I was once jumping on the trampoline with three of my kids — eight year-old Alex, three year-old Liberty (Libby), and eleven month-old Avery — and, like I am prone to do, reflecting on ideal society.

Alex, skilled and energetic, wants to jump as high as he can and perform tricks.

Libby, unaware of her surroundings, jumps wildly, often upending Avery.

Avery has a good time, yet she’s at risk from her older, heavier, more capable siblings.

Much of the time was spent cautioning Alex and Libby to be careful with Avery. In fact, the experience revolved around catering to Avery, the youngest, weakest, and least capable in our family.

One adult and three kids on a trampoline — a microchosm of society, or at least what it should be. The following are the lessons I identified:

1. Cater to the weakest.

Just as we cared for baby Avery on the trampoline, in the ideal society, individuals voluntarily serve and uplift the weak, the poor, the aged, the disabled.

Competition and cooperation go hand-in-hand; competition increases quality while cooperation ensures peace and stability. Competition should never create ill feeling; cooperation should never create dependency.

The goal of this ideal isn’t to take the strongest down to the level of the weakest; rather it is to uplift the weak to increased capacity, thus raising all of society without creating wide discrepancies in social status and/or wealth distribution.

2. Create outlets for all skill levels and interests.

While the ideal caters to the weakest, it also allows for full expression of every individual, including the most talented and capable.

The disease of socialism is that it tends toward mediocrity, tearing down the able in the name of “helping” the weak.

In the ideal, catering to the weak is never done at the expense of the strong.

In the case of our trampoline experience, we took turns so that each child could do what they wanted and grow on their terms. Alex took a turn alone, doing flips and aerials. Libby did her crazy thing. Then, I held Avery in my arms and we all jumped together.

No desires were sacrificed, Avery was protected and made to enjoy the experience at a higher level than she could alone.

Think of this concept in a public school setting. Inevitably, in a class of 25 or more students, the “slow” learners get left behind, while the “fast” learners quickly become bored. Both the weak and the strong suffer.

Imagine a setting where each individual is allowed to learn and progress on their own terms, at their own speed. Then, having grown, they help others to do the same.

3. Protect rights.

Just as my youngest daughter needed to be protected from physical danger posed by her siblings, the ideal society has a strong institution that protects the rights of every individual.

Keeping individuals safe from harm from others is not the same as giving every individual the same material goods.

4. The ideal is for all of this to happen at the level of family and community.

Politicians and bureaucrats in Washington have no intimate knowledge of, nor a relationship with, the members of our communities.

While families and community members voluntarily serve each other, the federal government relies solely upon force to institute “goodwill.”

Top-down, removed-from-the-source charity always tends toward bureaucracy, wastes money and misemploys resources, and depends upon force as its animating factor.

Ideal charity is animated by voluntary love, is based on intimate relationships, makes the most productive use of resources as possible, and creates independence from dependence, and interdependence from independence.

Conclusion

So who cares? There’s no startling revelation here. What matters is what we do with this knowledge, not what we sit and ponder on.

Be a bridge-builder: Identify where society is, where it should be, then quietly and powerfully insert yourself in the middle.

Find people that need to be served and serve them. Help the unemployed develop skills and find employment. Help addicts find freedom.

Be active in your community. Be true to your spouse and loving to your children. Teach your children the importance of service, especially through your example.

Remove the need for federal government force by replacing it with family and community-centered voluntary charity.

The next time you’re disgusted with federal government waste, deception, and/or force, turn that disgust into positive action by building your family and community.

The stronger our families and communities, the less involved and smaller the government can be.

And spend some time jumping on a trampoline with your children — there’s no telling what you’ll learn.

Why is it that the more digitally connected we become, the more we feel disconnected from the things that matter most?

Picture the following scene played out in typical American homes:

The father is on his computer in the office, finishing up last minute work details and reading up on the latest election news on the internet, while the mother is watching TV in the living room.

The son is downstairs playing video games while the daughter listens to music on her iPod in her bedroom while instant messaging with friends online.

