Our National Debt
Why aren’t presidential candidates speaking more about our national debt? When President Bush took office, it was $5.7 trillion. When he leaves office in January of 2009, it will be around $10 trillion.
When you incur debt personally, you are responsible for it. The beauty of national debt as a leader is that YOU don’t have to pay it back. You spend the money; someone else will have to figure out how to deal with the debt.
To understand the looming crisis because of this irresponsibility on the part of our national leaders, check this.
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We all know we get Sports Illustrated for just one reason. (No — not THAT reason.)
Rick Reilly. He’s won the sportswriter of the year award eleven times. But after 23 years with SI, he just left. He’s beginning with ESPN next summer.
God even though our nation debt is $10 trilion may we as Christian advent. May we remember that you gave us your one and only Son for us. (John 3:16) Let us sacrifice and give to those in need despite high gas prices, the our own economic trouble, Lord help us to remember what this time of year is all about. Even in the church of Christ help us to Advent. Amen.
During war time you run the country with a debt. During peace time you pay it off.
Just the way it works. We are in the midst of WWIII, but this time the war is largely not against a country but a mindset of radical Islam. Fighting a country is easy, you know the borders you’re going against. You know the political people you have to take down. Cheap in the grand scheme of things. This war is not cheap, you must first identify the radical muslims from the normal ones (the vast majority of them by the way).
4 Trillion in debt vs. An annual 9/11 like event? Take your pick… I pick the extra debt… and the truth is, our economy is soooo big and powerful that if we really wanted to we could be out of debt in 10 years… easy.
http://www.redstate.com/stories/economy/are_we_good_or_what
And the ‘economic downturn’ the article talks about is a myth. We grew at 4.9% GDP recently… our economy grew larger by the amount of Moracco’s total economy.
I’m neither a prophet or the son of a prophet but I sense the “doctrine of election” will become a coping mechanism for upcoming blog posts.
“All who affirm the use of violence admit it is only a means to achieve justice and peace. But peace and justice are nonviolence…the final end of history. Those who abandon nonviolence have no sense of history. Rathy they are bypassing history, freezing history, betraying history.”
– André Trocmé
“We must not allow ourselves to become like the system we oppose. We cannot afford to use methods of which we will be ashamed when we look back, when we say, ‘…we shouldn’t have done that.’ We must remember, my friends, that we have been given a wonderful cause. The cause of freedom! And you and I must be those who will walk with heads held high. We will say, ‘We used methods that can stand the harsh scrutiny of history.’” Desmond Tutu
I wondered if we invested 4.3 trillion into alternate forms of energy which helped lessen our use of fossil fuel, which in turn would keep us out of wars for oil, and our dependence on oil from terrorist supporting countries like Venezuela, Russia (soon to be the USSR again) & Saudi Arabia. But wait are not all of George’s old buddies living in West Texas…….hhhhhmmmmmmmm…
Wars cost money and this may indeed be WWIII. I am not convinced. But what is not justifiable is to give big tax cuts during a war. When in history did that happen? In my view this policy is
reprehensible.
Republicans like debt because it makes it hard to justify spending money on social programs like health care, medical research, and foreign aid.
Democrats like surplus because it makes it easier to justify spending for social programs.
Neither party wants to leave the country without adequate defense.
Rick Reilly is a national treasure. ESPN is moving toward the modern computer culture, grabbing all the best writers up from the newspaper and magazine industry. They got Matt Mosely from the Dallas Morning News this year and the list get’s longer and longer. The good news is Rick is not going away, we’re just going to find him in a different location.
Is this similar to debt that churches acquire? So often we hear “The Lord will provide” “Have faith” Yet churches all over the country continue to borrow money and pay thousands of dollars on a monthly basis to banks. The Lord is also the one that gave us the “knowlege” for good stewardship and common sense. Just like the national debt, we at church borrow the money then ask future members to pay it back (with interest).
