*Are Our Daily Habits Productive?

The economic woes the world has experienced over the past half-decade or so have exacerbated the perceived—and often real—gulf between the haves and the have-nots. The Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement focused on the super-rich, the top one percent of Americans by income, complaining that these ultra-wealthy people should "pay their fair share" of taxes to support the poor. This disaffection with the rich was no doubt encouraged by the rhetoric of the current President and his supporters, who promised fundamental change in America and a progressive (read "socialist" or even "Marxist") redistribution of wealth under the guise of fairness.

The OWS movement, never truly coherent or successful in its aims, has fizzled, but its underlying spirit of dissatisfaction with the wealthy lingers. Just yesterday, while waiting for my truck to be serviced, I heard the cashier complain to another customer that the salary and benefits package promised to a local top bank executive was ridiculous. "No one," she said, "needs that much money, and there is no way we [bank customers] can make up for it." In other words, the executive was so overpaid that the bank would fail trying to pay it!

The OWS crowd assumes two foundational beliefs about the rich that are not necessarily true. First, they believe that the wealthy are born with silver spoons in their mouths, and having inherited their money from their parents—who are fixtures in a permanent upper class—thus did nothing to earn their mansions, luxury yachts and automobiles, and hefty portfolios. While this is true for a small percentage of the super-rich, the people who inhabit the top tier of the wealthy come and go with regularity as fortunes are made and lost in the volatility of the markets and the business world. The names on the Forbes list of wealthiest Americans are different or in different places every year. America is still the land of opportunity—both to rise and to fall.

Second, OWS supporters believe that, if they did not inherit their money, the wealthy acquired their riches through underhanded means. By hook or by crook, by defrauding the poor or knifing their coworkers or competitors in the back, the wealthiest among us clawed their way up the ladder of success, leaving the ruined lives of others behind them. While a tiny minority of wealthy people may have taken this sordid route, the vast majority of top income-earners simply rolled up their sleeves and outworked everyone else. The Pareto Principle, also known as the "80-20 Rule" or the "Law of the Vital Few," essentially posits that 80% of the effects derive from 20% of the causes. In this case, it means that 20% of the people do 80% of the work—and the wealthy among us usually fall into that productive top quintile.

Earlier this week, a friend recommended an article to me on the website of financial guru Dave Ramsey, whose main goal is to help people get out of debt and establish a solid financial footing. The article, "20 Things The Rich Do Every Day," was a blog entry by a man named Tom Corley, author of Rich Habits, "the groundbreaking financial self-help book that shares the secrets of financial success by exposing the daily habits of wealthy individuals," according to his website, RichHabits.net. In short, Corley has found that wealthy people generally share certain habits that enhance productivity and thus prosperity.

Doing one or more of the habits on the list will not by any means guarantee a six-figure salary, but they are generally commonsense practices that can help a person do more and better with their time, energy, and skills. Here is a sample of the list:

1. 70% of wealthy eat less than 300 junk food calories per day. 97% of poor people eat more than 300 junk food calories per day. . . .
3. 76% of wealthy exercise aerobically 4 days a week. 23% of poor do this.
4. 63% of wealthy listen to audio books during commute to work vs. 5% for poor people. . . .
10. 88% of wealthy read 30 minutes or more each day for education or career reasons vs. 2% for poor. . . .
13. 67% of wealthy watch 1 hour or less of TV every day vs. 23% for poor. . . .
19. 86% of wealthy believe in life-long educational self-improvement vs. 5% for poor.

The underlying premise behind Corley's list is that some people, by virtue of their daily habits, set themselves up for success and the money that invariably follows, while others doom themselves to being poor and staying poor by their unproductive everyday lifestyles. As the sample from the list shows, a good diet and frequent exercise can lead to productivity because the body will likely be healthy, allowing it to work better, longer, and harder. Cultivating the mind through education, creative listening, and reading keeps a person informed, engaged, and expanding his skillset. Finally, productive people do not waste much time on vapid entertainment.

In summary, a reason why the wealthy are wealthy is because they work at doing advantageous things while avoiding detriments and distractions. They do what is helpful and shun what is useless. As the old song goes, they accentuate the positive and eliminate the negative. These are things anyone can do—and from a spiritual point of view, should do.