As you picture this scene (and ponder what’s wrong with it), think of the awesome power of the Information Age — the ability to bring the entire world into our living rooms and bedrooms, the ability to connect in real time with almost anyone across the globe.

Technology has given us a brave new — and small — world, with more information, opportunity, and connectivity than our ancestors could even dream of.

And yet, in an age largely defined by connectivity, we’re losing our lifelines to the most important things.

Specifically, there are three main connections that, ironically enough, are being systematically severed the more digitally connected we become.

These vital connections are with God, family, and nature.

These three life-saving links provide the context in which technology, and every other aspect of the modern world, is given proper meaning and priority.

They make up a foundation that, when lost, will plunge us into the emptiness of entertainment, the sterility of science, the cynicism of forfeited faith, and the hollowness of hedonism.

We can have computers, the Internet, iPods, instant and text messaging, TV, radio, blogs, podcasts, and videos pouring out of our homes, while emptying our lives of true meaning in the process.

A person with a deep and lasting connection with God, family, and nature understands the purpose of technology and how to interact with and use it properly.

A person who maintains those three connections, despite anything else happening around them, will not be swayed by opinion polls, tainted by compromise, numbed by information overload, or corrupted by greed.

God, family, and nature are rocks that the sand of modern technology rests upon; when those rocks are removed, the sand quickly collapses, losing all sense of structure, balance, and perspective.

How to Stay Connected

Considering their critical nature, how can we build and strengthen these connections? As with any relationship, for these connections to be deep and sustainable requires ongoing communication and quality time.

God

The two best ways to maintain a firm connection with God are to pray and meditate daily.

Prayer is when we speak with God; meditation is allowing God to speak to us.

As our creator, God knows us intimately, far more than we know ourselves. He will guide us, protect us, unlock our potential, teach us lessons uniquely suited for our particular situation and stage of development.

He will do these things and more, that is, if we let Him. Make the commitment now to pray and meditate daily.

Family

All of us know the cliche that when we’re on our deathbeds, we’re not going to wish we spent more time at the office. Sadly, however, few of us live its meaning in our daily lives.

Do you know your children? Is your love for your spouse stronger than it was on your wedding day? Are you creating memories that your family will cherish for years to come? Is your home a sanctuary, a refuge, an escape from and defense against destructive people, thoughts, materials, and substances?

Now, more than ever before, our homes must protect ourselves and our children from the overwhelming forces of destruction.

Make two commitments now that will make all the difference in achieving this goal: religiously have a date night once a week with your spouse, and set aside at least one evening per week for your family to play, study, learn, and grow together.

Nature

This is perhaps the most difficult connection for most people, since much of our modern world is designed to help us escape from nature.

Consistently spending time with nature helps us appreciate comfort, escape Information Age noise and stay balanced.

Intuitively, although perhaps subconsciously, when in nature we seek to emulate its design — the strength of the rocks and mountains, the cleanliness and vibrance of the rivers, the peacefulness of the lakes, the determination of the wind, the perseverance of the trees and plants, the submission of the animals to their divine place in creation.

In 1851 Seattle, Chief of the Suquamish and other Indian tribes around Washington’s Puget Sound, delivered a beautiful and profound environmental speech in response to a proposed treaty under which the Indians were persuaded to sell two million acres of land for $150,000.

His words seem more applicable today than they ever were. Seattle said:

“…Every part of the earth is sacred to my people…We are part of the earth and it is part of us…

“One portion of land is the same to [the white man] as the next, for he is a stranger who comes in the night and takes from the land whatever he needs. The earth is not his brother, but his enemy, and when he has conquered it, he moves on…His appetite will devour the earth and leave behind only a desert…

“There is no quiet place in the white man’s cities. No place to hear the unfurling of leaves in spring or the rustle of the insect’s wings. The clatter only seems to insult the ears. And what is there to life if a man cannot hear the lonely cry of the whippoorwill or the arguments of the frogs around the pond at night? …The white man does not seem to notice the air he breathes. Like a man dying for many days he is numb to the stench.”