Maybe if both parties run the economy into the ground and the church underground, Christians will realize the futility of putting one iota of hope or trust in the American political nightmare and begin centering their lives on the one true King.
If that’s the result of economic collapse (or even terror that reaches our shores), then I pray it happens.
Referring to this war as “World War III” certainly makes it sound legitimate. Too bad it doesn’t actually make it legitimate.
Shouldn’t we save phrases like “World War” for wars that actually involve more than one country?
A few quotes from Brian McLaren’s latest ["Everything Must Change"] seem appropriate:
“Ten years after the Cold War ended, well before the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the US government’s annual investment in defense had risen to 20 percent of its fiscal budget, more than a half-trillion dollars, and over half of the US national debt was military related (2.9 of 5.6 trillion). Since 9/11, expenditures have exploded.
By 2003, the US military budget was larger than the next fifteen nations combined, spending $2 billion per day on the military; by 2006, the US military budget had swelled by 49 percent over its 2000 levels, not including expense for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. The US military budget was then larger than the next twenty-five nations combined. In other words, the strongest twenty-five countries in the world would have to switch from being US allies (as most of them are) to US enemies in order for the United States to be confronted by a greater force.”
“The 2006 budget showed that US military expenditures were twenty-one times larger than diplomacy and foreign aid combined, and that the United States was dead last among the most developed nations in foreign aid as a percentage of gross domestic product. One wonders what would happen if good-hearted Americans realized that a mere 10 percent of the US military budget, if reinvested in foreign aid and development, could care for the basic needs of the entire world’s poor. Or if they realized that one-half of 1 percent of the US military budget would cut hunger in Africa in half by 2015. Would there be marches in the streets calling for budgetary reform?”
“My country can boast that we produce 53.4 percent of the world’s weapons.”
“In 1999, the US weapons industry supplied arms to 92 percent of the conflicts in process anywhere on the planet, and in a stroke of elegant fairness, often supplied both sides in conflicts. Perhaps most shocking and awful of all: between 1998 and 2001, the United States, Great Britain, and France earned more income from selling weapons to developing countries than they gave those developing countries in aid.”
Ouch!
I saw the most beautiful picture of an Iraqi Soldier being baptized in a baptistry made of sand full of water by an American Chaplin. A group of American Soldiers were around him singing amazing grace. The word of God is being taught and spreading in Iraq. How much is a soul worth?
Well then, shoot, preacherman — why don’t we pre-emptively strike Saudi Arabia or Morocco or Algeria next. Those countries are full of heathen and would be perfect for a few conversion photo ops.
One photo of a baptism (which I first saw about 3 years ago) circulating as an e-mail forward in no way justifies an outrageously expensive (money and lives) and ultimately futile invasion and occupation of a country like Iraq.
Plus, I’d bet that for every Iraqi we’re baptizing, we’re killing 1,000. Maybe more. No hard data to back that up … just my conservative estimate. How much is a soul worth, anyway? Sorry, preacherman — your argument just doesn’t hold water.
I am not supporting war. Or wagging war on other coutries like you assume. I am saying we need to praise God for the Iragi soldier and for others who now have the freedom in Iraq to worship Jesus.
In the places you mention we need to pray for the missionaries in those countries. Pray that the gospel may be preach boldly as Paul did despite the fear of persicution. I have freind Tim Kucuala who is a missionary in one of the places you mention and we to support and pray for those missionaries that they preach boldy gospel without fear of persecution or even death.
But in no way should we invade. That’s just crazy thinking. I am just saying the soul of the Iraqi and other now to have the freedom to worship God is pricesless. I hope we as Christians will understand that as we look the numbers.
No one ever wins in wars.
So God bring us peace.
Let the world see your mercy, love and grace through us as Christians.
I wanted to think of a short, smart, witty way to say this but I can not, so here goes. This is not directed at Mike or anything in particular said here today. However, there is a “the US is bad” tone which I feel in comments when any government issue comes up. I wonder if anyone else feels this way?
