About fifteen years ago, I went to a rural public school, entirely Christian- my sixth grade teacher prayed in Jesus Christ’s name before lunch everyday and said she didn’t care what some court had to say about it.

Yet even in such a community, the “best” arguably possible, there were fifth grade boys whose fathers supplied them with hardcore pornography (ironically, this was largely an underclass response to the assault on the family- many of the fathers wanted their boys to “turn out right” and thought this would ensure a straight outcome)- and of course the boys were then eager to share this, in lurid detail, with their classmates. Many of my classmates at this lily-white public school in a 100% Christian community knew lyrics, in their entirety, to at least three or four “2 Live Crew” raps. The assault of the culture, piped in on the sewage lines of the cable networks, is very hard to escape.

I think women especially (never having been exposed to the vulgarity of little boy culture uncheckd by responsible parenting) can be naive about what exactly is in the public schools, and at what ages, even at the better schools.

So the problem with school is the students and other parents; it is unwise and imprudent for high-investment Christian parents to allow their children to mix socially with the general population, who will not be raised up but will drag your kids down.

The teachers, staff and the “system” are not generally the direct problem, except of course to the extent that they consume resources better spent on private education. But that’s not their fault, as they’re just doing the best job they can in a flawed system.

I intentionally didn’t mention the simultaneous effect of other groups on population… didn’t want to confuse the issue. [But, to stave off cries of "Overpopulation!," it does bear mentioning that, at the current 6.6 billion people, that means that the entire world's population could move to Alaska, and each individual would have over 2,600 square feet to himself -- that's about 10.5k people per square mile, or roughly the population density of Newark, NJ. (And bear in mind that the rest of the world would be completely empty)]

My intent was to show that the status quo ain’t gonna cut it. Like with retirement funding or Democrat primaries, “early and often” is the key to promoting positive demographic shifts. Heck, I’d settle for minimizing negative drift at this point.

But for either the straight-line increase or a conservative explosion to take place, one thing absolutely has to happen. People — fathers, especially — need to step up, knock (as you said) the egalitarian scales off their eyes, and invest some time and effort into their families (after some ground work)

Our main stumbling block is that the modern American conservative is singularly unmotivated about anything outside his comfort zone. We tend to allow (or elect) our officials to come up with overly complex solutions to easily corrected situations, and assume that all will go well. Reminds me of something a reasonably well-known doctor said once…

If you have an idea for motivating the conservative WHAMs, I’d love to hear it.

That said, the trends you identify are undeniable, though I’m not convinced it will be quite so dramatic. Christian conservatives and/or homeschoolers are the only civilized group of people with above-replacement level birth rates. Once demographic reality sheds the scales of egalitarianism from our eyes, that should make for quite a bit of Dominion for our descendants.

I’m gonna throw in some back-of-the-envelope calculations here, and try to tie together some of the topics you’ve touched on, Tom.

In round numbers, I think the current population in the US is about 300 million. Suppose that a mere 10% self-identifies as Christian (30 million), and only 2% of those are conservatives (600,000) dedicated to honoring Christ and winning back our country. If 20% of those are married and of child-bearing age (120,000). That’s a base group — zero-generation — of 60,000 families.

(Let me interrupt myself here to say that I think this is a low-ball — possibly extremely low-ball — figure. If the recent SETHSA convention is any indication, there are probably at least that many homeschooling families… While not exclusive, I think that’s a good indicator of socio-political outlook and family culture)

Building on your Quiver Full and compound interest discussions, if each of the aforementioned families — not counting any children that for one reason or another either don’t survive to adulthood or don’t themselves reproduce — have the four kids that you advocate, and their kids have four each, and their kids have four each, and so on… after the fifth generation (roughly 100-125 years, based on a generation cycle of 20 to 25 years) each zero-generation couple (i.e., you) would have just over 1,000 descendants, or a total of over 61 million in the whole generation.

Statistically significant? Make that six kids per couple per generation, and that number grows to nearly 8,000 descendants per zero-generation (us) couple (or just shy of half a billion for the group).

SHAZAM!

Of course, there would likely be significant endogamy (marrying within the defined group), so the absolute numbers would be lower than the projection. Seven or eight kids per couple would adjust for that, and then some — but that’s certainly not for the feint of heart. How many blessings from God can two people stand, anyway?

[By the way, a linear extrapolation of the current (as of March 2004) U.S. Census Bureau projections puts the total U.S. population around 625,000 by 2125... but that's assuming current population trends.]

But how do we ensure the same values are passed from one generation to the next? I mean, really ensure this? The answer, to me, is self-evident.

[My digression -- skip to the closed bracket if you like:

There are 168 hours in a child's week. The average person sleeps seven to nine hours a night (call it eight); that's 56 hours gone. Of the 112 left, 40 will be spent at school, and call it an average of an hour's travel time to and from school for an additional five hours a week: 67 hours remaining. And that can quickly get whittled down by such things as homework (2-3 hrs/day = 12 hrs = 55); gymnastics, football, baseball, debate team, drama club, etc,etc, ad nauseum (10-20 hrs = 40); plus youth group activities (if your church is program-bloated), time "hangin' out" with friends, and whatever other pursuits the average bear fancies... and I heard a rumor that Mom and Dad like to spend time alone together, too. Leaves the parents with precious few hours to be a direct influence on their children.

Homeschooled kids do not typically score significantly higher on entrance exams than do public- or private-schooled kids. The major difference is that homeschooled kids are more likely to engage their instructors in classes, complete undergraduate degrees in under five years, and perform well in their chosen professions, be that in Corporate America or as entrepreneurs. The reason? One word, three syllables.

Character.

Homeschooled kids have one-on-one (or close to it) face time with their parents the vast majority of every day. Numbers don't lie: it's highly unlikely you can deconstruct whatever negative influences (and you won't necessarily know who or what they are) are acting on your children in whatever time you can scrape together from, on average, three or four hours a day -- assuming you spent all that time focused on character-building.]

Homeschooling is the best way to instill in your progeny your own values. The — at best — amoral State petri dish won’t do it, and all the well-meaning, good-hearted — even Christian — schoolteachers in the country can’t, couldn’t if they tried.

Homeschooling — together with fulfilling the dominion mandate — is a multi-generational tool for sea change.

By contrast, there are 16 million Southern Baptists in America today. About 75-88% of kids from Southern baptist homes leave the church by the end of their first year in college, never to return. Good kids, from Christian homes, lost. Taking the best-case scenario, that means that each successive generation of Southern Baptists (not allowing for evangelistic efforts*) will be one-quarter the size of the previous generation. That means that as things are going now, at the end of that same five-generation cycle, the entire Southern Baptist Convention will number a mere 15,625 souls. In a hundred years, that won’t be enough, statistically speaking, to change a light bulb.

*[On average, there are about 40-45 professed Southern Baptists for every one of their evangelical conversions in the U.S. In case you're struggling with carrying the "2," this will not make up for attrition.]

brian

P.S.: Apologies for the heavy use of links to Vision Forum’s products… I was perusing their website as I was thinking and writing.

“Any people anywhere being inclined and having the power have the right to rise up and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better.”
— Congressman Abraham Lincoln, in a speech before Congress on the Mexican-American War on January 12, 1848