Have you become numb to the source off all your material blessings? How does this impact your life?

It’s hard and you will find every excuse not to, but it’s critical that you commit to at least one meaningful excursion into nature per month.

Go hiking, camping, backpacking, mountain biking, canyoneering. Get out into nature, breathe her in deeply, honor her, and make yourself whole in her presence.

Conclusion

The rise in digital connectivity has been largely accompanied by a decline in and stagnation of our connections with God, family, and nature.

By maintaining and strengthening these three critical connections, we avoid the dangers of the Information Age and become a rock to rely upon, and a standard to follow.

Commit now to staying connected with God, family, and nature by praying and meditating daily, holding a weekly date night with your spouse, setting aside at least one evening per week for nothing but family activities, and going on at least one nature excursion monthly.

A friend once flattered my brother and me by commenting that we were “salt of the earth” people.

When he asked about the environment in which we were raised relative to his compliment, I said the first thing that came to my mind: I told him that we were raised in a salty environment.

It was just a joke at the time, but little did I know how much I would learn about salt and how it relates to families as a result.

The compliment was, of course, referring to the words spoken by the master teacher Jesus Christ who said, “Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be salted?”

Christ also makes a strange request in the book of Mark, where he directs his disciples to “Have salt in yourselves, and have peace one with another.”

These phrases and the conversation with my friend led me to research salt, with the purpose to answer the following questions:

1. What are the qualities of salt that lend themselves to Christ’s parables?
2. Why should we become like salt?
3. Most importantly, what can salt teach us about raising a family?

Putting aside your justifiable doubts about me being “salt of the earth,” I hope you’re as fascinated as I have been by my findings about the connections between salt and families.

I found that salt provides savor, preserves, balances and regulates, cleans, heals, and restores, all of which coincide with the purposes of the institution of family in society.

Provide Savor

Salt provides savor, giving bland food flavor, and toning down excessively rich or sweet foods.

Within the family bond we find the spice of life: the joy of discovery, the richness of intimate relationships, the miracle of birth and the wonder of growth, the support of compassion, the guide of loving correction, and the fulfillment of necessary change and repentance.

Family enhances the blandness of puritanism and tones down the danger of hedonism.

Preserve

Salt is the earliest known preservative, and tribal societies used it to preserve and store meat and fish.

Like salt, ideal families preserve values, traditions, ideals, history, and culture.

It is primarily in the family that we learn how to function in and contribute to society, as well as learn the things that destroy society.

Thus, preservation is necessary for perpetuation, and families provide both for society.

Balance & Regulate

The body needs sodium to regulate blood pressure, blood volume, water balance and cell function.

Families also balance and regulate society by providing a safe environment for family members to explore and create without creativity degenerating into anarchy, and to recognize order and structure, without form degenerating into tyranny.

Salt regulates and balances body fluids; family regulates and balances the societal fluid of philosophy and direction.

Clean

The chemical chlorine, used to keep swimming pools clean and treat municipal water, is derived from salt, and scientists are discovering even better and safer ways to process salt used for cleaning water and other substances.

Families, when operated effectively, also have a cleaning effect on citizens. Nurturing mothers and caring fathers safeguard children from harmful media and substances, keeping them clean and giving them strength to resist temptation when they venture into society on their own.

Heal

Salt aids in the reconstruction of blood and tissues, and is therefore a necessary element of healing wounds.

When individual family members become wounded by wrong actions, injurious habits, harsh words and other abuse, the family is there to uplift, encourage, inspire, and heal.

Restore

Gatorade has become so popular because it provides electrolytes, which help the body recover from fatigue and exertion. Electrolytes are derived from sodium, a fundamental element of salt.

Every society loses direction, stumbles, and degenerates in time.

Healthy families, who have preserved the society’s history, ideals, values, and traditions through education, become the primary factor in restoring societies who have temporarily lost their way.

Transformational families raise transformational children who are able to transform society from within.

