I’m out of the loop with popular culture, but apparently a book called The Shack is very popular. There are many articles and podcasts dissecting its errors. For example, here and here.

I first heard of The Shack when family members mentioned that it discusses the Trinity. Just a tip: When a popular work discusses the Trinity, warning flags should go up. Historically, attacks on the Trinity have been at the core of all sorts of heresies.

One of the chief heresies of the last century is feminism. While feminism may seem spent as a political phenomenon, its errors have invaded the church so deeply that they are unrecognized. Feminists hate the doctrine of the Trinity, not only because it speaks of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as “He,” but also because it is a model of godly submission. The Son submits to the father and the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son in the same way that the church submits to Christ, wives submit to husbands, children obey parents, slaves obey masters, etc. (Ephesians 5:22-24, Ephesians 6). The head is then called to love the one submitting.

Here’s a helpful article on the Trinity.

This is my favorite snippet of his. It’s the funniest way you can spend three minutes learning how politicians think. Republican ones, too.

That’s Peter Schiff on how the health care bill will destroy the private insurance market. The proposed bill doesn’t take effect until after 2012, conveniently bypassing the next presidential election. In 2016, when the scope of the disaster is dawning on people, they probably won’t tie it back to the 2009 bill. Instead, greedy insurance companies and speculators will be blamed, just as oil greedy oil companies are blamed for high gas prices instead of the devalued dollar.

Regardless of whether the health care monstrosity passes, the size of unfunded liabilities (most of which are health-care related) ensures that rationing will ratchet up in the next decade. It’s going to take longer to see the doctor, especially specialists. Fewer treatments will be available. The process will be even more bureaucratic. The wages of big government is poverty.

Start thinking in general about how to deal with your health situations when your doctor’s office is less available. If you rely currently on, say, monitoring your blood pressure regularly and you do this at your doctor, think about getting your own home unit. These are the kind of things where one could expect to see shortages.

Email arose to get around the postal service mail monopoly. Cell phones have circumvented heavily taxed and regulated local phone services. How will the free market circumvent the government health care monopoly?

I think you’ll see more trips to Mexico and other countries for medical care. Walk-in pay clinics? Great idea, although those will be threats to the gov’t system and likely there will be pressure to outlaw them. There is already a huge amount of medical data online, professional and homespun. Maybe we’ll see more businesses arise allowing people to ask questions of specialists on the internet. These will have to be careful with all the personal injury attornies out there. Another way would be to let people buy prescription drugs with cash, without seeing a doctor, but that will never be allowed for various reasons (almost none of them good). Maybe some enterprising people will come up with ways to do various medical tests and solutions at home. More of these would undoubtedly exist if it weren’t for government regulatory oversight that adds huge cost barriers to innovation.

By the way, if any of you make any of these ideas fly, I fully expect to be reimbursed.

It’s an odd thing to sit and watch the country you grew up in being dismantled piece by piece. Some of this, like the end of the U.S. empire that grew up after the World Wars, is likely a good thing for America. However, the reason that the empire will end– massive debt– is not. Nor is the ongoing push for more regulation and more capital creation roadblocks in the name of environmentalism, fairness, etc.

The push toward national health care is probably not stoppable. Young people, who support Obama’s policies far more than older folks, want it. Twenty-somethings don’t understand economics or what makes an economy grow. They just know they’re unemployed and prospects don’t look good. Maybe more slavery will help.

I was recently in an emergency room for the first time. I naively expected periods of calm punctuated by the seriously-ill being wheeled in noisily and hurriedly. It wasn’t like that. It was a leisurely affair, with people sauntering in with their kids. Some were apparently being tested for the flu. Adults were coming in to have casts checked. No one was crying or distraught. In short, it was a lot like my doctor’s office.

I bring this up because emergency rooms are one of the first things brought up by liberal “reformers.” They tell us that further government mandates are necessary to deal with free riders who abuse the system.

