The Feds are doing a terrible job. They take us through their boom-bust cycle, they TARP the bankers and the automobile industry, and now for the little guy that uses cash: the anti-counterfeiting measures that the US Treasury employs are obviously not working well enough for businesses to trust their bills.
If this family is like the typical American family, private schooling and home schooling are simply too onerous and inconvenient when money and time must be spent on far more important items such as plasma televisions and trips to Walt Disney World. Plus, educating children is such a tedious bore. Why not let the government do it? Of course just like when it was 19th-century Protestantism (so Catholic immigrants built their own schools instead), there is still a state religion in the state schools.
Gary North remembers Oral Roberts. The man was no theologian (thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God) and very suspect (seed faith = gimme money) but North shows his success as part of mainline decline. (A sort of revenge of the white underclass.) He was also a driving force behind Pentecostalism’s 1970s mainstreaming as the charismatic movement, which seems on the wane. If he was a con artist it was a sin but not a crime: he seemed a gifted salesman (1950s film) and the contributions were all voluntary. I’ll give him credit for two things: he taught a kind of sacramentality (his prayer cloths) and miracles can happen (you just can’t presume to demand them, and if they don’t happen it’s not because you weren’t good enough). Trivia: he was an American Indian. RIP.
Some jottings about the news