The book of Proverbs is teeming with advice on being productive and prosperous, such as these few: "Go to the ant, you sluggard! Consider her ways and be wise" (Proverbs 6:6). "Getting treasures by a lying tongue is the fleeting fantasy of those who seek death" (Proverbs 21:6). "Do you see a man who excels in his work? He will stand before kings" (Proverbs 22:29). "By knowledge the rooms are filled with all precious and pleasant riches" (Proverbs 24:4). "Prepare your outside work, . . . and afterward build your house" (Proverbs 24:27).

In the Parable of the Talents, Jesus heaps praise on those who wisely and energetically profit from His gifts and condemns the one who squanders them (Matthew 25:14-30). Many of His teachings use illustrations lifted from situations involving money, wealth, debt, wages, work, and stewardship. He even speaks of making "friends for yourselves by unrighteous mammon (Luke 16:9), just before warning, "If you have not been faithful in the unrighteous mammon, who will commit to your trust the true riches?" (verse 11).

So, do our daily routines set us up for success—financially, relationally, spiritually—or do they doom us to failure? Are they productive or unproductive? It is well worth our time to evaluate our lives for ways to improve them by adopting more profitable habits.

Why We Homeschool

Listen (RealAudio)

Back in the early years of the homeschooling phenomenon, its advocates were largely tie-dyed, granola-munching, back-to-nature, hippie types whose primary goal was to disassociate from just about everything manmade, and certainly from Establishment institutions like the public schools. They fought running battles with local and state governments for the right to teach their children themselves, and—to give them credit where it is due—they had patchy success, especially in more progressive states like California. It is no wonder that homeschooling has the reputation, even today in some quarters, as being a far-out, counter-cultural movement.

However, somewhere about the time of the Reagan Revolution, homeschooling dramatically switched its poles, shifting from a leftist movement to a rightist one. A growing number of religious and social conservatives, frustrated with both the iron grip of liberals (read: teachers' unions and school district administrations) on the country's educational system and the cultural mayhem rising in the public schools, opted to take on the additional burden of teaching their children at home. The movement has grown far beyond anything its pioneers ever imagined.

And a burden it can be. Homeschool parents pay the same taxes for the public schools as everyone else, plus they take on the additional expenses of books, fees, supplies, and miscellaneous costs associated with education. This amounts to hundreds or even thousands of dollars each year, depending on how ambitious they decide to be. A math, science, or history textbook may cost upwards of $50, and the family must still buy teacher's guides and answer keys, and for science, microscopes, test tubes, specimens, etc. There are further outlays of cash if the child desires to participate in any extracurricular activities: art, music, or sports, activities that are usually subsidized in public schools. In addition, foreign language classes—or for that matter, any outside instruction beyond the abilities of the parents—can cost the proverbial arm and/or leg. It must also be factored in that homeschool families must function on only one salary, since one of the parents must stay at home to teach.

Beyond these expenses, it is a burden of time and energy. Homeschooling is a full-time occupation in itself. Not only is there one-on-one instruction, but there are additional activities like lesson-planning, reviewing, testing, grading, experimenting (science again), reading (lots of reading—to stay ahead of the kids!), and taking the students to this, that, and the other class. It is a blessing that, as the student ages, he is able to do a great deal more on his own and with only minimal oversight. Otherwise, the homeschool parent would simply burn out.

At this point, many a reader is probably saying to himself, "Why do it, then?" Despite the fact that homeschooling is not for the faint of heart, its rewards far outweigh the efforts.

Homeschoolers benefit both by what they avoid and by what they receive. Because they are able to assemble their own curriculum, they can steer clear of distasteful and objectionable subjects. For instance, they can (or not) study the theory of evolution in a more balanced way, comparing it with biblical creation and Intelligent Design and emphasizing their preferred understanding. Further, they can replace the oftentimes horribly inappropriate sex-education teaching with a better alternative. They can also avoid humanistic, socialistic, multicultural, and postmodern ideas that have been integrated into textbooks, teaching aids, and lesson plans by teachers, teachers' unions, and school districts. Besides these, they do not have to deal with power-obsessed administrators, holier-than-thou counselors, know-it-all teachers, and scores of undisciplined, Ritalin-candidate students—not to mention a load of perverse cultural influences.

