WWJD About All This Debt?
- Long calls for a return to the principles of the Declaration of Independence, because the Bible demands it. God, Moses, and James explained it all.
- Not wanting to appear lacking in humility, Long takes a sec to say that he's not quoting Scripture just to show how righteous he is; it's just that it's the ultimate truth.
- Long declares the Bible's infallibility: he says that "whatever you see [in the Bible] you may rely upon will never be disproved so long as you or your children or anyone may live; and you may further depend upon the fact that not one historical fact that the Bible has ever contained has ever yet been disproved by any scientific discovery" (18).
- You might argue the truth of this assertion, but Long isn't talking to the academics and the skeptics of the time; he's addressing people to whom the Bible was more dependable than bread.
- The divine credibility of his sources established, Long gets to the crux of his issue in his roundabout way.
- Basically, he declares that the Bible says that "for a country to survive it is necessary that we keep the wealth scattered among the people, that nothing should keep the wealth scattered among the people, that nothing should be held permanently by any one person" (19).
- Every 50 years, the Bible says, all debts must be forgiven.
- Why would the Almighty have written that if he didn't know that wealth equality was a must? From time to time, wealth must be redistributed so people won't starve.
- Here in the U.S., Long says, we have more than enough food, housing, and clothing for everyone. In fact, we have too much of some stuff—farm products, in particular.
- We have too many homes, but people can't afford to live in them.
- The wealth will never get spread around because the rich love seeing the masses starve while they themselves have more than they could ever use or need.
- Back to the Bible: Long reiterates the Lord's order to remit all debts every seven years, but the debt in the U.S. is too big to be paid; it's about 272 billion dollars, and all the money in the banks adds up to only 6 billion.
- Houston, we have a problem.
- Long simply throws his hands in the air and declares that the debt is so great it can never be paid off, so everyone should just stop pretending like any of this is even possible in the first place.
- So what's a nation to do?