Victor Davis Hanson writes for Real Clear Politics about critical challenges for the United States.

“We can bear neither our diseases nor their remedies.”

So shrugged the ancient historian Livy (59 B.C.-17 A.D.) of the long decline of Roman national character that, in his age, finally ended the Roman Republic.

Like a patient whose medicine proves worse than the disease, Livy lamented that the Romans knew that they had become corrupt and lawless.

But the very contemplation of the hard medicine needed for restoration — and the furious reaction that would meet the remedy — made it impossible to save the patient.

America is nearing such an impasse.

We know that no state can long exist after opening its borders to over 7 million illegal aliens, requiring neither background checks nor legality.

The recent murder of a Georgia female jogger by an illegal alien and the savage beating of New York policemen by similar others hardly merit media attention.

Everyone knows that neither new appropriations nor new laws are needed to secure the border as it was in 2020.

Instead, we could just stop suicidal catch-and-release, deport lawbreakers, privilege the legal over the illegal immigrant, demand would-be refugees apply for asylum first in their native countries, finish the border wall, and pressure Mexico to stop undermining the territorial integrity of its northern neighbor.

But then we shrug, “We can’t do that” — paralyzed in fear of being smeared as “xenophobic,” “nativist,” or “racist.”

So this generation apparently feels that it can endure the collateral damage of daily assaults on American citizens, the near bankruptcy of our cities, and 100,000 fentanyl deaths per year — but certainly not the idea that it is somehow not politically correct or compassionate.

The same is true of the $35 trillion debt, now costing more than $1 trillion a year in interest payments — and growing. We all know it is unsustainable. Americans understand it will eventually lead either to destructive hyperinflation, suicidal renunciation of federal debt, or confiscation of private savings.

Yet we ignore the reckless spending and keep borrowing well over $1 trillion a year. Apparently, our generation prefers being praised as “virtuous” and “caring.”