Question from chat room: Does McVeigh have any spiritual-religious beliefs?
Lou Michel: McVeigh is agnostic. He doesn’t believe in God, but he won’t rule out the possibility. I asked him, “What if there is a heaven and hell?”
He said that once he crosses over the line from life to death, if there is something on the other side, he will — and this is using his military jargon — “adapt, improvise, and overcome.” Death to him is all part of the adventure.
There is no such thing as a Christian terrorists, because Jesus Christ did not model terrorism for his followers, nor did he order his followers to act aggressively towards others.
And, without serious course correction, America is doomed. It starts with the money. For dominant powers, it always does – from the Roman Empire to the British Empire. “Declinism” is in the air these days, but for us full-time apocalyptics we’re already well past that stage. In the space of one generation, a nation of savers became the world’s largest debtors, and a nation of makers and doers became a cheap service economy.
[…]At the lower end, Americans are educated at a higher cost per capita than any nation except Luxembourg in order to do minimal-skill checkout-line jobs about to be rendered obsolete by technology. At the upper end, America’s elite goes to school till early middle age in order to be credentialed for pseudo-employment as $350 grand-a-year diversity consultants (Michelle Obama) or in one of the many other phony-baloney makework schemes deriving from government micro-regulation of virtually every aspect of endeavor.
[…]As I said, the decline of great powers invariably starts with the money. When government spends on the scale Washington’s got used to, that’s not a spending issue, it’s a moral one. There’s nothing virtuous about “caring” “compassionate” “progressives” being caring and compassionate and progressive with money yet to be earned by generations yet to be born. That’s what “fiscal conservatives” often miss: This isn’t a green-eyeshade issue. Increasing dependency, disincentivizing self-reliance, absolving the citizenry from responsibility for their actions: The multitrillion-dollar debt catastrophe is not the problem but merely the symptom. It’s not just about balancing the books, but about something more basic and profound.
I think that the problem is that people, even conservatives, have bought into the idea that life is about having fun – having a good time. It’s like there is no way we ought to be, and that there is no respect for doing what it takes to be cautious, frugal and self-reliant. No one is trying to build a life apart from government, anymore. We are all just pursuing pleasurable experiences – and we want someone else to take care of us. We are not studying difficult subjects in school, not taking on difficult jobs, and we aren’t willing to delay gratification. Somehow, we have decided that it is government’s job to equalize life outcomes regardless of our decisions.
When Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) gave her inaugural address as speaker of the House in 2007, she vowed there would be “no new deficit spending.” Since that day, the national debt has increased by $5 trillion, according to the U.S. Treasury Department.
“After years of historic deficits, this 110th Congress will commit itself to a higher standard: Pay as you go, no new deficit spending,” Pelosi said in her speech from the speaker’s podium. “Our new America will provide unlimited opportunity for future generations, not burden them with mountains of debt.”
Pelosi has served as speaker in the 110th and 111th Congresses.
At the close of business on Jan. 4, 2007, Pelosi’s first day as speaker, the national debt was $8,670,596,242,973.04 (8.67 trillion), according to the Bureau of the Public Debt, a division of the U.S. Treasury Department. At the close of business on Oct. 22, it stood at $13,667,983,325,978.31 (13.67 trillion), an increase of 4,997,387,083,005.27 (or approximately $5 trillion).
Pelosi, the 60th speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, has added more to the national debt than the first 57 House speakers combined.
The $4.997-trillion increase in the national debt since she took the gavel is more debt than the federal government amassed from the speakership of Rep. Frederick Muhlenberg of Pennsylvania, who became the first speaker of the House on April 1, 1789, to the start of the speakership of Rep. Newt Gingrich of Georgia, the 58th speaker, who took up the gavel on Jan. 4, 1995.
The national debt first topped $5 trillion on Feb. 23, 1996, more than a year into Gingrich’s speakership.
FIVE TRILLION since January 2007.
UPDATE: More from Hans Bader at the Competitive Enterprise Institute on the unemployment rate.
Excerpt:
As noted earlier, the stimulus package contained wasteful “green jobs” funding, 79 percent of which went to foreign firms, effectively sending American jobs overseas. A recent biofuel program actually wiped out jobs rather than creating them as intended, while costing taxpayers a lot of money. New EPA rules are expected to wipe out at least 800,000 jobs, and the EPA is considering new ozone rules that could wipe out 7.3 million jobs. The stimulus package contained provisions that wiped out thousands of jobs in America’s export sector. New laws backed by Obama, and Obama Administration regulations governing employers, have discouraged employers from hiring new employees.
Businesses understand that more spending means inflation or taxes or both – so they stop hiring and stop expanding.