I get the idea that it is not considered “putting the Kingdom first” to be too proud or too loud when professing love or gratitude for our citizenship in the USA. Yet when someone judges, corrects, or second guesses the leadership, goverment and policies of the US, no one talks about how that reflects on the Kingdom. Am I just missing the respectful tones, or are they just not there?
You had better not direct your criticism at me, SG. I signed that marriage license. And I can unsign it!
By the way, we think of you fondly every time we pass the anniversary of Megan’s death, remembering how you helped hold us together — even at such a young (as we look back on it now) age. And, a year or two ago you left a salsa recipe on this blog which I just got around to trying. Excelente!
I would never cross the BLOGFATHER…or the signer of my marriage license!
I love your family dearly and always will.
But abouthtese comments… I do think that we as Christians in the US reflect a lot of our own short comings on the government of this country. The USA exists to “form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity”… Not to cure the world of injustice, or hunger, or to bring all who have sinned to Christ. Those are charges made to the church. God asked these things of his children, the church, the bride of Christ, not the government of the USA. I guess I would like us to please consider the reason this country was founded. When comparing the US living up to it’s reason to exist and churches living up to the reasons we exist, who is doing the better job?
Yeah.
Ouch!
Oh and Mike, your guacamole still rocks every time we have fajita night..but we do chicken, not quail!
It makes more sense to talk about Congress rather than the president when assigning responsibility for debt, since all spending is controlled by Congress.
It also makes more sense to talk about the rate of increase rather than the dollar amount (ie, use a logarithmic scale on the graph). In other words, how many years did it take to double? That rate is almost independent of political parties.
If you look at national debt as a percentage of GDP, it is tracking pretty consistently. Following the chart for the past 75 years, the thing that jumps out at you is that wars are the primary cause of the peaks.
Christianity was alive and well under Sadaam Hussein. There was a segment on 20/20 this past Sunday night (12/2) saying how the majority of Christians had either been killed or forced out of the country since we (the U.S.) had arrived. If we really want to preach the gospel, do what the Catholics do – go into these Muslim countries, like Saudi Arabia. That’s one thing you have to give to the Catholics – they’re not afraid to die for what they believe.
As for the debt, we were in the black when Clinton left office. I’m not convinced our grandchildren will ever be out of the debt created by this administration. Oh – wait -yes they will! Since they don’t have health care, they’ll die before reaching adulthood.
bpb,
Here is an idea,
Why not give free health care to all of american children until they reach the 18. That we are protecting our future tax payers.
Samuel told all the words of the LORD to the people who were asking him for a king. He said, “This is what the king who will reign over you will do: He will take your sons and make them serve with his chariots and horses, and they will run in front of his chariots. Some he will assign to be commanders of thousands and commanders of fifties, and others to plow his ground and reap his harvest, and still others to make weapons of war and equipment for his chariots. He will take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks and bakers. He will take the best of your fields and vineyards and olive groves and give them to his attendants. He will take a tenth of your grain and of your vintage and give it to his officials and attendants. Your menservants and maidservants and the best of your cattle and donkeys he will take for his own use. He will take a tenth of your flocks, and you yourselves will become his slaves. When that day comes, you will cry out for relief from the king you have chosen, and the LORD will not answer you in that day.” 1 Samuel 10-18
The more things change the more they stay the same.
SG.
I love my country. I vote everytime the polls are open. I do not try to get out of Jury Duty. I pay my taxes without resentment. I obey most of the laws (I have a bit of a speeding problem, but when I get a ticket I pay it without grumbling.) I have had family members or friends in every war this country fought until this one.
I love the kingdom of God and my church. I tithe. I support my community food banks and women’s shelter, and I provide scholarships for poor children to go to summer camp.
If I disagree with something at church, it does not mean I don’t love the kingdom of God.
If I disagree with the current administration it is because I love my country not evidence that I don’t.
I resent more more than anything the suggestion that if you don’t vote Republican you are not a Christian or a Patriot.
