One of the earliest Conservative impulses one makes is that subsidizing things rarely works, because it tends to breed unproductive, and in the long run, self-destructive behavior. Look at the places in the world that currently live off of Western aid. We claim we contribute to improvement, but still we pump more and more money into places that end up being controlled by corrupt, authoritarian despots. And the people continue to starve in poverty while their economies plunge. Aid is AIDS.

1. South Korea now denies North Korea massive food aid. About time, you'd think, because what would the South receive from supporting its paranoid and aggressive neighbor, who starves its population to send away missiles to, who knows, America? NK is a ticking bomb, just like Iran, and yet it cannot even sustain its own population with food, much less pose as any grand example of Communism. Natural selection needs to be applied to cases like this. Let the power fall.

2. Obama, carefully avoiding the realpolitik of his predecessor, upsets Pakistani leaders by handing out millions in non-military aid. The complaints about lost sovereignty are however only a pretext for something else, because aid always leads to dependency relationships between giver and receiver. Look at Africa. It's never been more dependent on the West than it is today, thanks to us constantly feeding its dictators with money. As Dambisa Moyo has points out, why do we expect the third world to develop any differently than the West?

3. If you want to preview Europe anno 2050, take a look at Brazil. While Brazilian leadership promises safe Olympics, gang violence paints the streets in blood. Remember BOPE? No one likes the idea of a gruesome police force shooting people down without facing common law, but in the case of Brazil, which suffers from a multicultural history no culture has ever recovered from, civil war has to be fought with cruel oppression. It doesn't "work," but keeps the problems at bay until the nation finally caves in on itself. If Europe doesn't change direction, it's likely to face something similar in a not-so-very distant future. Paris is an early manifestation of this.