Harry Truman's Christian Nation

On this day in 1951, President Harry Truman violated the modern myth of "the separation of church and state."

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241 - Address to the Washington Pilgrimage of American Churchmen.
September 28, 1951

Mr. Chairman, Dr. Pruden, my friends:

I am happy to have the privilege of speaking to this meeting of the Washington Pilgrimage of American Churchmen. You have come to the Nation's Capital to visit its monuments and to look at the basic documents on which our Government was founded. Many people come to Washington to do these things, but you have come here for a special purpose. You have come here to emphasize the fact that this Nation was founded on religious principles.

You will see, as you make your rounds, that this Nation was established by men who believed in God. You will see that our Founding Fathers believed that God created this Nation. And I believe it, too. They believed that God was our strength in time of peril and the source of all our blessings.

You will see the evidence of this deep religious faith on every hand.

If we go back to the Declaration of Independence, we notice that it was drawn up by men who believed that God the Creator had made all men equal and had given them certain rights which no man could take away from them. In beginning their great enterprise, the signers of the Declaration of Independence entrusted themselves to the protection of divine providence.

To our forefathers it seemed something of a miracle that this Nation was able to go through the agonies of the American Revolution and emerge triumphant. They saw, in our successful struggle for independence, the working of God's hand. In his first inaugural address, George Washington said, "No people can be bound to acknowledge and adore the invisible hand, which conducts the affairs of men, more than the people of the United States."

Another fact which you will notice in the course of your pilgrimage is that the makers of our Constitution believed in religious toleration. Theirs was the highest type of religion, forbidding the use of coercion or force in matters of mind and spirit. Religious freedom was a part of their religious faith. And they received that from Roger Williams, a Baptist, from William Penn, a Quaker, and from Lord Baltimore, a Catholic. That's the reason for our constitutional approach to religious freedom.

It is said that when Benjamin Franklin left the Constitutional Convention he was asked, "What have you given us?" He answered, "A republic, if you can keep it." Millions of Americans since then have believed that the keeping of our Republic depends upon keeping the deep religious convictions on which it was founded. From the worship and teachings of the synagogues and churches of our land, have come a moral integrity, a concern for justice and human welfare, a sense of human equality, a love of human freedom, and a practice of brotherhood which are necessary to the life of our national institutions.

It is fitting and proper that at this time of international peril and uncertainty we should look back to those beginnings and rededicate ourselves to those ideals.

It is not enough, however, simply to look back. It is not enough to congratulate our selves upon the religious spirit of our forebears. We must ask ourselves if we truly believe the things which they believed. We must examine our conduct to see whether we are carrying out in our daily lives the ideals we profess.

This is not easy. Our religious heritage imposes great obligations upon us. It does not permit us to be self-satisfied and complacent. Indeed, if we accept the faith which has been handed down to us, our task as a Nation is much more difficult. We cannot be satisfied with things as they are. We must always be striving to live up to our beliefs and to make things better in accordance with the divine commandments.

The people of Israel, you will remember, did not, because of their covenant with God, have an easier time than other nations. Their standards were higher than those of other nations and the judgment upon them and their shortcomings was more terrible. A religious heritage, such as ours, is not a comfortable thing to live with. It does not mean that we are more virtuous than other people. Instead, it means that we have less excuse for doing the wrong thing--because we are taught right from wrong.

Our religious heritage, in my opinion, imposes great responsibilities upon us as we face the problems of today.

It means first of all that we must constantly strive for social justice in the life of this Republic. It means that we must fight against special privilege, against injustice to those of low income, and against the denial of opportunity, against discrimination based upon race, creed, or national origin.

Our religious heritage also means that we must struggle to maintain our civil liberties. No nation which hopes to live by the law of God can afford to suppress dissent and criticism. You may remember that Israel persecuted the prophets. The prophets had unpleasant things to say about what was going on in ancient Israel. They criticized social injustices and the wasteful luxury of the privileged few. They criticized the way in which the ancient Hebrews had turned away from true religious principles. They said that Israel would be punished for its misdeeds. The prophets were not popular, and the kings and the priests of Israel tried to deny them freedom of speech. But the prophets were right, and Israel was punished as the prophets had said it would be.

