Decline. And the characteristics that contributed to those declines were Massive National debt, United States has 23 trillion and growing. Just the interest on it alone is greater then the Gross Domesticproduct of some nations. I like President Trumps state of the 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 area you can always get agreement on more. The second contribution to the decline of great nations and superpowers 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 the assimilated like the immigrants of the past and become fully american, not hyphenated americans as we have to often today and then theres the loss of a moral sense contributing to the decline of great nations. In America Today as cole porter wrote in a satirical song in the 1930s anything goes and if you say stop or this is too far your immediately denounced as a big or one of many folds. So all of this is not a prophetic book, im not wearing a sandwich board that says the end is near and parading around but i am saying that while america is a great nation, there are certain seeds that are being sown for our destruction 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. To that point you do say america is in peril because we lost our sense of right and wrong and it no longer submit to a Higher Authority of our own experiences when i look around the country i see most people mostly trying to do the right thing so where specifically the uc society going wrong . I think we are tolerating virtually everything now. You take a look at the value of human life and not just abortion although weve had 60 million of them since roe versus wade but there are other challenges. In chicago, baltimore and major cities there are 10, 15, 20 or more shootings every weekend. So many now that it hardly even makes the news. This is how cheap as life has become in america. People getting shot and killed because driveby shootings, Somebody Just me. I wanted a Leather Jacket or the expensive shoes and now we are seeing in the debate over health care and we saw it during the Clinton Administration when president clinton put hillary, his wife in charge of reforming health care in america. The pressure to save money is going to be so great that once youve devalued human life at the other end, the pressure to devalue it at other end or in between,if youre too old or not contributing enough in your taxes, taking more than youre getting , you start at the extremes, things always do but once the precedent is set like doctor assisted suicide in some states on the west coast,then its a very slow step to the next step. One of the things i mentioned in the book is a poll of millennial said they lost the sense of god or the trend contributes to the decline of nations and superpowers. Youve got to have a reason for living on this earth besides going to work making money and buying stuff. Theres got to be more to life and that 20 percent of millennials going to the polls have no religious affiliation at all. Answered none when asked bythe pollsters the web thats a disturbing trend whetheryou happen to be religious or not a lot of conservatives say they believe in american exceptionalism. Is that foolish . America is unique among nations but theres no lifetime guarantee on it and as i argue in the book, a lot of these other places, the roman empire, the eternal city. You go to the eternal city and its in ruins. But they followed the same pattern as these other nations, overextension, military experimentation. One of the other things that contributes his military overreach. Towards mcgovern 1972 democratic president ial candidate, senator from south dakota, friend of mine said during the vietnam war we cannot be the policeman of the world. Its true and to his credit President Trump has been jawboning not only our Nato Alliance but others who have benefited for decades from the americannuclear umbrella especially in europe to pony up and pay more and provide more troopsin their own defense and i think thats a good thing so he is certainly on the right path on the issue. In your book you go through states , different empires. I think some people may find it tough to draw the parallels between the Ottoman Empire as the sultans did and what americans are doing but what do you see that is similar . Human nature never changes. You can put people in a toga, in address, in a suit but you cant change their human nature. Greed, envy, entitlement, sexual pleasure, military overreach, what some people have called the seven deadly sins. You cant change human nature so the point of the book in looking at the history of these various empires and superpowers is to say okay, you had sultans, you have emperors, you had all these other titles and people dressing differently but they all suffered from the same internal dysfunction. And if we dont learn from that andby the way this is by a sense of the transcendent and being accountable to god , its important for the extension and life of any nation. You also go through and its fascinating. You statethat there are cycles that these empires go through and you compare it to how america is similar. And the thesis is right now we are in a cycle of decadence. What does thatmean and how you know we are there . The book is based on an asset essay by sir john gloving and the final stage of collapse. Lincoln talked about this. Lincoln said if america is to fail it will fail fromwithin before it is ever conquered from without. Solzhenitzin, alexander solzhenitzin the great russian writer of the gulag archipelago was a prisoner in the soviet union and he was finally released and came to america to warn america as im trying to do in this book that there is no lifetime guarantee on any nation and to get back to