On the flipside, those who homeschool are compensated, though not monetarily, far more than most people who have never tried it realize:

• For starters, the family becomes very close. This may seem paradoxical to those who think spending several hours each day in the near vicinity of their children would drive them to drink. Yet, the time and the shared activities and understanding bind parents and children tightly together, bridging the "generation gap" to a great degree.
• Done well, homeschooling teaches children more thoroughly than public schools do. This comes as a result of more one-on-one instruction and the ability to study a subject in depth. Public school children waste a great deal of time in meaningless activities during school hours (and in their commute to and from school), but at home, a well-organized, disciplined child uses this extra time to read or to pursue an interest spurred by his study. What is more, he still usually finishes his school day earlier than his neighbor who attends a local school!
• A homeschooled child also has a wider variety of subject fields to study than his public-school counterpart. While the public school has a set curriculum and a handful of elective courses, homeschoolers are limited only by time, money, and their communities' offerings. However, with the Internet and easy, fast transportation, they can pursue even exotic topics relatively effortlessly. Whether it is learning Sanskrit, investigating Central American archeology, or studying Australia's marsupials, homeschoolers have the freedom to explore these individual interests.

Nevertheless, homeschooling is not for everyone. Some parents just do not have the inclination or the patience required to do it well. However, it is worth serious consideration for all Christians who desire to minimize the world's influence on their children. God gives to parents the primary responsibility for educating their children, not to worldly schools: "Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it" (Proverbs 22:6), and ". . . bring them up in the training and admonition of the Lord" (Ephesians 6:4). Homeschooling is a way to be far more involved in our children's growth into godly, mature adults.

Slowly But Surely?

Listen (RealAudio)

Common wisdom posits that given enough time, water runoff can reduce even the tallest mountain to countless grains of sand scattered over the ocean floor. Geologists assert that the stunning Grand Canyon was carved over eons by the flow of the Colorado River. A few years ago, a documentary on the Himalayas warned that, because of the composition of the rock that they are made of, the world's tallest mountain range was subject to lightning-fast erosion, geologically speaking. Sometime during that same geologic period, they say, California will crack in two along the San Andreas Fault, and the western half will become an island in the sea.

These are geological examples of a process called gradualism. Normally, this term is applied to evolutionary biological ideas: As The American Heritage Dictionary puts it, "The view that speciation proceeds by imperceptibly small, cumulative steps over long periods of time rather than by abrupt, major changes." In other words, many evolutionary biologists believe animal and plant species evolved slowly rather than quickly, in baby-steps rather than giant leaps, over millions—yea, billions—of years. Right.

Gradualism is also part of the political lexicon: "The belief in or the policy of advancing toward a goal by gradual, often slow stages." This nefarious strategy has been in place in this country—planned and coordinated or not—since its founding. While the ink of its signatures was still drying on the Constitution, the two political parties that formed during the Constitutional Convention were already looking for ways to amend it to conform to their ways of thinking. Over the two and a quarter centuries since then, the basic law of the land has been amended, re-interpreted, ignored, and generally mishandled until the United States, despite being powerful and wealthy, is a mere shadow of its former self in values, nobility, and freedom.

The evolutionary concept of gradualism reaches out to encompass other areas of life too. It is used in various treatments, especially to "cure" addictions. For instance, the nicotine patch and nicotine gum, extremely popular a few years ago, worked on this principle. A smoker wanting to kick the habit wore a patch with slightly less nicotine than is found in a cigarette. After a set time, he transitioned to another patch with even less nicotine, and he repeated this process until he was weaned from his addiction to the drug. For some, this drawn-out process apparently works. It would be interesting to find out if the makers of the nicotine patch and/or gum (or better yet, an independent laboratory) ever did a study on the actual success-rate of this product line.

