There’s an old adage that goes something like this: “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.” That said, then, the Big Three Detroit automakers — Ford, General Motors and Chrysler — have a chronic insanity problem.

As fuel prices soared, as world oil supplies dwindled and as systematically more efficient firms such as Japan’s Toyota consumed massive amounts of market share with ever more innovative and fuel-efficient vehicles, the Big Three seemingly stuck their heads in the sand, continuing to produce large gas-guzzlers. When the trend finally hit them, the results seemed somehow less than whole-hearted. A Chevy Tahoe Hybrid? Really?

Now it’s catching up with them. GM and Ford both operated at a deficit of $14.6 billion last quarter and may well run out of cash within the next year, while October’s U.S. auto sales hit their lowest level in 25 years.

Granted, the Big Three’s business conditions aren’t exactly friendly. Locked into legacy contracts with United Auto Workers, among others, and operating in an industry where they are unable to bargain effectively with either their suppliers or their customers, Detroit’s cost structure has ballooned even as their sales fell and automobile pricing became more competitive. It doesn’t help that UAW seems unwilling to make any sweeping concessions to the Big Three’s managers.

But, in the end, it must be said that America’s automakers are suffering from a malaise of their own making. Whether it was a lack of foresight, an inability to react to changing market conditions, lax research and development, or simple ignorance is debatable — the fact remains that they’re paying for past mistakes.

Or are they?

Like the cavalry in a John Wayne Western, Sen. Harry Reid, Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other Democrats on Capitol Hill have come riding to Detroit’s rescue. Bearing a proposal to direct $25 billion of October’s financial bail out toward the ailing automakers, Reid and Pelosi are seeking to salvage the nearly 3-million-plus American jobs that rely on the Big Three.

There’s several things wrong with this picture.

For one, we Americans were sold on the bailout package as being aimed primarily at the financial industry. The financial industry fundamentally differs from the automakers in one important aspect: Banks act as monetary utilities and, as Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer put it, “No government would let the electric companies go under and leave the country without power.” If we are willing to bail out the automakers — businesses just like Disney, Dell, the Daily and literally thousands of others — then why couldn’t we eventually bail out all the other industries, sectors and companies in trouble? The precedent that this would set and the questions that arise are extremely troubling: Who gets bailouts? Who decides what the qualifications are to get bailed out? There’s the potential for an awful lot of arbitrary applications there.

Additionally, Pelosi and Reid’s proposed bailout package adds up to around $25 billion. Reid seems exceedingly optimistic about this figure, saying that “All it would take is one stroke of a pen and [the automakers’] problem would be solved.” As already mentioned, Ford and GM operated in the third quarter of 2008 at a deficit of $14.6 billion. Throw Chrysler in there, and this bailout money will dry up in about three months. So much for solving the problem. The taxpayer might as well burn piles of greenbacks.

In short, it’s time for America to live up to the capitalism that it espouses. The automakers in Detroit have made their bed. Let them lie in it.