Linda,
If I suggested that, I am sorry, for that was not my intention. I was not saying you have to be of one political persuasion or another. That said, I hope that no one really thinks the US government created or can actually solve the world’s problems. I think Christians would do better to call on other Christians to respond to the poor, neglected, hungry, and forgotten populations of the world instead of trying to make the US government do things it was not made to do. I am not saying that if you disagree with something, you do not care about it. I’m just a stay home Mom who rarely watches anything other than Barney, so I may not know what I am talking about. But I don’t like the ugly anti-US tone I get from some comments that suggests you can not love America and be a Christian. Becasue I do, and I think I am…at least I try.
SG,
I am sorry that I misread your comments. I admit to having a chip on my shoulder about this issue.
We probably agree about this–the hope of the world is in Christ, not the US Government.
My point was that it is not anti-US to suggest that we are wrong in our policy in the middle east. If saying that sounds ugly, then I need to say it better. (Maybe give up the sarcasm?)
And thank you for being a stay at home mom. What a great opportunity to really change the world for the better.
I think it’s time for a group hug.
No, really. Meet me at the ATL airport tomorrow at the Chili’s on the Delta concourse.
Well?
I agree SG. One can be patriotic and love the Lord with all their heart mind and soul. One isn’t exclusive of another. I too tire of negative comments made about the country in which we reside.
SG said: “I think Christians would do better to call on other Christians to respond to the poor, neglected, hungry, and forgotten populations of the world instead of trying to make the US government do things it was not made to do.”
Debt incurred by churches is something that should be equally looked at. MEGA churches with huge staffs and enormous technology are not a sign of being more Christian. Many times it’s a sign of being more in debt. While none of those things are wrong, it’s difficult to understand why so many are concerned about the governments debt but believe the church’s debt is acceptable. They believe the government should be more cost effective and help the poor more, but don’t believe the same about the church. And sadly don’t think the church is even up to the task of caring for the needy.
bqb,
Where do you get the information that makes you think we were “in the black” when Clinton left office? We most certainly weren’t. They merely PROJECTED that there would be a surplus at some point, based on a WILDLY OPTIMISTIC model of indefinite economic growth that was absolutely impossible to attain (i.e. the “dot-com” boom/bust).
Even with a surplus of income, you aren’t “in the black”. If you have 5 trillion dollars of debt, and you take in 100 billion more than you spent this year, you are still 4.9 trillion dollars in debt, or IN THE RED. Or, in the case of a money-drunk congress, you just spend it…
The best thing for the morons in Washington would be a massive tax cut that deprives them of the money they so freely spend on everything from Alpaca research to bailing out idiots who bought too much house. They have created debt in the same way we have neurosurgeons with credit card debt: they are drunk with money, and it will NEVER BE ENOUGH. Cut it by 75% and make them figure it out, I say.
I don’t know bqb, have you ever felt a fine alpaca shirt or sweater? I can send you a nice alpaca rug from Peru, you’ll love it.
They taste good too…
A quick aside to BQB: annual deficits and total national debt are not the same thing. “In the black” under Clinton? Not by a long shot, and the U. S. economy did not take a monster hickey under Clinton the way we did on 9/11.
GWB certainly bears significant responsibility for the current deficit. It’s undeniable. Left-leaning folks here who are honest about their redistributionist urges will recognize, however – with what qb expects to be generous gratitude and moral gratification – that the projected deficit can be attributed in part to a major expansion in Medicare drug benefits (and educational spending?), which GWB had a significant hand in getting enacted. Taking care of the “needy,” and all that. We’re also proposing to spend more on AIDS relief in Africa. Anybody on the left want to claim that Bush’s fiscal profligacy in those regards is unwarranted or ill advised? I didn’t think so; if anything, the pitiful sums expended on these programs are going to be seen as insults to the dignity of the old and diseased, simply because the annual increases weren’t big enough to escape being described on the left as “draconian cuts.” *chuckle*
Under both Republican and Democratic administrations during the last 16 years, we have witnessed an all-out retreat from any sort of fiscal self-restraint. Bush is, in many ways, a CRINO, even including his first impulses for selecting SC justices. (Prithee who can fathom a conservative selecting a Miers before an Alito?)