Conclusion

The qualities and functions of salt provide an extraordinarily applicable analogy to the institution of family.

Families, when understood deeply and nurtured carefully, can be “salt factories” that produce men and women who provide savor to, preserve, balance and regulate, clean, heal, and restore society.

Is your family a salt factory? Are you providing a “salty” environment of love, trust, respect, inspiration, guidance, and cleanliness?

Strive to do so, for society depends primarily on your efforts within the walls of your own home.

The seven major societal institutions are family, community, religion, academia, business, media, and government.

Family

The role of the family is to ensure responsible citizens, preserve society, and balance the desires of individual liberty with the demands of community responsibility.

As James C. Ure, professor at George Wythe University, has written,

“The family is the bubble in which a child…feels safe enough to explore his individuality. It is also the first place a child learns to make personal sacrifices for the good of the whole.

“In the family, it is natural for a parent to expose a child to various activities or ideas to determine what unique interests the child may have and to give the child an enhanced sense of self. It is also natural for a parent to ask a child to sacrifice personal interests to benefit the family, such as to provide help with cooking or cleaning.

“In the end, this is not very different from what makes free societies tick…It is in the family that children are expected to learn the core values and beliefs that democratic institutions later draw on to perpetuate themselves.”

Community

The original concept of federalism meant that as many decisions as possible were made at the lowest level possible.

As Cleon Skousen taught, strong, local self-government was the keystone to the original American system.

Understanding that power centralizes and expands, the Founders knew that the bulk of our political decisions should be made on the community level.

The role of the community, therefore, is to prevent the centralization of power by keeping responsibility and decision-making close to the people.

Religion

John Adams wrote that,

“Religion and virtue are the only foundations, not only of republicanism and of all free government, but of social felicity under all government and in all the combinations of human society.”

George Washington affirmed,

“Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure…reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.”

The role of religion is to remind republican citizens of their duties to and reliance upon God. Virtue is the bedrock of free society, and religion provides a constant reminder of that fact.

Furthermore, religion serves as a venue where citizens serve God by serving their fellowman; philanthropy is enacted in large part through religion.

Academia

Academia advances culture through knowledge, helps to prevent socio-economic inequities, breaks through boundaries of human ignorance and fear, helps societies to avoid repeated historical mistakes, and serves as a check on the government by keeping citizens informed of civic affairs.

As John Adams said,

“Liberty cannot be preserved without a general knowledge among the people…They have a right, an indisputable, unalienable, indefeasible, divine right to that most dreaded and envied kind of knowledge — I mean, of the characters and conducts of their rulers.”

Business

The role of business is to provide exchange, commerce, and ultimately widespread prosperity. In a free market economy prices tend to decrease through competition and innovation, the ultimate benefactors being end consumers of products and services.

In a free market economy poverty decreases, the standard of living rises, and people are able to find self-fulfillment as their subsistence needs are met.

In The 5,000 Year Leap, Cleon Skousen wrote that,

“By 1905 the U.S. had become the richest industrial nation in the world. With only five percent of the earth’s continental area and merely six percent of the world’s population, the American people were producing over half of almost everything — clothes, food, houses, transportation, communications, even luxuries.”

The occurred because of our free market economy, where business was left free to fulfill its role.

Media

The role of the media is to disseminate information, highlight important current events, and to essentially stand as a witness, an observer of cultural, political, community, and educational events.

A healthy media provides a check on the government and increases the political astuteness of republican citizens.

Government

The role of government is to protect unalienable rights. Government is the institutionalization of force, and as such should not do anything that would not be right for an individual to do (such as steal).

As Thomas Jefferson said,

“…a wise and frugal Government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned.”

Why It Matters

Freedom occurs when all seven of these societal institutions are on an equal plane, with no one form being more important or having more power or influence than another. When one gains predominance, some form or level of tyranny always emerges.

For example, having family run society results in the mafia. The Dark Ages illustrate the problems of religion ruling. When business is predominant, the society is oligarchic. When the government is predominant, this usually occurs as a monarchy or aristocracy.