We must always keep the way open for self-criticism. We must not stop up the mouths of those who are saying unpopular things. We must preserve the Bill of Rights--which, in my opinion, is the most important part of the Constitution--so that the voice of protest and dissent may always be heard. We must not try to destroy people by fear and slander, because if we do, we shall weaken the moral fiber of our own country.

Another great lesson which our religious heritage has for us today is that we must not be led astray by self-righteousness. We must remember that the test of our religious principles lies not just in what we say, not only in our prayers, or even in living blameless personal lives--but in what we do for others.

I am going to repeat that, because I think it is of vital importance to this meeting. We must remember that the test of our religious principles lies not just in what we say, not only in our prayers, not even in living blameless personal lives--but in what we do for others.

It is all too easy for churchgoing people to be satisfied with a superficial standard of morals. It is all too easy to sit in judgment on the shortcomings of others. It is all too easy to feel morally superior because we go to church and profess to follow the faith of our fathers.

We must remember that in his ministry on earth, Jesus delivered His strongest condemnation against those who were superficially and publicly good. The scribes and the Pharisees He attacked were the respectable people of his day. They were the leaders of the community who set the standards for others. To them He said "Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye, and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye."

"Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye, and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye." Ah, would that we could live by that !

Self-interest can blind us today, just as it blinded the scribes and Pharisees of biblical times. We must always be on our guard against this danger.

If we are to respond to our religious heritage, we must be guided by the principle of charity--charity in the biblical sense of love for one's fellow man. This is the greatest virtue, without which other virtues are of little worth.

We must work for morality in public life and in private life. You can't make an honest man by law. He has to be raised by the rules of the 20th chapter of Exodus, and the Sermon on the Mount, if he has the right moral fiber to become an ethical public or private citizen.

We must have high standards of personal conduct. But even if we do all these things, it is still not enough. The final question that will be asked of us, as individuals and as a society, is "What have we done for our fellow man ?" What have we done to ease his burdens, to give him greater opportunity, to help him in time of trouble, and to make the world a better place for him to live in? For unless we can answer those questions, we will not have carried out in our lives the religious heritage which has come to us from our forebears.

Today, our problem is not just to preserve our religious heritage in our own lives and our own country. Our problem is a greater one. It is to preserve a world civilization in which man's belief in God can survive. Only in such a world can our own Nation follow its basic traditions, and realize the promise of a better life for all our citizens.

Today, the whole human enterprise is in danger--and serious danger. On the one hand, we have to resist the expansion of a power that is hostile to all we believe in. It is a power that denies the rule of law, the value of the individual, and belief in God. It is a power which has become militant and aggressive, using the weapons of deceit and subversion as well as military might.

On the other hand, we must do all we can to prevent the outbreak of another world war. Such a war, using modern instruments of destruction, would be more terrible than anything the world has ever experienced. It would make a battleground of the crowded and complex cities of the modern world. It might well shatter the whole economic and social system, and plunge mankind back into barbarism.

This is the great problem we must meet. We cannot yield to Soviet communism, without betraying the ideals we live for. We cannot have another world war without jeopardizing our civilization.

In this perilous strait, our greatest source of strength, our greatest hope of victory, lies in the God we acknowledge as the ruler of us all. We turn to faith in Him to give us the strength and the wisdom to carry out His will. We ask Him to lead us out of the dangers of this present time into the paths of peace.

In this crisis of human affairs, all men who profess to believe in God should unite in asking His help and His guidance. We should lay aside our differences and come together now--for never have our differences seemed so petty and so insignificant as they do in the face of the peril we confront today.

It is not just this church or that church which is in danger. It is not just this creed or that creed that is threatened. All churches, all creeds, are menaced. The very future of the Word of God--the teaching that has come down to us from the days of the prophets and the life of Jesus--is at stake.

For some time I have been trying to bring a number of the great religious leaders of the world together in a common affirmation of faith. And that common affirmation, as I said awhile ago, is in the 20th chapter of Exodus, and in the 5th, 6th, and 7th chapters of the Gospel according to St. Matthew-the Sermon on the Mount. And I have been trying to make a common supplication to the one God that all creeds and all religions profess. I have asked them to join in one common act that will affirm these religious and moral principles on which we all agree.

