Victory may now require a level of force deemed objectionable by civilized peoples, meaning that some, for justifiable reasons, may be reluctant to pursue it. But victory has not become an ossified concept altogether.

Westernization, coupled with globalization, has created an affluent and leisured elite that now gravitates to universities, the media, bureaucracies, and world organizations, all places where wealth is not created, but analyzed, critiqued, and lavishly spent.

Obama's immigration legacy will be the juxtaposition of his serial insistence that he was not a king or an emperor, and could not contravene the Constitution by granting a blanket amnesty, with his efforts to do just that when it was no longer politically inexpedient. I don't think a president has ever quite so habitually warned the country of the dangers that would soon emanate from himself.

Western elites - the beneficiaries of 60 years of peace and prosperity achieved by the sacrifices to defeat fascism and Communism - are unhappy in their late middle age, and show little gratitude for, or any idea about, what gave them such latitude. If they cannot find perfection in history, they see no good at all.

Even Hollywood millionaires are now clamoring for legal protections for their illegal-alien nannies and gardeners, though such elites would hardly countenance a similar legal laxity that would allow foreign film technicians, screenwriters, and actors to flood southern California to work in their industry for a fourth of their own pay.

We're in a very Orwellian situation where when we - we've slashed defense. And we've raised taxes. And we consider $600 billion annual deficit success because it's not $1 trillion.

Offering 'comprehensive' reform usually means years of arguing and horse-trading among pressure groups to get anything done. By the time all the special interests are appeased or bought off, the resulting elephantine legislation typically looks nothing like what was intended. In short, big-government medicine usually doesn't work on big-government sickness. If President Obama wants 'comprehensive' change, it would be better simply not to spend any more money we don't have.