Now, of course those who use an ER as a doctor’s office are consuming resources without paying for them. But what else is new? These freeloaders are already living on all sorts of public assistance– housing, food, child care, etc. Free emergency room care is just another brick in the wall of dependency. Liberals aren’t interested in phasing out the massive welfare/entitlement system that makes it all possible, they just want to use a valid point to grow the government further. It’s no different than when they tell us that reform is needed because expenses are climbing out of control… and yet their “solutions” greatly increase costs.

The ER situation is yet another example of the government creating a large mess — in this case, by forcing hospitals to provide free ER care for those who cannot pay — and then telling us that we need more more mandates and cost-shifting to clean it up. Yet again, only the government and its vast “resources” can deal with this one, so everyone scoot out of the way, please!

There’s a better way to handle ER care.

But we urge you, brethren, that you increase more and more; that you also aspire to lead a quiet life, to mind your own business… 1 Thess 4:10-11

Those who are busy-bodies, meddling in other men’s matters, generally have but little quiet in their own minds and cause great disturbances among their neighbours. -Matthew Henry

A thought has been occurring to me lately: Why do people think they can steward my money better than I can?

Imagine if I were granted the right to steward your money for you. Perhaps I’d make you buy cloth diapers. You can forget about that SUV; a used Cavalier will do. Don’t give me that nonsense about an easier way to ferry the kids home from school! You can cram three in the back of that Cavalier if you try. Your kids should be riding the school bus anyway (oh, I forgot, they will be going to public school because the private one costs too much). You can plan to start eating soy instead of steak, chubby. Also, your clothing will be furnished off the Old Navy clearance rack, and Old Shep will be dining on the cheapest 50lb bag of dog food that I can find.

Can you imagine being such an arrogant busybody, nannying the lives of other adults? Well, when we vote for a bond issue, or we support a new tax or a new government entitlement, that’s what we are doing. We are putting a claim on other people’s money. We’re reducing the money that they have available to steward for themselves. In effect, we are telling the government to spend other people’s money for them in accordance with our wishes.

How about we let people steward their own money instead, and let them be answerable to God for it?

I often do not steward my money wisely, but I can guarantee you one thing: I steward it more wisely than the government stewards its money. I’m not $100 trillion in debt, for example.

Granted, it’s not a very high bar to jump over.

Eat whatever is sold in the meat market without raising any question on the ground of conscience. -1 Cor 10:25

In The Weight of Glory, C.S. Lewis talked of us peopling the earth with nymphs and elves to express a desire to be united with the beauty we see. Today, we people our animals. My generation watched Bambi and Bugs Bunny as kids, but really, animals were seen as animals.

How things have changed in 20 years.

The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) is unaffiliated with local humane societies. Their agenda is to veganize America. They are supported by many of the usual celebrity suspects. Flush with success in other states like California and Michigan, HSUS began targeting Ohio for farming regulations. Farming groups responded by putting Issue 2 on the Ohio ballot.

Issue 2 is ugly: it seeks to amend the state constitution and it gets the politicians’ noses further under the tent when it comes to regulating farm policy. However, the alternative is very likely an HSUS-supported issue on a future ballot that’ll enshrine activist idiocy in the constitution. Thus you see “Yes on 2″ signs galore along rural roads. And it’s why you have groups like the Sierra Club — normally lovers of regulation and government control — opposing issue 2.

The animal rights argument really is theological. Almost everyone believes that animals should be stewarded humanely. However, animal rights activists deny the creation mandate, especially Genesis 1:30. They deny that farm animals are on earth to bless mankind with food. They deny that a man is more important than many sparrows. They seek, in the usual authoritarian fashion, to force others to abide by their bad morality (for now, this will come in the form of higher prices, which is exactly what isn’t needed during a severe recession).

Sadly, animal rights groups have bound the weak consciences of many young people, deceiving them into believing that meat and dairy are evil. There’s no Scriptural basis for this. This is why young Christians who become vegans or announce sympathy with veganism should be challenged.