The best way to ensure that all seven institutions remain on a level plane is to keep the government within its proper role.

Since the government does not produce — it only takes what others have produced and redistributes — any time it favors one institution over another it does so to the aggrandizement of the one favored and the detriment of the other.

When government tries to get into the business of philanthropy through wealth redistribution, family, community, and religion are weakened.

When government stifles the press, the media is obviously weakened, and so is academia as citizens are kept in the dark on important matters.

In America today, government and business are predominant over the other five societal institutions. Furthermore, they are often joined together, forming an oligarchic structure that harms small business, decreases widespread prosperity and increases discrepancies in wealth distribution, and increases the size and scope of the government.

If America is to survive and thrive in the 21st Century, it is imperative that the power and influence of the government and business be reduced and the power of family, community, religion, academia, and media be increased.

Liberty largely depends on strong, healthy families; any freedom lover strives to make their home and family an ideal for the rest of society to model.

With this in mind, I’m constantly looking for ways to improve my meager parenting skills. I have just come across the absolute best thing I have ever read on parenting, and wanted to share it with my readers.

It is an article entitled “Better Than Punishment” by Duane Boyce of the Arbinger Institute and it can be found here.

Read it, share it with your family and friends, and let me know what you think by posting a comment below.

State sex and meth offender registries are clear indications that America is progressively forgetting its constitutional heritage and choosing legalistic security over freedom and virtue.

Donna Leinwand once reported in USA Today that,

“States frustrated with the growth of toxic methamphetamine labs are creating Internet registries to publicize the names of people convicted of making or selling meth, the cheap and highly addictive stimulant plaguing communities across the nation. The registries — similar to the sex-offender registries operated by every state — have been approved within the past 18 months in Tennessee, Minnesota and Illinois.”

Although the registries are almost universally considered to be expedient, they are clearly bills of attainder, which are expressly forbidden by the Constitution, both on the federal and state levels.

In Article I, section 9 of the Constitution we read that, “No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed.” Section 10 continues by dictating that, “No State shall…pass any Bill of Attainder…’

The word attainder comes from the Middle English atteindre, which is the act of attainting, staining, disgracing, or tainting, and from the Old French ataindre, meaning to touch upon, seize, accuse, or condemn.

According to St. George Tucker, in Blackstone’s Commentaries,

“Bills of attainder are legislative acts passed for the special purpose of attainting particular individuals of treason, or felony, or to inflict pains and penalties beyond, or contrary to the common law.”

Offender registries taint the individuals placed on them after they have suffered the penalties stipulated by common law.

The most common argument in favor of the registries is the high rates of recidivism of sex and meth offenders.

But this is yet another example of our contemporary tendency to hack at leaves while ignoring roots.

We have created a culture — through changes to the Constitution — that weakens the family.

The best, most durable, and most responsible method for dealing with the dangers posed by sex and meth offenders is for parents to supervise their children.

But our first tendency is to look outside of ourselves to the government and the power of law to solve societal ills, instead of turning inward and taking personal responsibility to find solutions.

Our sense of morality has been, by and large, removed from spiritual roots and is determined instead by mere legality. And, as Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn said,

“Whenever the tissue of life is woven of legalistic relationships, this creates an atmosphere of spiritual mediocrity that paralyzes man’s noblest impulses.”

Sex and meth offender registries are clear signs of a society that is straying from its roots of public virtue and constitutional government.

Ironically, we are using the power of government to solve societal problems that were created by an overzealous government in the first place.

Alexander Hamilton once wrote that,

“Nothing is more common than for a free people, in times of heat and violence, to gratify momentary passions, by letting into the government, principles and precedents which afterwards prove fatal to themselves.”

If America is to survive, her people must return to the two things that have made her great: virtue and strict adherence to constitutional forms.

Using the force of law to fix societal problems is a temporary solution at best, and at worst, a subtle yet powerful form of tyrannical dependence.