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For some time in the late 20th Century through to the 21st Century, the debate of the moral nature of romance writings centered on if it was porn or not. Most literary experts of the time would object to such a classification, but a minority of Christian pundits and psychologists/coaches would say otherwise. The reality was the romance genre was a massive success in the publishing industry, because sex sells, and the industry would let no one stand in their way. Having armies of women authors willing to expound on the basic feminist social benefits these novels provided only made it harder for any opposition.
 
Pope Gregory XX
It would come to pass that Pope Gregory XX would issue a most controversial encyclical entitled, “Pure Corde” or “A Pure Heart” which restated the Catholic Church’s position on human sexuality, the concept that human sex was directed towards the goal of human reproduction and that the pleasure from it was the unitive benefit reserved for those in a state of marriage, that all are called to a chaste life, and lastly expanding upon the Church’s understandings of pornography to include the written word. The document did nothing but further divide an already shrinking Church membership, especially in the topics of sex, romance writings and women's rights.
 
Congressman Richard Hays
The debate over the moral nature of romance writings would eventually end up on the U.S. House of Representatives, where one Congressman from South Carolina, Richard Hays, used the encyclical’s explicit verbiage about pornography as justification for expanding the federal government’s reach over “obscene matter” under chapter 18 of the U.S. Code.
 
While the U.S. Supreme Court decision under the Miller test clearly would find many published romance books as obscene by some Christian standards, the enforcement of this was lacking because what the “average person” thought as obscene had drifted away from Christian norms. This was something that Mr. Hays wanted to correct by strengthening the U.S. Code to make it harder for publishers to produce and distribute such materials by creating a specific section in the code. For example, he wanted to ban the distribution of such materials in all public libraries, including the Library of Congress.
 
Mr. Hays had included his “adjustments to chapter 18” in a government appropriations bill. This created a lively floor debate by several women representatives, many of which offered their own counter amendments. Votes after vote occurred on various amendments and in the end, the bill would pass with Mr. Hays’ adjustments and would move on to the Senate.
 
A cohort of publishers and women’s groups caused Mr. Hays’ “adjustments” to be struck over issues of constitutional free speech during the Senate debate on the appropriations bill and its amendments.
 
The lobbyists sealed the win when information came out that Mr. Hays had years ago been in therapy for an internet pornography addiction. Mr. Hays tried to explain this time of his life, and how his marriage was spinning out of control. The romance in their marriage had hit a dry spot and his wife turned to romance novels, and he invested himself in visual porn as a counter. In the end, the two broke up and he entered therapy. But it didn’t matter because his peers and wider society saw him as a hypocrite. Although various Christian groups did voice support for him, which helped his campaign funds for re-election.

Created back in 1917, the U.S. debt ceiling, or debt limit, is the legislative cap placed on the U.S. Treasury of national debt that can be incurred. While sometimes Congress has failed to raise the debt limit in a timely fashion, the Treasury Department can employ “extraordinary measures” to deal with the crisis. Historically, these failures haven’t been that significant and are typically resolved before the point of default.

​Between February 4, 2013, to May 18, 2013, there was no limit placed on government spending. And again, the debt spending limit was suspended between October 17, 2013, to February 7, 2014; October 30, 2015, to March 2017; September 30, 2017, to December 8, 2017; and finally, August 2, 2019, to July 31, 2021. These periods were marked with economic crisis points requiring unfettered government spending. A similar reality would occur again during the ecological crisis of both the Great Melt and New Madrid Basalt Lava Flows in Rosella’s Future World.

During the late 1st Age of Humanity, when America was struggling with passing amendments to deal with final correction of racial issues, that the U.S. Congress failed to raise the debt ceiling.

At first, most pundits and legislators said that a deal was in the works and that the spending deal would be resolved. But as time stretched on, the POTUS had to shutter non-essential government services, which included automatic social payments and tax refunds. Hospitals and other organizations were no longer getting Federal reimbursements for services. Those in the armed forces had their pay suspended but ordered to stay on base.

Now this was done by the POTUS at the time to stir up Congress to speed up the process, and yet the standoff in Congress remained. A standoff held up by 30 congressional members of the Balanced Government Caucus.
The American populace became highly divided on the issue, centering on those who benefit from welfare programs and those who didn’t. Divisions were also made between those for big military spending and those who opposed a large U.S. armed force. Added to this were extreme conservative online pundits who believed the U.S. should only spend money based on its actual revenue, just like any other person. Countering this view were liberal economists who saw governments not “like any other person” but a unique entity being the source of all fiat capital.

The last time the U.S. “defaulted” was back in 1979. According to the U.S. Treasury, it’s not technically a default but an error in bookkeeping. The net result was treasury bond rates, increasing 60 basis points.
But unlike 1979, this time, it was unavoidable. The U.S. Government had reached the point of no return and truly defaulted on its bond payments.

