My podcast partner Rose suggested that I blog about the rapidly increasing national debt. This will not be a political post, as the federal national debt increased a ton under Obama, again under Trump, and again under Biden. (If you want fiscal responsibility, you have to look for governors of red states who are running surpluses). Let’s see the latest news, then talk about what it means.

Here’s the news from the Epoch Times:

The U.S. national debt recorded its third “depressing achievement” in the past 12 months, topping $34 trillion for the first time to close out 2023, according to the latest Treasury Department Debt to the Penny data.

On Dec. 29, 2023, the debt climbed about $90 billion in one day, to exceed $34.001 trillion. It took Washington roughly three months to add $1 trillion to the gross federal debt and six months to amass $2 trillion.

In a single year, the federal government’s total public debt outstanding rocketed by about $2.65 trillion. By comparison, it took the United States more than 200 years to cross the $1 trillion mark in October 1981.

The long-term predictions are even worse:

In the coming months, the Treasury forecasts that it’ll borrow roughly $1 trillion to fund higher budget deficits and manage growing interest costs. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projected this past summer that the national debt will nearly double and account for 183 percent of gross domestic product by 2053.

[…]According to President Joe Biden’s 2024 budget, the federal deficit is expected to be close to $1.9 trillion this year. The annual budget gap is predicted to remain above $2 trillion after 2030.

Let me give my thoughts about this.

Right now, you can already see that interest rates are rising due to counter the inflation caused by massive government spending. Higher interest rates make it harder for innovators to borrow money in order to take risks on new products and services. So, the economy slows down.

Our creditors may demand higher interest rates on our borrowing, because of the rising risk that we will be unable to pay them back. That will increase the amount that we are paying in interest. My concern about this is that we won’t have money available to deploy our military in the event of aggressive behavior from countries that don’t like us very much.

Speaking of interest, our interest payments on the debt are taking up more and more of our discretionary spending. Soon, we won’t have any money to spend after spending on mandatory programs, like Social Security and Medicare. Eventually, we won’t have money for those. Pity the young people who are paying into social programs that are about to go into deficit.

That leads to my last point. The current generation is seeing the benefits of all this spending, but the upcoming generation is going to get the bill. What’s amazing is that the younger generation is so brainwashed by the schools that they can’t even vote in their own interest. They come out of the schools voting for more government, more spending, and higher taxes. They don’t realize that they are the ones who are going to get the bill. They want to be communist, like Venezuela, but they don’t really understand what it will be like.

One of the reasons that I am not married today is because I tried to set spiritual and moral boundaries with women I wanted marry, but those boundaries were rejected. The purpose of the boundaries was to get the woman to be suitable for a marriage designed to serve God. In every case, the relationships ended. And this is actually becoming more common, under the influence of feminism.

Here is an article from The Federalist, written by Kylee Griswold.

She writes:

Who would have thought perpetual adolescent Jonah Hill would be good at grown-up relationships? Well, he is, judging by some apparent texts his surfer ex-girlfriend Sarah Brady shared to Instagram over the weekend — despite the out-of-control media screeching to the contrary.

[…]According to Brady and the TikTokkers, self-proclaimed therapists, media, and fellow thirst-trappers who came to her defense, Hill is a controlling narcissist and misogynist — all for the crime of allegedly asking his then-girlfriend to please put on some clothes.

So, a man told a woman that he was interested in that he proposed certain rules in the relationship, rules that would allow him to get serious, and point the relationship towards commitment (as you’ll see). But the woman, and all of her supportive allies, from the secular left to the religious right, all agreed with her that a man setting boundaries on a woman to make her safe for a marriage commitment is “emotional abuse”.

More:

Specifically, Hill laid down some boundaries for his partner:

[…]Plain and simple: If you need: Surfing with men[,] Boundaryless inappropriate friendships with men[,] to model[,] to post pictures of yourself in a bathing suit[,] to post sexual pictures[,] friendships with women who are in unstable places and from your wild recent past beyond getting a lunch or coffee or something respectful[,] I am not the right partner for you. If these things bring you to a place of happiness I support it and there will be no hard feelings. These are my boundaries for romantic partnership.

Hill’s detractors say this is “emotional abuse.” But can something really be described as “abuse” if the alleged perpetrator tells you “no hard feelings” if you’d rather walk away than agree to the terms?

Feminism has made it a lot harder for men to set boundaries that will orient women towards marriage. No matter how wise the man, and how good the advice, it must all be rejected. But the demands for men to get married to rebels remain. Especially when the feminists are hitting 35, and their friends are all getting married. They feel entitled to marriage, and how dare men tell them no? Many women today don’t want to hear a man talk about the Bible or hear a man talk about right and wrong, they just want weddings, wedding rings, vacations, and things to be fixed around the house. It would be better if men were just walking ATMs that didn’t talk at all.

More:

To protect the health and integrity of his relationship, Hill established reasonable and respectable parameters for how his girlfriend was to behave toward him through how she acted toward other men. Don’t sexualize yourself for other guys or engage in other relationship-compromising behaviors. And he made clear how he would respond if she didn’t respect those limits. I’m not the right man for you.