Two stories hit recently: the coming end of don’t ask, don’t tell and the extension of “hate crimes” protection to homosexuals. Expect the latter to be used eventually against a recalcitrant (i.e. faithful) church.

This came to mind again while reading a recent Baylyblog post on Derek Webb. I’ve never cared for Webb. He’s always supported the earnest and trendy leftist causes of the sort championed by Bono (Bono’s support for a cause should always ring alarm bells). I had my fill long ago of “mold-breaking” artists who are too self-consciously cool and precious. They’re the incarnations of an Ipod commercial.

Now Webb is angered about intolerance. Not surprisingly, this anger is accompanied by cussing. You know, the intentional cussing that is seen a mark of liberation and righteous anger, despite Ephesians 4:29. This is cool stuff in a certain subset of “evangelical” culture.

I used to blog occasionally about old-school legalism (don’t drink, smoke, or chew), but came to realize there aren’t many of these legalists left. Similarly, the “intolerant” (i.e. those who take Scripture seriously) are dwindling. The homosexual train rolls on, unimpeded. Remember the conservative firestorm when “don’t ask, don’t tell” was implemented just 15 short years ago? The new move will occur with nary a peep. The “climate of fear” that the other side tells us about is there, it’s just that the careers at stake are those who dare question sodomy.

And yet people like Derek Webb remain offended.

Too bad. The consciences of a remnant will always be pricked, and the seeds will grow. There’s no stopping it because there is no stopping the kingdom of God. People can be publicly silenced, but unnatural is unnatural, sin is sin, and God is the maker and changer of hearts.

One day the only opinion that will matter is the Lord’s opinion. Who is on the Lord’s side? That’s the question that really matters.

I’m not a fan of George Will, but he has hit on what seems to be Barack Obama’s defining trait: arrogance.

Will also hits on the tiresome political-speak, a feature of every presidency of my lifetime. It’s a reminder of what Orwell said in Politics and the English Language:

[Political p]rose consists less and less of words chosen for the sake of their meaning, and more and more of phrases tacked together like the sections of a prefabricated hen-house.

He doesn’t hit the target 100% of the time (who does?), but few writers land harder punches than Gary North. Here is yet another example.

“Keep your eye on the yellow buses.” Indeed.

Well, it looks like the foot-draggers have finally lost out. The mainline Lutheran church (ELCA) voted 559-441 to allow homosexuals in “lifelong” and “committed” relationships to serve as clergy.

At least until the next convention, it has been made clear that the sodomy must be monogamous sodomy. How’s that for a qualification? Could we actually see the spectacle of an “unfaithful” sodomite pastor being hauled before a church court to explain why he cheated on his “life partner?”

Monogamous sodomy makes about as much sense as monogamous bestiality or monagamous whoredom. It’s as if the monogamy lends an air of self-control and virtue to damnable perversity.

Nevertheless, the ELCA– the denomination I grew up in and that family members still attend– is further along than I thought. As usual, the move is accompanied by unbelievably ignorant lies like this:

“We live today with an understanding of homosexuality that did not exist in Jesus’ time and culture,” Tim Mumm, a lay delegate from Wisconsin and supporter of Lutherans Concerned, an gay-rights organization, said during the debate. “We are responding to something that the writers of Scripture could not have understood.”

It seems like The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) and other mainline denominations have been debating sodomy forever. While some ELCA pastors are correctly saying that the debate is about the authority of the Word, that ship sailed long ago for the ELCA and the other mainline denoms. It sailed even before they decided that “I do not permit a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man” didn’t really mean “I do not permit a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man.” Sodomy is just the next exit down the highway.

I’ll hazard a guess that all of the mainline denominations would have capitulated on this issue years ago but for one reason: money. Namely, the dollars that older folks throughout small-town America give to the church. The hicks have sadly made their peace with egalitarianism– most don’t even know that it’s a Biblical issue any longer– but they won’t accept sodomy.

