The government should take a stronger stand in protecting contrary thoughts on campuses.

1) When one of the core beliefs of a group is that there is no virtue in codes of professional behavior, that chaos (anarchy) is preferable to what we have because what we have is so, so absolutely evil (as Bill Ayers loves to explain about the evils of the Viet Nam war, so evil that his violence was more than justified), we are playing a game against people who will not follow rules. Their ideology is that the very rules themselves are evil. 2) As far as the economy is concerned I believe that the lesson of the Great Depression is that less is more. It's very difficult to make an argument for doing less, or even doing nothing about a problem. But as we know from cultivating a garden, too much water or fertilizer can kill it. At a certain point one must simply stand back and allow it to flourish.

It's the imperfection of human beings. Whether one embraces the concept of a deity or simply wishes to respect culture and traditions that have succeeded is really immaterial. We will not succeed if we don't respect something bigger than our individual selves. When we turn ourselves over to the gentle ministrations of a Castro or Chavez, a Lenin or Mao, we will be finally and eternally damned as a species. The quaint notions our founders identified as important--freedoms, rights, etc.--so demeaned by the academics of our age will be sorely missed when they're gone forever. Thank you Bill Ayers. You smartass punk, you think you're superior. But you are a moron.