Let us also pause to imagine where we would be, deficit- and debt-wise, if in 1993 Hillarycare had carried the day. The mind boggles!
In short, perhaps there is something to be said for taking more than one dimension of national financial health into consideration before making a sweeping political judgment or assigning unique political blame. Bush is profligate, to be sure; he also has about 500 willing accomplices on both sides of the aisle in both houses who are all too happy to let him take the heat for his free-spending ways while they just go innocently along with him.
BTW, Mike, would you be interested in holding forth on how our entitlement structures (and the systemically enabling, groupthink mentality that mandates them) contribute to our current fiscal imbalances? I mean, let’s just stipulate for the sake of argument that war spending is a huge component. Then what? Any chance that the proliferation of demographic classes entitled to a piece of your grandchildrens’ wallets is partially responsible?
We can’t have it both ways, prophesying against the accelerating debt on one hand while calling for more institutionalized, perpetualized, social spending (a. k. a., “rent-seeking”) on the other. But there is apparently no law against trying!
Amusedly,
qb
Sorry, I meant to address that to kerry.
This is how the Roman Empire, the British Empire, and the Soviet Union collapsed – endless wars and massive military budgets. They simply spent themselves into oblivion! The definition of hubris is believing we are different!
I could be wrong about this, I’ve been out of school a long time now, but wasn’t the government first formed to provide a military? That was the total function of govenment. It has been so changed along the way.
I also remember that when the first President Bush laid out a plan to put the govenment back on track finacially, it would take at least 8 years to target. He wasn’t President when that was suppose to of happened. Then a lot of new programs were started by the next president and at the end of his term, it was falling apart. When the second President Bush lowered the taxes, that was what fueled the economy. When business grows there are more jobs.
I love both his, Who’s Your Caddy? and Hate Mail from Cheerleaders. The later is a collection of his favorite back page columns in SI through the years.
Government grows bigger and bigger with no end in sight. Much prayer is needed in regards to how we collect and waste money.
Peace.
Thank you, qb! Thank you!!!
I’ll miss Reill’s more when he’s gone from SI. He’s so good – you sometimes wonder if he’s really that good – or if he just finds the best topics to write on.
Does the national debt looking anything like the cost of a college education? Maybe add a couple of zeroes -but who’s counting.
The only president who ever paid off the national debt of this country was… Andrew Jackson! That was before 1850. Not since that time has our national debt been zero.
Do not pine away for a debt-free country on the one hand and then pine away for the government to provide everything for free (health care, social services, etc.). Pick one or the other. But always remember the quote from the 1850′s: The death of a democracy occurs whenever the population realizes that they can vote themselves money from the treasury. That is where we are heading. (But as SG pointed out, it seems quite a few people reading this blog think that might be a good idea!)
Mike,
This is all that Ron Paul has been talking about.
According to my Macroeconomics teacher we blow the national debt way out of proportion. Even though the debt it very large it isn’t that large for a industrialized nation of our size. It is also healthy for a nation to have some debt. Of couse not as much as ours. Also he said that if we really wanted to we could impose a special tax and get rid of the debt very quickly but of course that isn’t the popular thing to do and will never happen. So it looks like we are going to have to live with our debt until someone steps up and taxes us like crazy for a year or two.
SG,
You wrote, “I hope that no one really thinks the US government created or can actually solve the world’s problems.”
I do believe that the U.S. government creates some of the world’s problems. It works evil. I thereby believe that it can lessen some problems by reversing its actions. (Note how you resorted to such absolute language when it isn’t called for. That’s a sign that your fooling yourself with a straw-man argument.)
Consider: the campaign to exterminate Native Americans; the Mexican-American War; the Spanish-American War; Dresden, Hiroshima, and Nagasaki; the School of the Americas; the IMF and the WTO; support for criminal leaders and their oppressive governments throughout the world (Pinochet, Samoza/Contras, the Sauds, Saddam Hussein); and the USA arms industry, as noted in Terry Cagle’s comment.