Educators in our public schools have also used gradualism very effectively—but note that "effective" does not mean "proper." Psychologists use the less-innocuous term "conditioning" for this process. Children of only five years of wisdom enter the system with, as Rush Limbaugh calls it, "skulls full of mush." Teachers, whose curricula are often mandated at higher levels, begin to indoctrinate them in various socially or politically correct notions, say, for instance, environmentalism. Within a short time, these children are lecturing their parents on the benefits of recycling, leaving old-growth forests to the owls, and driving "green" automobiles. By the time such children have graduated from high school, many of them are full-fledged environmentalists, ready to save Gaia from horrible, hateful humanity.

Similar gradualism occurs every day in the larger society. In 1980, homosexuality was still "in the closet." When the AIDS crisis broke out in 1981, HIV was considered a "gay disease," confined to the bathhouses of San Francisco and wherever homosexuals were concentrated. Within a few years, once the homosexual PR machine began to crank, the public was manipulated into feeling pity for AIDS "victims," and a short while after that, into conferring a kind of "favored minority" status on not just those with the disease, but also on all homosexuals. Now the gradual process has come to the point where the public is being pressured just about daily to approve not just civil unions for gays but marriage! Thirty years of gradual, persistent assault on the mores of America has resulted in nearly total tolerance, if not acceptance, of what was once considered deviant, perverse, and sinful.

As used by liberal advocacy groups everywhere, gradualism is a real-world demonstration of the "frog slowly boiling in a pot of water" metaphor—and a scheme of which we need to be aware. Advertisers and public relations firms use it all the time to sell merchandise and ideas that people would otherwise reject, and most of the time for good reason. Personally, just a few years ago, I would never have purchased a cell phone—nor did I even consider that I had a need for one. But now that I have been worked over by the media, I wear a cell phone clipped to my belt everyday as I head off to work! In just this same way, we are worn down, ever so gradually, until we accept what we formerly rejected out of hand.

Behind all of this, of course, is Satan the Devil, a master manipulator. By hook and by crook, he has managed to win over one-third of the angels and every human being (Revelation 12:9) to his way of thinking—rebellion against God. Those who would try to change us back to that anti-God way of life will use the same stratagems. We need to watch out for such ploys, Paul warns, "lest Satan should take advantage of us; for we are not ignorant of his devices" (II Corinthians 2:11). And do not think that he would not try to trip us up—he tried his best to wear down our Savior in much the same way (Matthew 4; Luke 4).

Paul advises us to put on the whole armor of God so that we can defend against Satan's tricks (Ephesians 6:11). Part of every good defense is having a good idea what the enemy can and will throw against us. So, beware of gradualism and stand firm!

A Dull and Compliant People

Within the past month, I read an article denouncing both government and industry for its use of fluoride in drinking water, toothpastes, mouthwashes, and other dental applications. The main point of the article, besides the author's desire to counter "this fluoride scam," was to warn Americans about a political side effect of fluoride use: Evidently, fluoride acts as a "tranquilizer," producing lethargic, mind-numbed citizens over time. In support, she quotes an Australian parliamentarian reporting on Nazi and Soviet use of fluoride during World War II:

In this scheme, sodium fluoride will in time reduce an individual's power to resist domination by slowly poisoning and narcotising a certain area of the brain, and will thus make him submissive to the will of those who wish to govern him. Both the Germans and the Russians added fluoride to the drinking water of prisoners of war to make them stupid and docile. (Kidd, Devvy, "Germans & Russians Used Fluoride to Make Prisoners 'Stupid & Docile'," NewsWithViews.com, May 14, 2005)

My background in chemistry and biology is deficient to the point that I cannot comment one way or the other on her claims. Whether fluoridation causes people to be dull and compliant is moot, and in the end, it is an unnecessary argument. Yes, if our governments and corporations are involved in a fluoridation conspiracy, it should be stopped, but even so, it is only one area of our modern society's multi-pronged attack on our intellect, emotions, attitudes, expectations, and motivations. If we did not have fluoride making us slow-witted and sluggish, it would be some other chemical, some other habit, some other addiction, some other program.

For instance, a decade ago, parents of public school children began to be concerned about government schools dumbing-down curricula across the nation. Remember ebonics? Remember new math? Remember outcome-based education? Now we have No Child Left Behind, a revamped Scholastic Achievement Test, and billions of dollars in school funding (thanks to the dense Joe Public who keeps voting for school bonds and tax-and-spend politicians). Essentially, though, the curricula have not improved! There may be a greater emphasis on science, technology, and math, but universities are still having to run too many freshmen through remedial courses to get them up to college speed.

