A once-great nation crumbles before our eyes

Despite the nation's financial disaster, the huge increases in electricity costs that Obama and the Democrats have set in motion, and the disaster of a tide of illegal immigrants pouring across an undefended border, most of you believe your lives will still play out pretty much as they have in the past.

I do *so* hope you're right. But you're almost certainly wrong--badly--and your naivete is touching.

Victor Davis Hanson was once like you. He lives on a farm in California's Central Valley, and writes that thieves are stealing everything they can get their hands on there.

"Hey, what's the big deal?" libs and Dems retort. The poor thieves are just trying to feed their families, or right historic injustices, so we shouldn't get upset.

Except they're stealing wire from street lights. In Fresno, hundreds of street lights have been stripped. In a desperate effort to stop this crime, city workers are now putting concrete armor around the bases. He reports that hundreds of bronze commemorative plaques have been ripped off of public buildings in his local town--presumably for their scrap value.

An old school had its bronze bell stolen. Even manhole covers have been taken--again presumably for scrap. The list is endless.

In our new Vandal state, one successful theft begets another.... In my case, one night an old boat in the barn was stripped. Soon the storage house was hit. Ten days later, all the antique bolts and square nails were taken from the shop. Usually — as is true with the street lights — the damage to the buildings is greater than the value of the missing items.

I spoke with another group of farmers at a rural fairground. Every single person I talked to has had the copper wire ripped out of his agricultural pumps within the last two years.

By what magic force will this not soon expand to where you live?

I'm not anti-immigrant, so save your breath. What I am is angry at the thugs who destroy street lights and steal manhole covers--or anything else.