Death of a key 20th-century organizing principle.

The 20th century soon came to be dominated by the idea that political revolution was what the doctor ordered. Humans became enamored of what the mind seem capable of doing. If man could lift himself into the air and traverse the oceans and the continents propelled by mighty engines, etc., why should glorious new political arrangements be any less out of reach of industrial, enlightened mankind?

In time the thirst for revolution was slaked by the experience of operating without the restraints of institutions, laws, or skepticism about the capabilities of government. Twentieth-century man made some progress in the direction of understanding that pleasant sounding ideas often have a very unpleasant price tag.

If there was some realization that there could be no command economy, there was nonetheless unwillingness to let loose of the idea that the economy of any Western nation has an unlimited capacity to keep generating tax revenue to pay for four-day work weeks, free tourism for pensioners, free health care, and subsidized housing.

Those economies are now proving not to have an infinite capacity to feed the appetites of politicians and voters:

We are witnessing the end of the late 20th- century progressive welfare democracy. Its fiscal bankruptcy is merely a symptom of a more fundamental bankruptcy: its insufficiency as an animating principle for society. The children and grandchildren of those fascists and republicans who waged a bitter civil war for the future of Spain now shrug when a bunch of foreigners blow up their capital. Too sedated even to sue for terms, they capitulate instantly. Over on the other side of the equation, the modern multicultural state is too watery a concept to bind huge numbers of immigrants to the land of their nominal citizenship. So they look elsewhere and find the jihad. The Western Muslim's pan-Islamic identity is merely the first great cause in a world where globalized pathologies are taking the place of old-school nationalism.

For states in demographic decline with ever more lavish social programs, the question is a simple one: can they get real? Can they grow up before they grow old? If not, then they'll end their days in societies dominated by people with a very different world view.

I can't help but think that our unwillingness as a nation to rise up to a man and demand the closure of the borders to illegal immigration is proof that the education of our young, our willingness to ignore our birthright, and the failure of our political leadership on the issue of border security are symptoms of the same bankruptcy.

America has become something that is just not worth the trouble to defend.

If foreigners decide to invade by the millions because they feel like it, why should we as Americans get excited about that? And we don't. If we did, Tancredo and Hunter would be jockeying for the Republican nomination right now.

"The future belongs to Islam." By Mark Steyn, McLean's, 10/20/06 (emphasis added).