Their leadership knows it. They know it’s best to deny the faith at a subdued volume, using measured tones and well-starched collars. Better yet, let’s just talk about unity and teamwork and caring and skip the controversy altogether. How it must annoy these moderate modernists when the loudmouths on both sides start riling things up! Let us have peace, friends.

The mainline churches will continue shrinking. At some point they’ll reach that critical mass where the political activists in the leadership will finally outnumber their foot-dragging modernist brethren. And then the stragglers who still stand on a modicum of Biblical authority will see their leaders get the boot. And that will be that.

This is the best definition I’ve seen, courtesy of some guy on Lew Rockwell’s blog. It’s fitting for progressives inside and outside the church:

Progressive: A self-congratulatory word used by the lemming at the front of the pack to describe himself, as he and his fellows “progress” toward the edge of the cliff.

I caught about 5 minutes of a cable show about the 60s counterculture. In it, the actor Danny Glover informs us:

[Haight Ashbury of 1967] was about taking mescaline and [having sex]. It was about smoking weed and [having sex]. [I]t was almost like the revolution was now you can [have sex] every night whether it was having an orgy, whether it’s going to an encounter group. I remember going to the Grateful Dead’s ranch, where everyone would spend the whole weekend nude.

If that sounds like pure hedonism, it just shows how clueless you are. Glover continues:

But it’s hard to reduce it to that, because I don’t want to diminish any of my political commitment and what we were trying to do.

LOL! The documentary plays along with this pretentious conceit. These kids weren’t just there to get stoned and have sex. No sir, they had loftier goals. They were reevaluating societal mores and exploring their freedom.

Hopefully parents feed their kids heads with discernment to see through this wistful, juvenile nonsense. It’s amazing that anyone still sees the 1960s as meaningful, at least in a good way.

Are people going nuts? I have seen and heard of a number of marriages breaking up recently in strange ways. And now comes the odd story of South Carlina Governor Mark Sanford.

Trend researcher Gerald Celente says that when people lose everything, they tend to lose it. True, perhaps, but in all of the cases I’ve heard of, the economy was at best indirectly involved in these marital situations. (I’ve said it many times before, but I believe that the real disaster is yet to come with the economy).

Every time a moral downfalls occurs, we get the usual flood of mockers who are only too happy to pounce. “Ha, another Christian hypocrite!” To the mocker, it’s better to set the bar an inch off the ground and step over it than to set the bar six feet off the ground and fail in jumping over it.

This isn’t to excuse Mark Sanford. He may be an unrepentant fraud for all I know. Church history is replete with them. The Bible warns of those among us who were never of us.

While I don’t want to downplay it, hypocrisy is a fact of life with all believers to some extent, even if it does not lead to scandalous sin. I’ve experienced enough of myself to know that I’m at the head of the “pathetic loser” line. However, to mockers, you’re either perfect or a fake. That’s quite convenient for them. If no man can jump their bar, then they posit that no man has the right to speak God’s judgment against them.

However, man does have the right to do exactly that. God commands it. God commands pastors and elders (sinners all!) to proclaim His righteous judgment. You see, mockers, when R.C. Sproul and Tim Bayly and John MacArthur say that the unrepentant will be thrown into Hell, they’re just proclaiming what Jesus said. If it were only their opinion, it wouldn’t matter, but Jesus Christ, the King of Kings, has proclaimed it. Therefore it matters. Even if you shut up every messenger, the message remains. The eternal God remains. Judgment is coming. There’s no stopping it.

And know this, mockers: God doesn’t grade on a curve. I measure my relative successes against others (and overlook my failures) as well as any sinner, but one man’s scandal doesn’t make you look good to God by comparison. God isn’t comparing you to other people. He’s comparing you to a standard of perfect obedience. If you aren’t trusting in Christ– that is, if you don’t have the imputed, spotless perfection of Christ’s righteousness– then you are on the road to Hell. And you’ll deserve it. The mocking will soon be over.

Mockers, don’t use incidents like this to harden your hearts further. Turn now.