Such an affirmation would testify to the strength of our common faith and our confidence in its ultimate victory over the forces of Satan that oppose it.

I am sorry to say that it has not yet been possible to bring the religious faiths together for this purpose of bearing witness in one united affirmation that God is the way of truth and peace. Even the Christian churches have not yet found themselves able to join together in a common statement of their faith that Christ is their Master and Redeemer and the source of their strength against the hosts of irreligion and danger in the world, and that will be the cause of world catastrophe. They haven't been able to agree on as simple a statement as that. I have been working at it for years.

Despite the barriers that divide the different churches, there is a common bond of brotherhood that underlies them all. We must continue our effort to find those common ties, and to bring the churches together in greater unity in a crusade for peace. In this way, we shall come closer to the one God who is the Father of us all. In this way, we shall find greater power to meet the troubles of our time.

The way to such unity is long and hard. But we must continue to strive for it. And we must ask God's help. If we really have faith, God will give us what we are not able to attain by our own efforts.

May God grant that we may speak together, as brothers, of His power and His mercy, and bear witness of Him against those who deny Him.

And may God unite the churches and the free world, to bring us peace in our time.

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Note: The President spoke at 8 p.m. at the National City Christian Church in Washington. In his opening words he referred to Dr. J. Warren Hastings, pastor of the National City Christian Church and chairman of the meeting, and Dr. Edward H. Pruden, pastor of the First Baptist Church in Washington, which the President attended.

The pilgrimage was held in Washington, September 28-30, 1951.

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Citation: Harry S. Truman: "Address to the Washington Pilgrimage of American Churchmen.," September 28, 1951. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project. http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=13934.

Read more at the American Presidency Project: Harry S. Truman: Address to the Washington Pilgrimage of American Churchmen.

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Truman's worldview -- the worldview of "the greatest generation" -- is dead. This is because it was static. It can be helpful to try to unite various theistic religions against atheism and communism, but everyone grows toward "epistemological self-consciousness." Nobody stays the same. We are either growing in consistency with the truth, or we are becoming more consistently rebellious against God. Truman wanted us forever to remain vaguely theistic, with Christianity "first among equals." It didn't work. It can never work. We cannot use force and coercion to compel others to become more Christian, yet our own goal must always be to become more narrowly focused on the truth, and intolerant of error.

The Crack-Up Boom of a Christian Conservative

Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority; still more when you superadd the tendency or the certainty of corruption by authority. There is no worse heresy than that the office sanctifies the holder of it.
— Lord Acton

I have over 10,000 books in my personal library. I haven't read them all. Some I haven't even opened.

I recently discovered one such book. When I opened this 1974 book, I discovered it was autographed by the author. I think I bought it at a John Birch Society bookstore.

I was too young and politically immature to know much about the author. I had heard of the author when I was in high school because I lived close to his political district, but never learned much about him. Perhaps because he was Catholic, and I was a pretty narrow-minded Protestant.

As I skimmed through the book a few days ago, I realized I had a lot more in common with this author than I ever suspected. If I knew he was a conservative, I had no idea he believed Christianity must be applied politically. Were he alive today, he would be lambasted as a "Dominionist," a "Theocrat," and likened to those "Christian Reconstructionists." Just like me.

The subtitle of the book is "The Anatomy of an Amoral Decade, 1964-1974." It is a collection of the author's newsletter articles. The articles could easily have been pulled from Christian Reconstructionist newsletters like Gary North's Remnant Review. They are conservative and many are explicitly Christian, in a way most Christian-in-name-only "conservatives" are afraid to be. Here are some of the subject headings in the table of contents:

• Enduring Values, Absolute Truths
• Morality in an Amoral Age
• The Right to Life
• Education and Child Control
• Judicial Tyranny
• The Nature of our Enemy
• The Sellout to Red China
• Trading With the Enemy
• The Enemy Within
• National Defense
• Big Government vs. the Free Market
• Decline of the Dollar
• The Welfare Burden
• Gun Control and Crime
• Government Control of Medicine
• Watergate
• The Energy Crisis

The Foreword to the book was written by L. Brent Bozell, who married William F. Buckley's sister and was influential in National Review circles. His son, L. Brent Bozell III, is founder and president of Media Research Center. Bozell is listed under his Foreword as the President of the "Society for the Christian Commonwealth," and senior editor of Triumph Magazine. The "triumphalist" R.J. Rushdoony contributed to this magazine.

