These are remarkable times.
We are living in the most radical shift of global powers in over a thousand years of world history. Pay attention. Take notes. Don’t be afraid. Be humbled. Worship God, who is sovereign over everything going on. That’s the theme of my new book, Epoch, the Rise and Fall of the West.
World power is moving from west to east.
Economies are cracking in both the west and the east.
Socialists are running out of other people’s money, as Margaret Thatcher, England’s PM would put it.
The “everything” bubble threatens the American economy like never before.
The social integrity of the entire Western world has been compromised at the most fundamental levels.
Political, cultural, and intellectual unity in the melting pots of Europe and America is pretty much gone.
The Christian influence on human institutions have waned by orders of magnitude.
Before entering into the fray on the questions of COVID-19, the shots, and the mandates, let us be sure first of all that we are equipped with the “spirit of love, power, and a sound mind.” To maintain a sound mind, one must be able to distinguish between “gnats and camels” as Jesus put it in the Gospels. Also, one must be able to distinguish between that which is very clear and that which is debatable or mere conjecture.
Fact #1: A major step towards big government tyranny occurred in the land of the free and the home of the brave.
There have been two major increases in the size of government in American history, and now a third. COVID-19 was a pretext for the increase in government. The first major step in the size of government expenditures as a percentage of the GDP occurred under President Woodrow Wilson. The second occurred under Franklin D. Roosevelt (with a little help from Truman). State and local governments continued to expand influence through the 1980s and 1990s. But, it was COVID-19 that added the third major bump to big government in America.
The sheer size of government increased to about half of the entire national economy. The feds spent $6.6 trillion and states and local governments spent $4 trillion on a $21 trillion economy. Keep in mind, government spending amounted to about 1% of the economy at the forming of the nation, and only about 8% of the economy in 1910. This was the largest step in turning America into a big government state since Franklin D. Roosevelt in the 1930s.
If the goal is total government control, or substantial government control over every area of life, the modern Orwellian state has finally achieved it. To give you an idea of how much of a move towards the communist state this amounted to, compare the other to big steps taken by Presidents Wilson and Roosevelt.
- Woodrow Wilson era — 8% to 13%.
- Franklin D. Roosevelt era — 13% to 28%.
- COVID-19 era under Trump and Biden — 38% to 50%.
Whether the Democrats and Republicans will sustain this funding will be determined by the present battles going on in the US Senate. Senator Joe Manchin is a highly significant linchpin in the fight for liberty, at this point.
Interestingly, communist China’s government runs on about 37% of the GDP, and Russia runs on about 39% of the GDP. By sheer dollars, the United States government is the biggest government in the world.
Fact #2: Our governments have exerted more control over churches, individuals, and corporations during COVID-19 than any other time in history. About 60% of private companies will probably mandate the shot for their employees, and the same companies expect to lose about 8% of their workers as a result.
George Washington mandated a smallpox vaccine for the military, and the states began mandating vaccines for children attending public schools as early as 1914. But universal vaccines required of just about every person in America — let alone every person in the world practically — is something very new.
Government mandates on face coverings, Gestapo-enforced lockdowns, the violation of private property, and the forced closure of churches in most of the free countries in the West is all unprecedented when compared to the history of liberty in the Western world. The palpable fear of contracting disease, the implicit trust in big government, and the willing submission of the masses to every dictate with very little protest is proof enough that the draconian state is on the rise. This is not Ronald Reagan’s America by any stretch of the imagination.
Fact #3: The effect of COVID policies on the economy has been devastating, and it is hard to estimate when the world will recover. An already fragile, debt-ridden world economy was crippled last year. Supply lines have been terribly disrupted. Employment has been thrown into a maelstrom.
At the normal rate of improvement, the US GDP should have been $23.7 Trillion this year. Instead, the GDP may scrape $22.7 Trillion. That’s a $1 Trillion hit. The US’s debt to GDP catapulted up towards 137%, in the territory of Greece, Libya, Italy, and Lebanon — all extremely economically unstable nations.
Fact #4: The COVID vaccine has been rushed to market, largely by the unprecedented force of power exercised by national governments. The National Center for Immunization Research assures us that “the whole process of vaccine development to licensure takes around 10 years.” The process involves a few dozen subjects for the first year, and a few thousand subjects for the next 8 or 9 years. Phase 1 on the clinical trials for the COVID-19 Moderna shot started up in March of 2020. By October 24, 2021, 3.8 billion people worldwide, and 220 million Americans had received the shot.
Fact #5: There is significant disagreement among professional doctors (MD’s) on the approach for dealing with the present “pandemic” and the safety of the shot. Some 860,000 persons have signed the Great Barrington Declaration, to include 44,000 medical practitioners and 15,000 public health scientists.
Fact #6: There is a highly aggressive suppression of opposing opinions concerning the medical and scientific data. Freedom House has announced that “free expression online is under unprecedented strain.” The New York Post also reported recently, “It can point to White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki’s July remarks that senior White House staff are 'in regular touch' with Big Tech platforms regarding posts about COVID. She also said the surgeon general’s office is “flagging problematic posts for Facebook that spread.”
This sort of squelching of public dialogue only increases distrust for a burgeoning, power-mongering government, as well as all “official” news sites or “official” data collection organizations like the CDC. The assault on free speech has been ongoing for at least ten years now, and visions of Nazi Germany, Mao’s China, and Lenin’s Soviet State flash into our minds. The rise of the power state in the last free nations on earth now appears to any student of 20th century history as a real possibility.
How Should We Now Live?
What does this mean for homeschooling families?
Where there is no vision, the people perish: but he that keepeth the law, happy is he. (Proverbs 29:18)
What to do now, if you are a homeschooling family, a Christian family with a concern for the future? Here's my first recommendation: know your history! Read history in light of the truth laid out in God’s Word. Observe what has happened in the past so you can make sense of what's going on right now. This is what I have done in my new book, Epoch, the Rise and Fall of the West. We need to know where we are in history. We need to know where we have been, so we can tell where we are going. I would especially recommend the chapter entitled, “The Rise and Fall of Liberties in the West.” Each chapter is a unique survey in itself. But, parents need to read this book. Every young person needs to read this book before heading off to college. This is a very critical time in human history. Know where you are. And know where you are going.
But beyond knowing your history, you also need to be equipped with answers to the controversial and chaotic issues of our day. The question of "How shall we now live?" should be of paramount concern to the Christian homeschool family in light of all that's going on around us in today's culture. That's why I hope you can join us next Thursday, November 11th at 9am Pacific for a special FREE live Q&A workshop titled How Should Homeschool Families Now Live? Responding to Government Tyranny, Social Tension, and an Anti-Christian Culture.
We'll be tackling some of today's toughest issues and answering your biggest questions regarding how we as Christian homeschool families should live in light of:
- The overextension of government
- Critical Race Theory
- Mandated vaccinations
- The censoring of "free speech"
- The marginalization of Christianity in today's culture
I'm excited to be opening up discussion surrounding these topics. Will you join us next week for this FREE ONLINE WORKSHOP?
https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2021/state-local-government-finance-table.html
https://usafacts.org/state-of-the-union/budget/
https://ncirs.org.au/phases-clinical-trials
https://nypost.com/2021/09/06/federal-government-using-social-media-giants-to-censor-americans/
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEHOINUSA646N