On this day in 1800, the United States Library of Congress was established by the Adams administration with a grant of $5,000 “for the purchase of such books as may be necessary for the use of Congress” and for renting and decorating a room. It’s grown a bit beyond that today. But the basic idea is very good — typically, it was one of James Madison’s. This used to be an idea that wasn’t controversial. You know: Congress needs to know stuff.

For most of our history, we saw Congress accruing more and more things to help it do it’s work — most especially staff. But in recent decades, this has been cut back. You know, we can’t spend actual money! As a result of this, more than anything else, our laws in Congress are now primarily written by lobbyists. This is even more true at the state level. This is what we in the business call “short sighted.”

So Congress (and other legislatures) don’t have to pay direct costs to get legislation written. Instead, it pays thousands of times more to special interests cutting in special deals for themselves, which both cause them not to be taxed as much and to be given more money directly. Ever wonder why Exxon and GE never seem to pay taxes? They’re just getting paid back for all the help that they provide Congress!

There is no doubt that today, the Republicans would never agree to fund the Library of Congress. The party, and the conservative movement more generally, has become totally anti-intellectual. This is what happens when your ideas just don’t stand up to scrutiny and you are unwilling to do anything about your bad ideas: you just ignore everyone who isn’t ideologically committed to your ideas. I understand why one would be a conservatives. I do not understand why one would support the Republicans at this time. It just isn’t rational.

Happy birthday Library of Congress!

On this day 152 years ago, Congress passed the Coinage Act of 1864. This was when Congress decided it was really, really important to print “In God We Trust” on our money. And why was it so important? Well, for three-quarters of a century, the Christian fanatics had been complaining about God not being mentioned in the Constitution. And so every time something bad happened, they started screaming about how the United States had offended God. It was just like today only not nearly as bad.

In 1864, the Civil War was going on. And that had nothing to do with slavery and economics and all that. No, it was just that God was unhappy. So to pacify the crybabies, Congress passed the law and put “God” on our coins. Because, you know, there is nothing that says “Jesus!” like money.

Then, in the midst of the Cold War, in 1956, “In God We Trust” replaced E pluribus unum as our national motto. Today, of course, conservatives would be outraged that America was pandering to people in Latin America and Spain. But then it was all about the Soviet Union being filled with Godless communists where as we were a “nation of believers.” So we got rid of the truly profound notion of “Out of many, one.” And we replaced it with, “Hope for the best!”

So we mark the anniversary of one of Congress’ more minor betrayals of the founding principles of this country.

I was going to talk about juggling babies or some such nonsense today, but I noticed that it was on this day back in 1995 that the Oklahoma City bombing took place, killing roughly 169 people and injuring very many more. I remember in the early 1990s that conservatives, libertarians most especially, were very upset about Ruby Ridge and Waco. And there was a lot of loose talk about armed revolt.

At the time, I felt that the Waco siege had been mishandled. I never had a great deal of sympathy for Ruby Ridge, probably because of its association with white supremacists. I always thought that reaction of people was a bit extreme. This wasn’t exactly Nazi Germany. But regardless, after the Oklahoma City bombing, most of that loose talk of rebellion stopped. Things got very real.

Looking back, I think that had Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols not gotten around to the Oklahoma City bombing, some other pair of “patriots” would have done something similar. But the quiet and reasonableness that this horrific act brought to conservative movement was short lived. I haven’t made a study of it, but you can hear this kind of loose talk any day on The Alex Jones Show. But you will hear the same thing in a less extreme manner from Michael Savage and Rush Limbaugh.

Everyone is guilty of loose talk. Children say they want to kill their parents when they get angry. But there really was something different about things in the early 1990s. There was very much a feeling of, “They raped our queen, so we raped their city, and we were right!” But in this case it is hard to see who “they” were. If McVeigh had decided to assassinate Janet Reno (and I certainly heard people talk about that), it at least made some sense; you could argue that she was culpable. But what the hell did the people who happened to be at or near the Alfred P Murrah Federal Building do that deserved death?

But that’s the problem with loose talk. When you live in a realm of theory, people become like chess pieces on a board. It’s like that kid who killed those people at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church: he thought he was going to start a race war. Those people were just pawns in his grand plan. Ultimately, people have to trump any kind of high ideal — regardless of how great you think it is.