Bozell's Foreword paints a glowing picture of a political saint. I should be so lucky as to have some distinguished figure write such hagiography for me. Looking ahead from 1974, it is inspiring. I would like to be such a person. Looking back on history, it is frightening. I don't want to be this person. But maybe that's where political aspiration inevitably leads.

Here is Bozell's Foreword:

The Christian regeneration of the American public order in an apostate, secular humanist age: there can hardly be a more difficult task for any man or group to undertake in the United States today. It demands in very large measure all the theological virtues -- faith, in the source of the grace which alone can make such a regeneration possible; hope, that it is not and never will be too late to save even a nation whose moral disintegration has so far advanced that millionfold baby murder is a constitutional right; love, to inspire the sacrificial efforts necessary to sustain any such mission in contemporary America. The man who embraces this apparently quixotic cause is, by virtue of his extraordinary commitment, unique. Rarely is this commitment found in America today. More rarely still is it found in the political arena, whose usual effect on a man is more likely to corrupt than to inspire. Yet this is precisely the commitment to which John Schmitz's eight years of elective political office -- first in the California State Senate, then in the United States Congress -- finally brought him. Always a strong, unapologetic Catholic, Schmitz realized more and more clearly the longer he worked in politics that nothing could help our country short of a fundamental re-ordering of American life and thought in a Christian direction. No mere tinkering with political machinery or "electing better men to office" could halt, let alone reverse, the dominant tides of the age: secularization, dehumanization, the disintegration of the family, the abandonment of objective moral standards, the institutionalization of sexual perversion, crime and corruption. As he so well said in TRIUMPH magazine last year: "It is time we realized that the sickness in America today has penetrated far deeper than politics, and requires much more than politics to cure it. As a candidate for President of the United States in 1972 -- the year of Watergate and "you don't want McGovern, do you" -- Schmitz, though very little known outside California when the campaign began, garnered more than a million votes. This was a truly extraordinary accomplishment for a man whose campaign began with no money and less than a week's advance notice, a man whose name was not even printed on the ballot in nearly one-third of the states, and who had no explicit support from any leading political figure. This book tells the story, through a "political autobiography" and a selection of the best of Schmitz's political writings of the past decade, of how John Schmitz made his way from a conventional kind of conservative politics in California, through a Presidential candidacy, to a conviction that the United States must seek actively and purposefully to become a Christian commonwealth if it is to survive. I salute this man for his understanding of the duty to which God is calling America's Christians in this difficult and often discouraging period of history, and his open and unequivocal assumption of the essentially apostolic mission of making America Christian. Where Schmitz will go from here is known only to the Lord of men and of history. But how he came to be where he is today -- how he came to see where America truly stands at this moment, what he said about it and proposes should be done about it -- this book sets forth. Schmitz finished his years in public office a better man than when he entered it -- the opposite of what usually happens. He is apparently proving that the Christian is not ruled by history or by fate, but with God's guidance and grace may challenge and even defy both -- and in the end emerge victorious in that domain whose true and eternal rule is Christ the King. L. BRENT BOZELL President Society for the Christian Commonwealth Senior Editor - Triumph Magazine

In case you don't know, this man's life crashed and burned in sexual scandal. The details are bizarre. His children were also infected by this corruption.

Why is it that those who seek political power so often seek some kind of sexual power as well?

Why is it L. Brent Bozell and other discerning political leaders never see the scandals coming? Could anyone have predicted Schmitz's future unraveling?

Every time I think about jumping my political campaigning up a notch, in the vain imagination that I could actually win an election, I'm warned by something like this of the corrupting influence of "the government." I want a Christian society, but not a "Christian commonwealth."

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Six Killer Apps of Western Civ

At the end of China's "Cultural Revolution" (and the murder of tens of millions of Chinese by the Communists), the average American was 20 times richer than the average Chinese. Historian Niall Ferguson attributes this economic growth to "Six Killer Apps" or institutions unique to the West:





He lists the following as sources of economic wealth, arising largely after 1800:

1. Competition
2. The Scientific Revolution
3. Property Rights
4. Modern Medicine
5. The Consumer Society
6. The Work Ethic

To the extent that these are valuable and durable institutions, they are Christian institutions. "The State" is destructive of Christian institutions.