the decadence thing as sir john mentioned, theres a commondenominator. Theres a loss of a sense of god. Military overreach, uncontrolled overreach and 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. They hate her or whatever you are immediately denounced as being one of many kind of focus and this keeps a lot of people from speaking out because they dont want to be denounced and criticized but the national debt, the last time there was any serious addressing why do you see the debt as a moral issue because you get that from democrats. Theyre talking about more government and more programs to addict more people to government. Paul ryan came up with a serious proposal which everybody knew needed to be done but was afraid to talk about to reform the Social Security and medicare, the two major drivers of the entitlementprograms and the debt which continues to grow. He was denounced by the left. A commercial was created, a political ad that showed a lookalike pushing granny in a wheelchair over a cliff and it was very funny but it was not a serious response to what Everybody Knows must be done. The politicians of both parties continue to kick the can down the road. We need to reform Social Security. Jack kemp the late congressman from buffalo argued this years ago but anybody who touches it, the president in his state of the union speech said were going to keep your Social Security. That sounds great but Everybody Knows you cannot continue to spend and spend with more and more more people retiring and fewer people working or the programs are going to be bankrupt but the politicians dont want to do anything about it. Kick the can down the road for fear theyre going to be denounced like paul ryan. You talk about the lossof a sense of duty and it seems like these politicians that refused to take on these issues dont have a sense of duty. How do you think we could restore that . Younger people dont serve inthe military and dont know anybody who did. When i was growing up not only my dad but many relatives served in the military. My generation, i have a lot of friends that voluntarily joined the military after 9 11 and theres millions of people that are in active duty right now without a draft so i do feel like when we talk about millennials and the younger generation, they get swept under the rug because in your generation people were drafted and they didnt havea choice but my brother is part of the marine corps , went voluntarily. A lot of lost and get did get swept under the rug as if these young kids dont care and i think a lot of people do. Their Building Bases in the south china sea, faces in south america and our back door and nobodys addressing these things so these values, we cant live off the inertia of previous generations who share them and god bless those people who volunteer for the military not only after 9 11 but since then and for whatever reason, some volunteer to get theirtuition paid for and thats fine. Were grateful for them. The va hasnt been run that well lately. Whats the difference between the greatest generation and there is something that may be different and it goes to a loss of sense of duty, and maybe get back to states. Thats part of it but the whole idea of obligation, we have an obligation to transfer to our children and grandchildren virtues that we inherited, if we are of a certain age, most of the world war ii generation is gone now, not only at the memorial in washington but the super bowl, where the veterans were 100 years old, 100 being thebirthday of the nfl , niceconnection there. But theyre fading and maybe you didnt live through it but you certainly studied the history, those who came back from vietnam were spat upon were demonstrated against treated murderers and the rest. So we havent really seen and appreciation of those who have served their country and served it with distinction. Duty, honor, country. We dont teach patriotism anymore and now that weve done away with the pledge of allegiance because it might offend people who come from other countries. This is america. You wantto pledge allegiance , why did you come here . If you dont teach these values, if you dont indoctrinate those virtuous which has a negative connotation in the area of freedom and duty, you have to have them inculcate in you, you dont catch them naturally you like you catch a virus. Im so curious about your thoughts in the current political environment cause of your history with states and politics and you were a Founding Member or a veteran of the moral majority but you did great with it once you saw or perceived the leadership as being seducedby power and it seems like there are a lot of parallels today. There are and i learned that virtue and morals do not come from the top down, they come from the bottom up and its true not only in this country but in virtually every other nation. Its sustained beyond its birthday area i think that faith is something that can be transferred to others but it cant be done by the government. And you cant expect, especially people who do not believe as i do to accept what i believe based on legislation or precedent or an election. I think you can argue in the Public Square without saying that 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 other people as you love yourself. We could use more of that in washington but you asked me about politics, ive been doing my column nowfor 36 years. Twice a week, do the math. But things have changed a lot, but it is the 24 seven news cycle but part of it is the polarization that i have not seen as vietnam war and i would argue in some ways its even worse. People dont know each other anymore except by labels. People dont talk to each other, people tune into programs and radio and