The U.S. government creates poverty. It creates, in your words, “forgotten people” (consider the “disappeared” of Nicaragua). It kills and destroys. If you aren’t actually aware of this, then I’m sorry that you have been so misled by your church and your society; you’ll be both liberated and called to repentance if you read some history. If you are aware of these things, then why would you object to those who point them out and criticize them? Should the church not prophesy against those things?
Let’s further break down your posts. You say, “there is a ‘the US is bad’ tone which I feel in comments when any government issue comes up.” From this, it sounds like you think that such a tone is inappropriate. But, as I suggested above, the U.S. government is bad.
Further, you state, “when someone judges, corrects, or second guesses the leadership, goverment and policies of the US, no one talks about how that reflects on the Kingdom. Am I just missing the respectful tones, or are they just not there?” You seem to indicate that judgment, correction, and second-guessing the government reflect badly on God’s kingdom, but aren’t those three things appropriate for God’s people when they see wickedness? Does it reflect well on God when his people support evil? Why are “respectful tones” necessary when addressing evil deeds? Will public opinion of the church suffer if it is critical of the U.S. government? Is such loss of public support inherently bad?
You go on to describe the purpose of the U.S. as stated in the U.S. Constitution. We could debate that purpose (Is it God-ordained? Is it good?) and how well the government’s actions match those ends, but that is beside the point. Even if the government does these things, it does not thereby escape responsibility for the evil it does. Your line of argument is like me defending myself after murdering my next-door neighbor by saying, “My purpose in life is to love my wife; it says so in my marriage vows!”. Did you really think that argument through? Maybe you should ask yourself why you latched on to a specious argument that so easily lets the U.S. government off the hook.
You appear to present in your follow-up posts a theology of sacred-profane compartmentalization and a theology of salvation that doesn’t address God’s opposition to evil everywhere, whether in individual hearts or in the workings of human society. Neither seems very biblical to me.
I hope you take the time to think this through.
I love that we can discuss these things on Mike’s blog. I think it’s safe to say that we need an outlet. While some comment on here with very narrow views (left AND right), it seems to me a healthy thing to debate these issues. We should know where we stand on them and we should allow our faith to penetrate these difficult issues. From what I have seen on Mike’s blog, that is one of his primary missions. I love being pushed to think. I like being convicted. And I am grateful that each of you do that for me.
Having said that…I vote to change Congress as well. Very disapppointed in this group of congress-men and women.
Jeff W – Well done.
I read Alan Greenspan’s autobiography, he sees this as a terrible situation. There is certainly room to spend some in this nation. But Greenspan was disappointed in Bush for increasing the debt.
http://www.matthewsblog.waynesborochurchofchrist.org
Jeff W
What Government that has ever existed on the face of the earth would you reccomend we replace this one with? The one nation that has ever been directly under God’s authority was instructed to eliminate every man, woman and child of more than one etnicity from the face of the earth. The history of the world is that every nation, people, ethnic group etc could be tagged with the same things you say about the US in your post. You neglect to say the 2 to 3 hundred thousand killed in Hiroshima and Nagasaki were considerably fewr than the estimates for a land invasion of Japan called for. Talk about straw man arguments.
It all boils down to the same thing time and time again. We have more faith in the government than in the church. We feel better about our service to man if we think the government is doing it for us. It’s easier and more in vogue among left leaning Christians to be mad at how the government responds to human need than it is to be upset with the church and our individual selves on how we respond to human need.
Upset about the nation debt? I think not. It sounds more like some are just upset that the government isn’t doing the church’s job.
Jeff W.
How does the US Govt role in ending WW1 and WW2 Jibe with your US is Evil mantra. How about the money being spent to fight aids in Africa? How does the US govt create poverty? How can it eliminate it when Jesus said the poor will always be with you? Again I ask What Govt. that has ever existed in this world has been better? Which would you replace ours with?