1. "Competition" means "freedom." The State hates competition. The State is itself a monopoly. The State attracts those who hate competition like a light attracts moths.

2. The Scientific Method "is not Western, but Christian," concluded Stanley Jaki, a prizewinning historian of science. (Jaki is discussed by Tom Woods in a book we referenced back in 2007.)

3. Property rights are described by the Prophet Micah:

And each of them will sit
under his vine and under his fig tree,
With no one to make them afraid.

80% of people living in Protestant nations own property. 10% in non-Christian nations.

More private property has been confiscated by thieves in the public sector than by thieves in the private sector. The greatest enemy of private property is archism.

4. Modern medicine stands in contrast to shamanism. Science and healing are dominion and charity. It was missionaries that took medicine to Africa. The availability of modern medicine to the masses is the product of private property and

5. The Consumer Society
Ferguson notes that most of the world's wealth (over $100 Trillion), was created after 1800. This also marks the rise of secularism in the west. Does this show that economic growth is better served by secularism than by Christianity? Economists consider porno DVD's as "wealth." Value is subjective. "The Consumer Society" is both a covetous and an idolatrous society. "The Consumer Society" eventually becomes the Warfare Society, to protect and conquer coveted "wealth." In the medieval era, wars were limited events fought by professional soldiers, and left workers and consumers alone. With the rise of "the consumer society," wars are fought by and against consumers, slaughtering them on a massive scale. Again, the State is the beneficiary.

What Ferguson should have identified as the valuable institution ("app") is the Division of Labor.

6. The Work Ethic, once known as the Protestant Work Ethic, is now the South Korean work ethic. The education of the average 15 year old in Shanghai is now superior to that of the average American teen to the same degree that the average American's test scores are higher than the average teenager from Albania or Tunisia.

The Calvinist Work Ethic was the doctrine that being a butcher, a baker, or a candlestick maker was every bit as holy as being a priest, and that God blessed work with economic prosperity as a foretaste of eternal salvation. Calvin was opposed to the covetous consumer society.

The rise of secularism, consumerist "wealth," and the mega-warfare/welfare state, coincide with the death of the Protestant Work Ethic.

"Western Civilization" is Christian Civilization.
"The Consumer Society" is not.

Competing with the Federal Reserve

"Federal Express" is not a federal agency, that is, an agency of the federal government. It is a private business. Its competition includes UPS and DHL. Competition forces all these businesses to do a better job.

The "Federal Reserve Board" is not a federal agency, that is, an agency of the federal government. It is a private business. Its competition includes . . .

... nobody.

The Federal Reserve creates our money. It has no competition. As a result, the value of the Fed's money has gone steadily down. The Fed is an evil monopoly which ought to be abolished.

The government requires everybody to use money created by the Federal Reserve through "legal tender" laws.

The Constitution says:

No State shall ... make any thing but gold and silver a legal tender in payment of debts;

James Madison, explained this clause of the Constitution in the Federalist Papers. He said paper money (currency not backed by gold or silver) has "pestilent effects" "on the industry and morals of the people." That means paper money causes economic productivity to go down, and crime to go up.

That's exactly where we are today.

Just like businesses are allowed to compete against "Federal Express," entrepreneurs should be allowed to set up currency businesses to compete against the Federal Reserve, and create currencies which are more moral, and more in line with the Constitution.

The Post Office was a needless monopoly. The Federal Reserve is a needless monopoly.

From The Monetary Future:

The Free Competition in Currency Act of 2011

The Spirit of Deregulation

Ignoring bureaucratic laws to do what's right.



It's a good thing FEMA didn't know about this. They would have found a way to "protect" us from this "anarchy."

Schlafly on China

Phyllis Schlafly says Candidates Should Be Talking About China:

The media are absorbed with the race for the Republican presidential nomination, commenting on daily fluctuations in the polls, and predicting who will win. But why are they omitting discussion of the elephant in the room — China?

When Donald Trump briefly considered running for President, his straight talk about China helped him rise to the top of the Republican field. So, why aren't the media interrogators asking other candidates any China questions?