Today's curricula are craftily designed—particularly in English and "social studies" courses—to gloss over the nation's achievements, influential leaders, and important documents and to draw attention to people and events of relatively minor stature yet which promote modern, liberal "isms": multiculturalism, feminism, socialism, relativism, humanism, etc. For example, in a recent history textbook, History of a Free Nation, Benjamin Banneker, a black surveyor who assisted in surveying Washington, D.C., gets more ink than does President John Adams. Similarly, Molly Pitcher, a woman who heroically took her husband's place at a cannon after he was killed in battle, seems to have been a more decisive player in the American Revolution than was George Washington.

On top of this, we are a TV nation. As Thomas Sowell once sagely commented, "Someone once asked why television was called a medium. The answer was that it was seldom well done." Television is inherently biased toward presenting simplistic themes, plots, emotions, and analyses because the more subtle and more complex come off as boring and take too long. This is why offerings of these kinds can be found only on public broadcasting and obscure cable stations. The average viewer does not feel obliged to wait or reason during a television show; he wants only to be spoon-fed and entertained. In fact, studies show that a person's brain activity slows down toward the level of sleep while watching television.

The programming rage for the last several years has been the "reality show." These programs pit ordinary people against one another, a course, a location, a series of challenges, or even their own fears and problems, and by the process of elimination, a winner eventually emerges to win a gazillion bucks. And so we have American Idol, The Amazing Race (perhaps the best of the genre), Survivor, The Apprentice, The Bachelor(ette), Nanny 911, and The Osbournes, among scores of others, each more inane than the last. These shows join sitcoms, game shows, soap operas, and cartoons as the average American's daily fare. Talk about being mind-numbed!

Space does not permit covering Americans' fixation on sports and entertainment, their obsession with materialism, or their passion for excess in food, drink, and sex. This is the age-old, tried-and-true, "bread and circuses" method of controlling the rabble. Those in power have learned to keep the people ignorant, fat, and happy, and as such, they will not—cannot—give the authorities any trouble.

And it is working. The American people have essentially rolled over just about every time a once-taboo subject has pricked the collective conscience—whether it is premarital promiscuity, adultery, abortion, homosexuality, pornography, no-fault divorce, public prayer, public display of God's Word, capital punishment, government debt and deficits, personal and public honesty and accountability, etc. A few courageous citizens fight an uphill battle virtually alone in some of these areas, but most stay home, ensconced on their couches, staring wide-eyed and slack-jawed at the boob tube, mere spectators of life in these United States.

God says of Israel:

Jeshurun grew fat and kicked; . . . then he forsook God who made him, and scornfully esteemed the Rock of his salvation. . . . And when the Lord saw it, He spurned them, because of the provocation of His sons and His daughters. And He said, "I will hide My face from them, I will see what their end will be, for they are a perverse generation, children in whom is no faith. . . . I will heap disasters upon them; I will spend My arrows on them. . . . The sword shall destroy outside; there shall be terror within. . . .

"For they are a nation void of counsel, nor is there any understanding in them. Oh, that they were wise, that they understood this, that they would consider their latter end!" (Deuteronomy 32:15, 19-20, 23, 25, 28-29)

It does not take great intellect to understand what this portends for America in the near future—or have we already grown too mindless and complacent to care?

Eradicating Humanity

When I am not editing someone else's writing or writing something of my own, I am often found reading. It is something I have been doing with regularity since I plowed through a children's version of The Ugly Duckling when I was five years old. Seeing that I took to reading like, well, a duck—make that a swan—to water, my parents encouraged it with access to lots of books, and I am still in the habit.

My current fare is C.S. Lewis' The Abolition of Man, a skinny volume whose main theme is, according to the back cover, "how to best teach our children—and ourselves—not merely reading and writing, but also a sense of morality." The late Mr. Lewis was certainly qualified to discuss such a subject, since as a professor of medieval and Renaissance literature at both Oxford and Cambridge universities, he was involved in education all his life. The book is actually a transcript of a series of lectures he gave—obviously to a highly educated audience, as his prose is liberally salted with references to Classical literature and phrases in foreign tongues (Latin predominating). In a similar vein, his arguments are quite intellectual and logical in that Oxford don sort of way. Because of this, I have had to re-read many sections, many paragraphs, and many sentences two and three times to catch his drift. This is not a book for the faint of heart. Though it runs only 109 pages, it is not a quick read.