television to reinforce what they already think. Youve always made a point of trying to reach people, he tried to find Common Ground, you wrote a book i think called Common Ground and you think thats harderto do now . It harder to do now, i wrote one after that called what works and my heart it was i dontcare if its a liberal or conservative, democrat or republican program. Lets and unbiased look at it. If its producing the results as advertised by its charter or legislation at a reasonable cost and cant be done better by the private sector wiki. If its not we get rid of it. We do that in business if you have a sales plan in your business and is working, great but if your competition is telling more items than you are and your plan is failing and you get rid of it for you go out of business. Why cant we do that with government . Ronald reagan had one of the great lines. One of the only proof of eternal life is Government Programs. We cant even reduce the rate of increase in spending much less actually cutting. You dont do that in business and i think it was, there was a federal tea tasting commission for years for that went out of business there was a National Reserve people thought dirigibles might be useful in warfare and after the hindenburgexplosion in the 1930s , that part in the expression shot that down but this is the problem. Once a program gets passed, they forget about it. The bureaucracy grows. I did a recent interview with secretary of Education Betsy Devos was trying to cut costs the federal presence in public education. Phil bennett her predecessor tried to get rid of the department of education, couldnt do it. I rest wouldnt let him doit. So i think we need a top to bottom look at our government , its purpose and the increasing loss of individual freedom as government grows. I was struck on the topic of Christian Christians in government and the media. You wrote a column that today evangelicals have been perceived by as one more interest group. Its members need to make a choice as to which one is their true master. They cant serve both. What made you want towrite that . A lot of my evangelical brethren i think, i love President Trumps policies. I think theyre working better than any president , republican or democrat in recent years. Whether its unemployment or employment across all demographics, whether its market which continues to set records. You think that is the fact that there was unified government and business thought some of the pressure was relieved . It was unified since he was elected. The first year or so democrats were still criticizing president obama. A president power is limited but a lot of it has to do with Consumer Confidence but you asked the question about the evangelicals andtheir fealty to president from. In terms of issues whether its prolife, religious freedom, Second Amendment he has been better than any republican or democrat president including the sainted Ronald Reagan in my memory. A lot of them like his personality lesson . A lot of them like his language mark know but theyve been given the chance in 2016 between Hillary Clinton was far less liberal in their minds and trump may have been imperfect morally and art we all some level but who abuse them on the basis of the policies in which they believe you were going to have the same choice this year and jesus said my kingdom is not of this world so thats the higher kingdom and eternal kingdom and all the rest is just the rest. I am sympathetic with voters who make that choice as a binary choice as maple many people said between one of the other but in washington theres a lot of christian republicans have to make a choice about how they are concerned with a president who defends tough things, things like unchristian likebehavior. What advice do you have towards a faithful young person who is asked to serve the president but might be uncomfortablewith some of those things . In terms of christian like behavior im not 100 percent in the area either where all sinned and fallen short of the glory of god and were all pressing on the board way as the old baptist hymns says. Nobodys perfect. There are people in congress that are imperfect people. Bill clinton certainly had his problems, lyndon johnson, jack kennedy was covered up by the media for all the affairs he was having but this is the kingdom of this world and this is how it operates and you have to look beyond that in some areas and decide on the policy matters. Its too easy to say theyre not electing a deacon or an elder in our church, we are electing a president of the United States and it would be great to have somebody who combines all these things like , i note my 30 years. He was made fun of when he said he wouldnt leave alone with his woman unless his wife was present but then came the Harvey Weinstein scandal. Nobody ever got in trouble for what they didnt do rid. But my pence is right there. I dont know if i should tell the story. The pornographer larry flynt who i knew a little bit because of the profession, notbecause im engaged in any of his activities. You just knew of him. I had met him a couple times. At fox he was on fox wants. He comes in his wheelchair and he says i thought youd be interested in something and he says what, this is when he was doing Background Investigations on conservatives and christians were critical about having affairs. We offered 1 million to anybody it out some of these people so he said youd be interested in something. We did a Background Investigation on you and i said is that right . He said we didnt find anything and i said oh my goodness, personally approved by very flynt. Youre looking in the wrong place for my sins because thats not one of them unfortunately. Good for you. On the conc