Communist China is a tremendous national security issue. The only cut Barack Obama is willing to make in federal spending is in our military power, which means he will be ceding our military superiority to China and other hostile totalitarian nations.

While Obama is shutting down our U.S. space program, China is going full-speed ahead to achieve space dominance along with the ability to deny it to America. Space is essential to the gathering, transmission and use of information necessary to fight and win future wars.

This year China unveiled a new, high-tech stealth fighter plane that could pose a significant threat to our air superiority. A Chinese military milestone was passed when China's first aircraft carrier completed its maiden voyage.

China is deploying a new anti-ship ballistic missile that can sink U.S. aircraft carriers. China is developing electromagnetic pulse weapons to use against our aircraft carriers in any conflict over Taiwan.

Communist China is a huge jobs issue, and jobs is the number-one presidential campaign issue. China is a killer of U.S. jobs, not only from U.S. outsourcing but by taking thousands of construction jobs away from U.S. workers.

Despite California's 10 percent unemployment, China will soon finish rebuilding the great San Francisco-Oakland Bay bridge damaged in the 1989 earthquake. A Chinese company built the construction machinery and the 12 bridge segments in China and is installing them in California, using 3,000 imported Chinese workers (steel-cutters, welders, engineers, etc.), paid $12 a day, working 7 a.m. till 11 p.m., seven days a week, and sleeping in a company dorm.

China has already built seven U.S. schools, and has bought a large chunk of real estate in Toledo, Ohio and oil and gas fields in Texas. China has contracts to build a 4,000-room casino in Atlantic City, and to refurbish the Alexander Hamilton bridge over the Harlem River.

In Idaho, China is using a federal program that grants permanent residency to foreign nationals and special tax exemptions to foreign firms that move to the U.S. But surprise, surprise, the Chinese industries in Idaho will be staffed by imported Chinese workers.

Targets of Chinese investment in New York include the New York subway system, a Metro-North train platform near Yankee stadium, luxury apartments, and major leases in the Empire State Building and the World Trade Center.

After General Electric's CEO, Jeffrey Immelt, closed all G.E.'s U.S. Edison light bulb plants and opened a light bulb plant in China, Barack Obama named Immelt his Jobs Czar. Immelt then announced G.E. will move its 115-year-old X-ray division from Wisconsin to Beijing, where G.E. will invest $2 billion, train 65 engineers, and create six research centers.

G.E. is now pursuing a joint venture with China to build the avionics for a new commercial plane that will compete with Boeing and Airbus. Of course, China will use this technology for military purposes, too.

China is now asking Missouri taxpayers to build a cargo hub at Lambert-St.Louis Airport, called Aerotropolis, for the use of Shanghai-based China Cargo Airlines. China expects Missouri to give the Chinese $360 million in tax credits to subsidize this cargo hub, with millions of square feet of warehouse and factory space.

The new Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial should be stamped "Made in China." It was sculpted in China by a Chinese sculptor out of Chinese granite and assembled in the U.S. by imported Chinese workers.

Communist China is a big medical issue. More than 80 percent of the active ingredients for prescription drugs sold in the United States are made in other countries, mostly in China or India, where the manufacturers and facilities are rarely or never inspected.

Several years ago, the Chinese deliberately substituted a cheap fake ingredient in the blood-thinner Heparin. That caused 81 U.S. deaths before it was pulled from use.

Now we learn that 180 drugs needed to treat leukemia, cancer and other diseases are in dangerously short supply because of contamination in facilities in China and India. While a deal is now being negotiated to start U.S. inspection of Chinese drug plants, there is no reason to believe that occasional inspections will make the drugs safe.

This is a combination of real problems and boogey-men.

There are two ways to deal with the real problems: power or service. Put another way: bombs or ethics. Put still another way: imperialism or a City upon a Hill. America was built on a Christian social foundation which held that "Religion, morality, and knowledge, [are] necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind." Religion and morality are the only antidote to big government.

The "military superiority" which Schlafly advocates is indistinguishable from Chinese Communism. It is the "big government" solution. The ideology of the Chinese "communists" is not fundamentally or qualitatively different from the ideology of Bush-Paulson-Obaba-Geithner. Someday the Big U.S. Government will decide to merge with the Big Chinese Government, and nobody will really notice.