As an addendum to the last post, it’s telling that Barack Obama was shocked and outraged at George Tiller’s murder, but he’s not shocked and outraged at George Tiller’s long career of destroying infants.

The infamous Wichita abortionist George Tiller, who has long been one of the most loathsome child killers in the country, was apparently murdered by someone today. Bad things tend to happen to people who spend their lives doing bad things. Live by the sword, die by the sword.

Tiller has long had the tacit approval of his “church,” Reformation Lutheran (what a misuse of the word reformation; deformation would be more like it). Tiller was an usher at the church. He was killed while handing out bulletins. Imagine having your bulletin handed to you by a guy who has profited by killing tens of thousands of infants by poking scissors into the back of their skull and sucking out their brains with a vacuum. “May I show you to your pew?” Now Tiller has been ushered into judgment.

Tiller’s murderer, if guilty, will go to trial and hopefully receive his just sentence of death. While I can’t mourn Tiller’s passing, I do pray that God uses this not to harden, but to bring repentance to his family. Pray that pro-abortion evildoers are not successful at using this incident to persecute lawful opponents of Tiller’s wickedness.

Is there a greater example of men’s darkness than how they glorify men like George Tiller? You’ll probably see plenty of it in the next few days.

Barack Obama implores us to find “common ground” on abortion. Lather, rinse, repeat. The liberal playbook never changes.

“Common ground” means that we all be nice and talk to each other while liberals and their abortionist friends get their way. The killings will continue and all will be as it ever was. Big loser: the hapless unborn.

The other day Obama was warning about a debt crisis as if he were a passerby instead of a powerful Senator who faithfully voted to expand federal spending at every turn, or as if was not he, but instead his evil twin who’s been insanely pushing the expansion of the national debt. Now he’s playing the nation’s pastor-in-chief.

The man’s lawbreaking shamelessness is just amazing.

There is a group on Facebook called “Cancel Student Loan Debt to Stimulate the Economy.” The group has just under 200,000 members (!). Its arguments are absurd, but no more so than any other arguments for bailouts.

At best, public stimulus is inefficient. At worst (which is where government decision-making normally resides), it’s downright destructive. Not only does it remove private savings that would’ve been used to create or expand real enterprises, it’s used for handouts to groups that stifle innovation, that regulate, that create bureaucracies, etc. We’d be better off as a country if the government just printed up all the stimulus money and drove it off a cliff.

I was reminded of this great old article by the late, great economist Murray Rothbard. Rothbard posited that the the answer to an unpayable public debt is outright repudiation. He distinguished between public and private debt:

If I borrow money from a mortgage bank, I have made a contract to transfer my money to a creditor at a future date; in a deep sense, he is the true owner of the money at that point, and if I don’t pay I am robbing him of his just property. But when government borrows money, it does not pledge its own money; its own resources are not liable. Government commits not its own life, fortune, and sacred honor to repay the debt, but ours. This is a horse, and a transaction, of a very different color.

What about the savers, the elderly fixed-income holders, and the foreigners hold these IOUs? Rothbard’s words were stern:

The public debt transaction… will be paid back not out of the pockets or the hides of the politicians and bureaucrats, but out of the looted wallets and purses of the hapless taxpayers, the subjects of the state. The government gets the money by tax-coercion; and the public creditors, far from being innocents, know full well that their proceeds will come out of that selfsame coercion (my exmphasis).

I for one had never really thought of it that way. Why hold ANY government debt? First, there’s no way they’ll ever pay it all back, and so, for example, the kids out there with unpayable college debts will likely make off with cheap and probably worthless educations (the government is the “creditor” for most college loans, but it borrowed that money from someone else). Second, why should I loan the government the means to extend its own power? Third, and most important, isn’t it immoral to hold debt in hopes of receiving interest that is forcibly extracted from others? I’ve concluded that yes, it is immoral. (That said, there’s no real way to get around holding some government debt since every Federal Reserve note i.e. dollar in your pocket is debt courtesy of the government’s counterfeiting operation, and legal tender laws force us to hold these false weights and measures. We have to swim to some extent in the cesspool.)