In my cases, my boundaries were always things that were clearly good for the women, and also good for commitment. For example, I might say “stop spending money on travel, get a private sector job in your field, and pay off your student loans”. But these conditions were rejected. Later on, when the woman reached her early 30s, I would get e-mails about wanting to get back together. But the student loans had only increased, and the resumes now had huge gaps. I can only assume that the body counts had also increased from all the “traveling”. No thanks, I said. No thank you. I can do something more productive than bail women out. I especially don’t want to bail women out who have no respect for men who know how to lead.

This behavior of calling moral and spiritual leadership “emotional abuse” and “controlling” is common – even in Christian circles – because of feminism. In general, the only acceptable male roles are “protect and provide”. Men are supposed to take on all the accountability, but with none of the authority to defend the truth, or to defend morality. On any topic. For example, if you try to tell a single woman in her late 20s about infertility, it’s “emotional abuse”. No amount of evidence can ever beat “follow your heart”. And she has legions of supporters who will shame you for trying to argue from scientific studies.

If you think I am mean, then read Kylee:

Enter feminism, which loves female autonomy and sold women lots of lies about it. Feminism said love yourself. If that means wreaking all kinds of havoc, your second “X” chromosome trumps the consequences. Unrestrained sex and unintended pregnancy? Abort the baby. Not happy in your marriage? Divorce him. Unfulfilled at home? Leave the kids with an underpaid immigrant and climb that corporate ladder. No boundaries. No bonds. No bras.

But news flash: Relationships take two. And sadly, thanks to that third-wave wrecking ball, some dating women need to be told some obvious things when it comes to romantic fidelity, even if those things have to come from their partners: Seeking the approval of other men for how you look is a bad idea. Worse, it communicates lots of bad things about your priorities and desires.

Frankly, a man who’s willing to say that tough thing is probably a man worth holding onto. Thanks in part to “toxic masculinity” messaging and the militant feminization of America, a man who shoots for commitment and faithfulness, and communicates those aims in a straightforward way while proposing an amicable split as the alternative, is a rarity.

Oh, how I love those words.

Sadly, Kylee’s view is in the minority today, thanks to feminism. And if men are not allowed to lead a relationship, then the marriage rate will continue to decline. Neither shaming of men nor blaming of men will cause men to accept marriage without leadership.

For more on this topic, I recommend this excellent article by Mark McDonald, M.D., entitled “Why American Women Are Undatable” The subtitle is “No One Wants to Play with a Porcupine”. Indeed not.

I saw an interesting article over at Daily Wire that talks about the most dangerous country in the world for Christians: Nigeria. I thought Nigeria has Boko Haram running around kidnapping people, but the article says that “roughly 90% of all martyrs in 2022 — over 5,000 Christians murdered for their faith — were from Nigeria.” The author of the article is from ADF, so it’s reliable.

The article is paywalled, but here’s an archived copy.

Excerpt:

Northern Nigeria is a place where the Church faces some of the worst persecution on earth. According to Open Doors, roughly 90% of all martyrs in 2022 — over 5,000 Christians murdered for their faith — were from Nigeria.

One of those martyrs was Deborah Emmanuel Yakubu, a Christian student at a university in Sokoto State, who in May 2022 was stoned to death and burnt by her Muslim classmates because of her faith in Jesus. Another Christian woman, Rhoda Jatau, faced a mob and was arrested for blasphemy after the mob accused her of sharing a video that insulted Islam because it condemned the lynching of Deborah.
Rhoda sat in a jail in Bauchi State, Nigeria, for over 18 months because of the accusations. She only saw her family and lawyers at court hearings.

But through her witness to the injustice of the treatment of Christians in Northern Nigeria, both by extremist Islamist mobs and baseless prosecutions, her case caused national outrage.
Earlier this month, after enormous national outcry, Rhoda was finally released on bail, able to spend Christmas this year with her family in safety. While the charges against her are still pending, many within Nigeria and internationally are pushing for them to be dropped fully.

There are a couple of signs that things are improving in the article, here’s one:

As with many places where Christians are a religious minority, converts to Christianity, particularly from Islam, often find it extremely dangerous to practice their faith. Daniel Kefee* was an evangelist in Northern Nigeria who brought a young Muslim woman, Hafsatu*, to Christ. But when her family found out, members of her family threatened to kill her. She sought out help from Daniel, who found a Christian residential school that could care for her.

For helping Hafsatu, Daniel was charged by Nigerian authorities with kidnapping. Yet Daniel and his lawyers bravely presented to the court the reality of what had happened. In an astonishing result given the region, the judge not only acquitted Daniel, but prodded the prosecutors, asking them, “should the defendant have left the girl, what would have happened with her?”

And another one:

Also this year, in another state in Northern Nigeria, a young woman named Mary Olowe* similarly converted to Christianity and faced death threats from her family. She was able to flee and filed for a restraining order against those who threatened her. Once again, the court issued a remarkable decision, granting the order and explicitly recognizing as a fundamental right Mary’s ability to change her religion from Islam to Christianity without facing any threat of violence.

If you like to pray for Christians in other countries, Nigeria should probably be your first pick. The Muslims there are clearly out gunning for Christians. It would be nice if our elected officials in the Biden administration were doing something about this, but I don’t think they care. They have other priorities.