Among the characteristics that contributed to those declines were Massive National debt. The United States is a 23 trillion, and growing, just the interest on it alone is greater than the Gross Domestic Product of some nations. I like President Trump state of union speech the other night except for one thing. He didnt talk about cutting a single Government Program or even the rate of increase in spending. This is the only nonpartisan thing that happens in this town is spending. You can always get agreement on more. The second contribution to the decline of great nations and superpowers and empires is uncontrolled immigration without assimilation. We want people to come to america but we want them to come legally and in an orderly fashion, and then to be assimilated like the immigrants of the past and become fully american, not hyphenated americans as we have too often today. Then theres the loss of a moral sense also contributing to the decline of great nations. In America Today as cole porter wrote in the song in 1930s, anything goes. If you say stop or this is too far, you are immediately denounced as a bigot or one of many folks. All of this is not a prophetic book. Im not wearing a sandwich board this is the end is near and parading around but i am saying that while america is a great nation, are certain seeds being sown for our distraction and we have to renew the values that the greatest generation that weve been living off of by inertia for about the last 60 or 70 years fought and died for. Host to that, december again is in peril because of right and wrong and no longer submit to a Higher Authority than own experiences. When i look around the country i see most people mostly trying to do the right thing. Somewhere specifically d. C. Society going wrong . Guest i can i think were tolerating virtually everything now. You take a look at the value of human life. Not just abortion, though we have had 60 million of them since roe v. Wade that there are other challenges now. In chicago, baltimore, in major cities are ten, 15, 20 a more shootings of you weekend, so many now that hardly even makes the news. This is how cheap life has become in america. People getting shot and killed because driveby shootings. Somebody this to me. I wanted a Leather Jacket or the expensive shoes. Now were seeing in the debate over health care and we saw during the Clinton Administration when president clinton put hillary in charge of reporting health care in america called hillary care. The pressure to save money is going to be so great that what you devalue human life at one end, the pressure to devalue it at the other end and a weekly if youre too old according to the government, if you are not contributing enough, if youre taking wasnt getting it will start at the extremes. Things always give a once the precedent is set back by doctor assisted suicide in some states, particularly on the west coast, and its a very slow step to the next step. One of things i mentioned the book also is a whole to millennials, the loss of god oscar trips to the decline of nations and superpowers. You have to resort living on this earth besides getting up, going to work on making money and buying stuff. Theres got to be more to life than that but 20 of millennials according to the polls have no religious affiliation at all. They answered none when asked by the pollsters and i think thats a disturbing trend. Whether you happen to be religious or not. Host a lot of conservatives and your family with this say they believe in american exceptionalism. Is that a little foolish . Guest america is unique among nations but there is no lifetime guarantee on it. As i argue in the book, a lot of these other places, the roman empire, the eternal city, go to the circle i can eternal city, now its ruins. They followed the same pattern as his other nations, overextension, military expedition to one of the other things that contribute to a nations declined his military overreach. George mcgovern in 1972 democratic president ial candidate, senator from south dakota, a friend of mine, said during the vietnam war we cannot be the policeman of the world. Its true. To his great credit President Trump has been jawboning not only our nato allies but others have benefited for decades from the American Nuclear umbrella especially in europe to pony up and pay more and to provide more troops in on defense and i think thats a very good thing. He is certainly on the right path on that issue. Host in your book you go through eight different empires, i think some people may find it tough to draw the parallels between safety Ottoman Empire and what americans are doing. What do you see that is similar . Guest human nature never changes. You can put people in in a tog, address, the suit but you cant change the human nature. Greed, envy, entitlement, sexual pleasure, military overreach, what some people called the seven deadly sins. You cant change human nature and so the point of the book in looking at the history of these various empires and superpowers is to say okay, you had sultans, emperors, all these other titles a people dressing differently and the rest, but they all suffered from the same internal dysfunction. If we dont learn from that, by the way this is why a sense of the transcendent and being accountable to god is important for the extension and life of any nation. Host you also go through its fascinating. You say there are cycles that these empires go through and you compare shop america similar. The thesis is right now with a cycle of decadence. What does that mean exactly . Guest the book is based on an esa by the late british different as you mentioned. The final stage of collapse, and lincoln talked about this. Inc. And said if america is to fail it will fail from within before it is ever conquered from without. Sultanates and who i reprinted his harvard and templeton prize speech in the book, he was asked repeatedly , can you refresh the list as if it is . Guest the great russian writer. Was a patient in the soviet union and he was finally released and came to america to warn america sometime do in this book that there is no lifetime guarantee of any nation. To get back to the decadence thing, as sir john mentioned, theres a common denominator. Theres a loss of essential god, again military overreach, uncontrolled immigration without assimilation. And a focus on self, a loss of the sense of right and wrong as you mentioned earlier. Now today if you say anything is wrong, behavior or whatever your immediately denounced as being one of many kind of phobes. They dont want to be denounced and criticized by the national debt, nobodys talking the last time there was any series addressing host why do you think that is a moral issue . Guest their talked about more government and more programs to dig more people to government. Such member when paul ryan was speaker of the house. He came up with a proposal which everybody knew needed to be done but was afraid to talk about, to reform salsas could and medicare, the two major drivers of the entitlement programs and the debt which continues to grow. He was denounced by the left. The commercial was created, a political ad that showed actor, a paul ryan lookalike pushing grain in a wheelchair over a cliff. It was funny but was not assist respond to Everybody Knows must be done. The politicians both parties continue to kick the can down the road. We need to reform social security. Not Everybody Needs it. It should be jack kemp filets august and from woelfel argued you to go, that anybody who touches the president in a state union speech and were quite a guarantee you can keep a substituted. That sounds great but Everybody Knows that you cannot continue to spend and spend with more and more people retiring and fewer people working for the programs are going to be bankrupt. The politicians dont want to do anything about it. Kick the can down the road. They are afraid they will be denounced by paul ryan. Host to talk about the loss of a sense of duty and it seems to me like his politicians to refuse to take on these issues dont have a sense of duty. How do you think we could restore that . Guest gender people dont serve in the military and dont know anybody who did. When i was growing up, not only my dad that many relatives serve in the the military. Host my generation, ive a lot of friends who voluntarily joined the military after 9 11 and theres millions of people that are in active duty right now without a traffic i do feel like when we talk about millennials, the younger generation, they get swept under the rug because in your generation people were drafted and he did have a choice but my brother is part of the marine corps, joined voluntarily. Saw a lot of loss and they get swept under the rug as if young kids dont care. I think a lot of people do. Guest they do but i love my critique of what ought to do some kind of Public Service to serve the country, could be the military, might be in private, could be in addition to the job. We get a lot of benefits to the freedoms we enjoy are not the natural state of humanity. If you look around the world, despotism, religious, religious fundamentalism, denial of womens right, lack of the free press, all these things seem to be the norm. We have to renew like a library book. They have to be renewed in order for you legitimately to continue evolving experience. Its the same with the values that build and sustain america. We have been through the revolutionary war against the supreme power, the civil war, a great depression, recessions, the vietnam war. Now were facing perhaps the greatest challenge of all, terrorism and the growth of china, and its aggressiveness around the world under the radar for a lot of people. They are Building Bases in the south china sea, holding bases in south america in our back door and nobody is addressing these things. These values, we cant live of the inertia of the previous generations who shared thin. And yes, god bless those people volunteered for military not only after 9 11 but since then. For whatever reason, some just volunteer to get their tuition paid for, and thats fine. We are grateful for the. Host they dont get it for the benefit i can tell you. The v. A. Has not been run that well lately. The difference between the greatest generation, there is something may be different and i think you are right, he it goeo a loss of sense of duty, maybe patriotism, shared values. What do you see . Maybe gets back to faith . Guest thats part of it but the whole idea of obligatio obligation, we have an obligation to transfer to our children and grandchildren the virtues and values that we inherited from our grandparents and parents if we are of a certain age. Most of the world war ii generation is gone now. We still honor them in various ways that only with her own memorial in washington but remember the super bowl where several veterans of world war ii were 100 years old, 100 being the birthday of the nfl, nice little connection there. But they are fading and you will remember i think maybe you didnt live through it, youre such a a young person but certainly you study the history, those who came back from vietnam were spat upon, or demonstrate against, were treated as murderers and the rest. We havent really seen an appreciation of those have served their country and served with honor and distinction. Duty, honor, country. Those are the three things. We dont teach patriotism anymore. They have done away with the pledge of allegiance and a lot of schools because my defense of the people come from other countries. Excuse me, if you want to pledge allegiance to your country, then why did you come here . If you dont teach these values, if you dont yes, indoctrinate those virtues which has a negative connotation but in the area of freedom, duty and honr have to be taught, you have to have them inculcated in you. Judo catch them naturally like to catch