Beyond the main theme of education, however, lies a concept with which most Christians should be familiar, which is found in the title, The Abolition of Man. Lewis restricts his comments to the methods by which modern educators, whom he calls "Conditioners," are attempting to wean the younger generation away from adherence to natural law. In other words, modern education's premise, he posits, is to remove from humanity what makes it essentially human—its universal values. He argues that the products of today's educational system are "Men Without Chests," the title of his first chapter; the education-elite are ripping the heart out of mankind by mass-producing essentially valueless graduates. Their philosophy has come to be known as relativism or postmodernism, which is commonly understood to mean "there are no absolute truths."

Because he is speaking to a secular audience, Lewis does not take his argument the further step that a thinking Christian would. Lewis was a deeply religious man, and he probably contemplated the spiritual ramifications of his thesis in his private thoughts. Nevertheless, he does not mention the malevolent influence behind this valueless philosophy, Satan the Devil. Such an excursion into the realm of "the ruler of this world" (John 14:30) would not have been well-received by his audience. We, however, must take his presence, his power, and his participation in the affairs of humankind seriously.

What is the primary aim of "the prince of the power of the air" (Ephesians 2:2)? The abolition of man! Ever since God created the first man and woman in the Garden of Eden, Satan has been interested in nothing else but the eradication of humanity from his "proper domain" (Jude 6). He sees mankind, made after the God-kind (Genesis 1:26-27) with the potential of being born again into the God Family (John 3:3-8; Revelation 14:1-5; 20:4-6; etc.), as interlopers, squatters, and vagrants in his realm. He is painfully aware that God intends humanity to replace him and his demons as rulers of this planet, and he is fighting like a cornered rat to retain his place and power. Though he has already been personally defeated by Jesus Christ (Hebrews 2:14), he still believes he can win or at least frustrate and perhaps ruin God's plan by deceiving, attacking, destroying, and killing as many human beings as he can (I Peter 5:8). He especially desires to derail and exterminate as many of God's begotten children as he can (Revelation 12:17).

Most people would probably laugh at such a notion, for it is not popular to believe in a being of ultimate evil like Satan the Devil. This is a very skeptical world. If people cannot see it, they do not believe it—and Satan has done a good job of deceiving the whole world into believing that he does not exist (Revelation 12:9). Now he can hide in plain sight and go virtually unnoticed. Mankind blithely ascribes his malicious works to "natural causes," "unfortunate accidents," "coincidences," "delusions," "mental illnesses," "misunderstandings," even "progress." Thus, the valueless educational methods Mr. Lewis decries are considered by the intelligentsia to be an evolutionary step forward for mankind—while the truth is that Satan has merely handed Western civilization a time bomb calibrated to render millions of people spiritually deaf to God's call.

The serpent is more subtle than any beast of the field (Genesis 3:1), and Adam and Eve's descendants are proving to be just as gullible and sinful as their first parents—perhaps more so in our degenerate age. It is interesting that when Adam and Eve ate the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, their eyes were opened (verse 7), but in reality, now they had their eyes wide shut. Paul writes, ". . . whose minds the god of this age has blinded, who do not believe, lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine on them" (II Corinthians 4:4).

It is only when we are called by God and our eyes opened by His Holy Spirit that we can see what is really going on in the world (II Corinthians 3:16). We are in a life-and-death struggle "against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places" (Ephesians 6:12). We have to "put on the whole armor of God, that we may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil" (verse 11). In this battle, we have to recognize the real enemy and his stratagems and to "resist him, steadfast in the faith" (I Peter 5:9).

No worries. It is just the fate of humanity on the line.