To those who argued that no one would loan to the government again if they repudiate the debt, Rothbard responded with a thumbs-up:

Apart from the moral, or sanctity-of-contract argument against repudiation that we have already discussed, the standard economic argument is that such repudiation is disastrous, because who, in his right mind, would lend again to a repudiating government? But the effective counterargument has rarely been considered: why should more private capital be poured down government rat holes? It is precisely the drying up of future public credit that constitutes one of the main arguments for repudiation, for it means beneficially drying up a major channel for the wasteful destruction of the savings of the public. What we want is abundant savings and investment in private enterprises, and a lean, austere, low-budget, minimal government. The people and the economy can only wax fat and prosperous when their government is starved and puny.

Anyway, it’s a great article on a topic that will be increasingly prominent in coming years.

Years ago, I worked with a software developer from the Ukraine. We were talking about something related to Russian politicians, and he abruptly looked at me and said: “They’re all creem-een-als.” Those of you who’ve known Eastern European emigres or read their materials know that they possess a certain biting wit. But this guy wasn’t joking. He meant it. He’d seen it. At the time, I laughed it off as hopeless cynicism.

Now I think I finally understand. I’ve really come to see politicians as largely a criminal class. Here’s yet another example.

There’s really no difference between this congresswoman and a thug in an alley with a switchblade.

That title sounds appropriately pretentious.

Environmentalists, at least those interested in politics, are essentially authoritarians. They want to regulate how much water is in our toilets, what kind of light bulbs we use, how much we use our air conditioners, etc. The lash of the state’s whip is their friend. They take something we all agree about — good stewardship, which the market price system handles quite well — and seek power through it. The latest fad is the use of debt and inflation to “create alternative energy jobs.” They are spending our savings and the savings of our descendants because they know what is best for the planet. Sure they do.

Today is liberal Easter. Instead of a cross, there’s a bin where paper can be thrown and spring anew after loads of costly energy is spent recycling it. On this high holy day, we were reminded a million times again to “do our part.” A friend of mine said that he felt like littering today. I know the feeling.

Chesterton’s well-worn line is that when people don’t believe in God, they’ll believe in anything. As a corollary, when people deny the law of God, they create all sorts of rules and regulations to live by as they work their way to heaven (or whatever they call it).

David Wegener cleverly conveys a loathsome style of writing in his excellent summary of the deterioration of Christianity Today over the years:

Articles: There used to be serious articles on core doctrines of the faith: progressive revelation, inerrancy, the Trinity, original sin, justification, sanctification, the Day of Judgment, hell, etc., all of them written by learned pastors and theologians. Today, we’re taken on a journey as the free lance author recounts her confusion on some topic (like fashion or global warming or endangered species) and how she decided to investigate this topic and went to a conference put on by evangelicals on her topic. She tells us how her plane was delayed and she had trouble checking in to the conference hotel, and missed her first session, but how it was okay, cause she ran into the seminar leader in the restaurant and ate lunch with him and how he was nice and funny and normal even though a great man. Then she details all the difficulties in coming to any firm conclusions on this topic and tells us how nuance and humility are really important and necessary, but we can be sure of this, and then out comes some platitude worthy of a 7th grader in Sunday school.

Beyond the self-absorption and shallowness, there’s an aspect of this style of writing that I see also in the Episcopal church newsletter that still comes to our door (don’t ask). Every page of it is a denial of the faith, but it never really comes right out and says it. That’s not nuanced. Just coming out and saying what you think doesn’t befit an elitist. It’s too… doctrinaire. And so, amid the anecdotes about the foibles of life and descriptions of actions that unite us all, you just look for the clues like Muggeridge used to do in Pravda. To use a fictional example, when someone explains the sterling team effort involved in restoring a city garden, along with all the humorous (i.e. unfunny) things that happened along the way, you’ll be informed that Robert and his life partner Steve participated in the project. Or, amid the heart-rending departure of another congregation that can’t hack your denominational activism any longer, you’ll be gently told that some value unity above others. Or you’ll learn that some see nuance instead of “easy answers.”