a virus. Host im curious about your thoughts on the current Political Department because of your history with faith and politics. You were a Founding Member or pattern of the moral majority but you didnt did break with n she saw her perceived the leadership is been seduced by power. It seems like there are a lot of parallels today. Guest there are and i learned that virtue and morals do not come from the top down. They come from the bottom up and thats been true battle in this country but in virtually every other nation that has been sustained beyond its birthday. I think that faith is something that can be transferred to others, but it cant be done by the government. You cant expect especially people who do not believe as i do to accept what i believe based on legislation or president or an election. I think you can argue in the Public Square with that saying youre trying to impose biblical values on people, certain things that are common to all humanity, treating others with respect, equality for women, golden rule, love of the people as you love yourself. We could use more of that in washington which asked about politics. Ive been doing my call now for almost 36 years. Host congratulations. Twice a week. Guest do the math. Things have changed a lot. Part of this is the 24 7 new cycle the part is a polarization that ive not seen since really the vietnam war and i would argue its even worse. People dont know each other anymore except by labels. People dont talk to each other. People tune into radios and tv programs what ill rethink and they dont listen. Host you have made the point trying to reach people to try to find Common Ground. You wrote a book called the Common Ground and you think thats harder to do no treachery its hard to do now. After that call, what works and what argument was look, i dont care if its a liberal or conservative, democrat or republican program. Lets have an unbiased look at it. It is producing the results as advertised by its charter legislation at the response cost and it cant be done better by the private sector, we keep it. If not we get rid of it. We do that in business if you go to sales plan in your business and its working, great. But if your competition is selling more items than you are, and the plan is sailing, and you get rid of it or equal out of business. Why cant we do that with governor Ronald Reagan had one of the greatest lines of all time. He said the only proof of eternal life in washington is a Government Program. Its easier to kill a vampire then i covet program. We can even reduce the rate of spending much less had it. You dont do that in business. There was a federal tea tasting commission for years before that went out of business. There was a National Helium reserve when people thought that dirigibles might be useful in warfare and after the hindenburg explosion in the 1930s, thats probably pardon the expression, shot that down. This is a problem. Once a program gets past they forget about it. The bureaucracy grows. I did a recent interview with sect of education betsy devos. Shes trying to cut and cut and cut the federal presence in public education. Bill bennett our predecessor in the Reagan Administration try to get rid of the department of education. Couldnt do it. Congress wouldnt let him do it. I think we need a top to bottom look at our government, its purpose and the increasing loss of individual freedom as government grows. Host i was struck on the topic of christians in government, any media. You wrote in a recent column that to date evangelicals are perceived by many as one more Interest Group attached to the Republican Party and a special present for. If members need to make a choice as to which one is the true master, they cant serve both. What made you want to write that . Guest a lot of evangelical brethren, i think, i love President Trumps policies. I think that working better than any president , republican or democrat weve had in recent years, whether its unemployment or employment across all demographics, whether its stock market which continues to set records. Host you think that is him for the fact there was unified republican government and business that some of the pressure was relieved . Guest it has been unified since he was elected. The first year or so people are still come democrats were still crediting president obama. President power is limited in certain ways but a lot of it has to do with Consumer Confidence which is also. You asked the question about the evangelicals and the feelings towards President Trump. In terms of issues whether its prolife, religious freedom, second amendment, he has been better than any republican or democrat present including the sainted Ronald Reagan in my memory. You are a lot of them like his personality quirks to a lot of them like his Language Arts no. But if given the choice in 2016 between Hillary Clinton who was far less liberal in their minds and trump who may have been imperfect morally, and arent we all . But who appealed to the on the basis of the policies of which they believe. We will have the same choice this year, and jesus said my kingdom is not of this world, so thats the higher kingdom, and the eternal kingdom, and all the rest is just the rest. Host i am sympathetic to voters who make the choice, a binary choice. Between one and the other. But in washington is a lot of christian republicans who have to make a choice about how they can serve a president who forces people to defend really tough things. Things that unchristian like behavior. What advice do you have towards a faithful in person who is asked to serve the president but might be uncomfortable with some of those things . Guest in terms of christian like behavior, im not 100 in that area either. We are all sand and fallen short of the glory of god. We are all present on the upward way. Look, nobody is perfect. There congress that are in perfect people. Bill clinton certainly had his problems. Lyndon johnson, jack k