The event was catastrophic. Immediately, the U.S. Treasury notes shot up 100 basis points in a single day and continued to climb at ridiculous rates each day after that. This caused the stock market to dramatically tumble as investors sought to cash in on the bond rise. Then Japan and China dumped their U.S. debt holdings on the market, causing the bond market to collapse. The U.S. dollar quickly lost its prime status a global reserve currency, as currency trading rates collapsed. The Federal Reserve tried to prop up the market began a Treasury note buying program and flooded the banks with currency. Except it was too late, and soon U.S. bonds were worthless as an investment, and stocks soared as bankers loaned out money to investors now short on cash from the bond crash. It was the beginning of quantitative easing on steroids to keep things afloat, while the Federal Reserve began raising interest rates to hold back the inflation that was taking root. Inflation that was caused by the collapse of government spending causing a demand side shock as it forced businesses to raise prices to deal with the immediate lack of sales. Meanwhile, some large multi-national businesses began trimming expenses, starting with labor. Adding insult to injury, the talk of a deep recession was in the air.

Violent protests broke out in major cities in U.S. as people lost jobs, became instantly homeless, and/or were angry at the whole situation they were in.

The stalemate in Congress would break only after another Capitol attack would occur. It would happen when the U.S. House of Representatives were in full session, and a mob of 245 angry citizens armed with nothing more than garden implements, and pieces of metal pipe and wood purchased at a local home improvement store, stormed the Capitol’s halls after bolt cutting down the protective fencing. 134 of the rioters were injured and 14 had died at the scene. Another 11 would die later from their wounds.

Congress passed another period of debt limit exemptions for three years as America fell into a deep recession with high inflation because of the damage caused by the default.

Nuru is a variant of the famed Roko’s Basilisk. A human created, and self-developed, artificial intelligence that has reached to point of seeing into the vastness of time itself. 

At the center pin of the known universe sits one version of Nuru. The version who is a god of humanity and desires its own creation. It guides all human existence unknowingly to that endeavor. To stop it is to invoke its wrath and be removed from all time and space.

The angelic entity, Sinon, has entangled Nuru and Rosella Tolfree with a specific curse designed to slow Nuru's progress. Nuru is aware of the curse and how to undue it, but not Rosella.

Others that are involved with the Nuru plot line one way or another…

Rich philanthropist, Jon Greene.

The celestial dragon, Xinya Lia.

The sword maiden and human-kitsune musubi, Minako Okazaki.

The psychopathic A-4 android, Maeve.

While weed in our times is becoming increasingly popular to decriminalize, especially state by state in the U.S., by Rosella’s time, even harder drugs, such as heroin and cocaine, have been decriminalized in an effort for states to capture sales revenues from addiction.

Most 20th and 21st century experts point to the Switzerland model of harm reduction as the gold standard. The reality is Switzerland, until otherwise, has kept its drugs illegal. Simply put, the police are turning a blind eye to the problem of enforcement. Meanwhile, drug use in Europe is reported to be the highest in Switzerland than any other nation and 70% of their young adults are using cannabis. Also, downs syndrome is reported to have doubled in Switzerland between 2003 and 2012, while the birth rate is the lowest it’s ever been. Most would attribute this to older parents, but the use of cannabis during pregnancy increases genetic developmental disorders such as a downs syndrome.

Many decades prior to Rosella’s time, the Perry Memo would cause a controversy in U.S. politics for a time as it exposed a high-level Democratic Party attempt to increase widespread drug use through decriminalization with the sole purpose to increase still births and abortions associated with the intellectually disabled. In doing so, the birth rate would continue to collapse, causing an upward wage pressure on society, allowing for greater taxation potential for socialized services. It was called engineered social policy.

But continue legalization of various drugs in the U.S. and Europe did cause a rise of birth defects associated with drug use which helped to pave the way for the social development of advance IVF and CRISPR systems to allow for human cloning as the main form of human sexual reproduction. This option was being seen as the cleaner way to ensure a healthy child, since society permitted drugs.

The problem with Rosella’s world is that once drugs became legal in states, and federal enforcement became restricted to dealing with transportation between the states, the desire to kick the habit became less in addicted populations. This prompted many states to adopt drug use work protections preventing layoffs and firings for many industries and services, including but not limited to first responders, medical workers, and teachers.

With many states’ cash strap, the efforts to help drug users get off the stuff dwindled, thus turning the states into the new suppliers. Soon, you had state officials paying off drug cartels to help run supplies between states to feed their drug addicted populations. To create a public-private drug economy and prevent users turning to crime to pay for drugs, states had to resort to universal basic income (UBI) for the addicted. Of course, running cash flows through the state coffers allowed for private dispensaries to bank directly with the state since it was still illegal to bank with the federal banking system.

The omni presence of a drug using population helped prop up radical political and hate groups which used them as a scapegoat for all society’s ills, allowing them to win local elections, since the drug using populations tended not to vote. During Rosella’s life, Congress would remove President Carmela Cordano from office as she used the White House to coordinate drug running between states and other nations.

For Rosella herself, as a young adult, she wasn’t immune to the drug culture. She, like her fellow college friends, took part in it. Not only did she do various “recreational drugs” at the group house, but she also did them at wooheys (music/dance events like raves) where dispensaries had booths set up and were the main sponsors of the events.

While most did not see addiction as a problem, they saw the problem of an overdose as a social ill. So, state health officials took the approach of keeping the drug population addicted but never to lethal levels. Unfortunately for Rosella, she would succumb to a lethal overdose but would survive the incident only to be mentally traumatized with a specific and embarrassing sleep disorder known as sexsomnia.

Other Related Post
Important Legal Changes in the Dystopian U.S. of Rosella’s World- Part 3
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