It’s the equivalent of a pitcher nibbling around the plate all night. You know he’s trying to get you out, but he’s not going to come right out and challenge you. He’ll save his fastballs for the church courts.

Samuel Johnson once wondered, “How is it we hear the loudest yelps for liberty among the drivers of negroes?” Along those lines, I wonder: How is it we hear the loudest yelps for separation of church and state among those who speak of the state in messianic terms?

Tiller the Killer escapes again (from a misdemeanor charge!), but a day is coming when there will be no escape.

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is yet another wasteful, counterproductive, unconstitutional bureaucracy of the federal government. Barack Obama recently appointed Kathleen Sebelius to head the HHS cabinet post. This is a woman who has enjoyed steak and lobster with the infamous late-term abortionist George Tiller.

But the president looks good on TV, has a nice family, and believes in hope and the children. So never mind.

We’ve seen the delight of blacks at Obama’s ascension, and it’s hard to not feel a tinge of happiness for them. They see this as something they could’ve hardly imagined at one time. Many perhaps now feel that they belong in this country, and that is a good thing. They’ve always belonged in my opinion. They’ve never been any better or worse than the rest of us knuckleheads (Gal. 3:28).

However, in their excitement blacks do not see that Barack Obama is an evil man. His views on abortion alone are sickening. Whether you think Iraq a just war (I do not), the total American soldiers dead over there are a day’s work at Planned Parenthood offices and other abortion mills. Add in civilian deaths and it’s maybe a month’s work.

Obama, if he proceeds on his current course, will fail miserably in “turning around the economy.” You can’t create prosperity through borrowing and spending at a national level any more than you create prosperity by borrowing and spending on a personal level. Savings and production are the very things Obama will continue to attack just as Bush did, only Obama will do it with more fervency. Although he and his supporters will complain that he received a bad deck from Bush if things should end up collapsing, Obama shares the same Keynesian roots as the rest of the Democratic establishment. He supports the same massive government that they and Bush do. He’s been part of the problem since he arrived in the Senate. He’ll just be the crook left holding the bag.

So, the question isn’t “Will Obama fail?” That’s pretty much a given. The question is “What will his failure look like?” I’m guessing (and of course that’s all it is) it could go in one of two ways:

1. The bloom will be off the rose within a year or two and an alienated people will wonder what on earth they were thinking. The Republicans, whose one big idea of economic merit — tax cuts — has been been successfully (if not properly) co-opted by Obama, may benefit. Or, at long last, perhaps a coalition will come to the front that will finally make drastic cuts in spending and destroy the Fed to allow for a sustainable economy.

2. Worsening conditions will lead to more crisis measures, with Obama’s popularity staying high (similar to FDR’s fascist regime of the 1930s) with the help of a complaisant news and pop culture media. If this happens, expect a dramatic lessening of economic freedoms. Expect this to extend into social spheres: we already know what liberals think about the church’s views on sodomy. Free speech will be attacked in many ways. Collapse or war may be the end of this big game of Don’t Break the Ice that the government is playing. The greater the house built on sand, the greater its fall. Nock put it well:

A dozen empires have already finished the course that ours began three centuries ago. The lion and the lizard keep the vestiges that attest their passage upon earth, vestiges of cities which in their day were as proud and powerful as ours – Tadmor, Persepolis, Luxor, Baalbek … The sites which now bear Narbonne and Marseilles have borne the habitat of four successive civilizations, each of them, as St. James says, even as a vapour which appeareth for a little time and then vanisheth away. The course of all these civilizations was the same. Conquest, confiscation, the erection of the State; then the sequences which we have traced in the course of our own civilization; then the shock of some irruption [internal collapse] which the social structure was too far weakened to resist, and from which it was left too disorganized to recover; and then the end. -Our Enemy, the State, ch. 6, p.144