Toward Anarchy

Here in Charlotte, the local school system has descended into another crisis—only the latest one on a very long string of such problems—and this time the turmoil concerns what is being called deconsolidation. Briefly, the wealthy and relatively placid suburban areas wish to secede from Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools (CMS) and form their own, separate system. In fact, they have suggested that CMS should be broken up into at least three—and perhaps more—smaller, more local, more accountable districts. The backers of this idea believe that local autonomy and a smaller, more efficient administration are the keys to reforming a horribly inept, corrupt, unfair, and ineffective governmental agency.

The public school system is probably the most visible and tangible form of government to most Americans, certainly to those who have children in the system. It is here that the shortcomings of big government are most quickly observed and have their greatest impact on the average citizen. Despite the fact that voters have the "power" to elect school boards, the unified school districts around the nation are not run by these elected officials but by the entrenched bureaucracy created to support the ever-expanding—and soon-bloated—system. With power over billions of dollars and motivated by an agenda to impose their often-liberal values (in CMS's case, it is forced integration through busing and mandated racial "equality" through disproportionate allocation of funds to the inner city—in effect, a kind of reparations package), these relatively unaccountable managers implement their ideas through successive administrations without missing a beat. In Charlotte, it took thirty years for the frustration with the system to build into outright rebellion.

On the national level, the rumblings against big government are also being heard. For starters, democrats are widely seen as advocates of higher taxes, expanded services, and increased governmental involvement in every area of life, and their candidates—at least nationally—have done poorly in the last three elections. In addition, fiscal and social conservatives are quite concerned about President Bush's profligate spending. Granted, much of it has gone to military matters, but perhaps even more is being funneled to fund No Child Left Behind, prescription drugs, and other social benefits. Many claim his proposal to "save" Social Security will be another financial boondoggle for the American taxpayer. Whatever the case, more spending means higher taxes means increased government means less freedom for Joe and Jane Citizen—whether the administration is Republican or Democrat.

Even on the radical Left, some are crying for decentralization and local autonomy. Ward Churchill, the embattled Ethnic Studies professor at the University of Colorado at Boulder, has called for "the United States out of North America," meaning that he advocates the breakup of the American government into hundreds or even thousands of local, self-determining districts. Whatever his reasoning, he believes that there can be peace, freedom, and equality only on the "tribal" level—that is, only among those who band together around a set of common beliefs and aims. To him, the larger the entity, the less cohesive and fair it is, so it makes sense to him to strip all large governments of power. He and many who think like him are reacting to the obvious abuses and inequalities engendered by huge, powerful, impersonal, and inevitably corrupt human government.

Since the Second World War, the world has been advancing and building global structures: the United Nations, the World Trade Organization, the International Criminal Court, etc. Only now are many seeing the problems associated with such transnational organizations. For instance, the UN has recently found itself mired in scandals ranging from the Oil-for-Food Program to sex-trafficking on UN missions. Observers are realizing that the self-interests of often very diverse peoples keep clashing, causing horrible disparities, abuses, and offenses around the world. For this very reason, the U.S. will not become a signatory to the Kyoto Protocol on Climate Change, to name just one example.

The human solution is to move in the opposite direction, toward tribalism. Deconsolidation, decentralization, downsizing, local autonomy, and similar words or phrases are all catchphrases for this movement toward tribalism. At its extreme, tribalism becomes each man for himself—anarchy, literally "without a ruler," an absence of government, resulting in lawlessness.

The Bible describes such conditions: "In those days, there was no king in Israel; everyone did what was right in his own eyes" (Judges 17:6; 21:25; see also Deuteronomy 12:8). The book of Judges has been called "the bloodiest book of the Bible," as the text shows Israel cycling through the process of freedom, decline, oppression, and revolt time after time. The author pares the cause of the Israelites' instability down to this one statement: There was no government, so it was every man for himself.

Do we really want to go there? On the other hand, do we really want to continue under the present system?

The real problem in all of this swinging back and forth between globalism and tribalism is self-interest—or to put it bluntly, selfishness. No human government, big or small, powerful or weak, centralized or local, will work unless the governed are willing to put aside their self-interests for the good of all. Certainly, this is altruism, but it is a basic message of the Bible: "It is more blessed to give than to receive" (Acts 20:35). There will be no universal stability, peace, and prosperity until humanity realizes this and chooses to live by it.