Mark,
You write, “What Government that has ever existed on the face of the earth would you reccomend we replace this one with?” Note that I didn’t recommend that we (Americans? Christians? American Christians?) replace the U.S. government with another; I didn’t even recommend that we vote to change the current one. I wrote that we should recognize its evils and speak out against them. My intent was to suggest prophetic action, but perhaps that wasn’t clear. (Note that you used very extreme language — dismantling or destroying one government and replacing it with another — when it wasn’t really called for. This, again, is a tip-off to yourself that you are creating a straw man.
You also write, “The one nation that has ever been directly under God’s authority was instructed to eliminate every man, woman and child of more than one etnicity from the face of the earth.” Further, some Christians, myself included, do not believe that God has ever so instructed a people (I assume you’re referring to Israel). Some of those Christians, myself included, even believe strongly in the authority of scripture. The issue of scriptural authority and genocide won’t be worked out in our fellowship in this blog commentary, so I won’t try to convince you of my position. Yet I worry about why you have brought this up. Does your treatment of the scriptures open the door for you, your government, or anyone else to perpetrate a genocide with impunity? Does it justify a war? Many an atheist would react to an affirmative answer by judging you a miserably wicked person. Think this through carefully: you are on very shaky ground. If this is God’s position on genocide, then the aforementioned atheist is beyond God’s reach, and God is an utterly incapable bringer of good news. Be very careful.
You further write, “The history of the world is that every nation, people, ethnic group etc could be tagged with the same things you say about the US in your post.” You are absolutely, totally, one hundred percent correct. And the church should speak truth to power in all places.
You end your first reply with, “You neglect to say the 2 to 3 hundred thousand killed in Hiroshima and Nagasaki were considerably fewr than the estimates for a land invasion of Japan called for.”
These estimates are much disputed. Lots of ink has been devoted to the history of how Truman made his decisions, how rationales for behavior were crafted during and after the war, and how true accounts of the bombings and the decision-making process were kept from the public. Two things appear certain: the U.S. government did not act truthfully in the affair, and Truman elected to kill thousands of powerless people.
You write, “How does the US Govt role in ending WW1 and WW2 Jibe with your US is Evil mantra.” I don’t have such a mantra. You have patently made that up.
You write, “How about the money being spent to fight aids in Africa?”. What about all the money being collected to fight wars in Africa? Don’t both deserve our attention?
You write, “How does the US govt create poverty?”. It does so a lot through the IMF and WTO. Read up.
“How can it eliminate it when Jesus said the poor will always be with you?”. Straw man.
“Again I ask What Govt. that has ever existed in this world has been better? Which would you replace ours with?”. Again, straw man.
You must do better.
Jeff B.
Jeff w.
You are correct that you didn’t say the US govt was evil, you said it “works evil” not that it is evil. Maybe I felt you thought it was evil because you say it is Bad. Your original post was in answer to SG feeling that people were bashing the US when complaining about it. You say speaking truth to power, what happened to speaking the truth in love? That is where I and I assume SG are coming from. You use examples of what you say are the US Govt working Evil from WW2 to condemn the US but when I ask about the US working good you dismiss it and attack my question. I’ll rephrase, how does the good the US worked in WW1 and2 jibe with your US is bad mantra You did say it was BAD. Just because you say you and many christians don’t think the Bible says what it says is true and just because you can find a source or 2 to question Trumans decision doesn’t mean my comments are not relevant I’m sure I can find more source material for either of my contentions than you can for yours. Just because you say straw man to any of the points I ask you to address doesn’t make them so. The original post was about tone. You choose to take a Derisive tone toward the US because it Worked evil and was BAD. I asked what about when it works good? Do you acknowledge that the US works Good ? You said the US was bad, I asked what you would replace it with, you refuse to answer saying you never said to replace it. Deriding something without having a way to make things better? Thats the exact tone that was offensive to begin with.