The following is an excerpt from Oliver’s recent book, The Coming Aristocracy: Education & the Future of Freedom.

If freedom is to reverse the onslaught of American and global aristocracy, it will likely do so through the greatest freedom trend of our time.

This trend is revolutionizing institutions, organizations, relationships, society and even nations around the world. It is still in its infancy, and many have yet to realize its potential.

The experts tend to overlook it because it seems small. It will likely always seem small because it is a “bottom-up” trend with no “top-down” organizations, alliances, or even affiliations.

Truthfully, it isn’t even a single trend at all–it is thousands of small trends, all following a similar pattern.

Malcolm Gladwell called part of this trend “outliers,” Harry S. Dent called it the “customization” explosion, Alvin Toffler said it is the wave of “revolutionary wealth” as led in large part by “prosumers,” John Naisbitt named it the “high touch” megatrend, Stephen Covey called it the 8th Habit of “greatness,” Daniel Pink coined the descriptor “free agent nation,” and Seth Godin refers to it as “tribes.”

Others have termed it “social entrepreneurship,” “the new leadership,” “a new age,” and even “the human singularity.”

All of these touch on facets of this freedom trend, but I think the best, most accurate and descriptive name for it is the “mini-factory” model.

Modernism came with the factory–the ability to mass produce. This revolutionized the world–economics, governments, how we spend our time each day, what we eat and wear, relationships, the size and functions of our homes and cities, etc.

Today the mini-factory is changing everything just as drastically.

In ancient times the wealthy set up estates or fiefdoms to cover all their needs, and the masses worked to provide the needs of their aristocratic “superiors.”

In modern times the factory provided mass goods and services.

Imagine the impact on everything in our lives if each family could provide all, or even many, of its needs for itself–and do it better than kings or politicians ruling over working peasants or even corporations employing workers to produce goods and services.

Such is the world of the mini-factory.

How Does a Mini-Factory World Function?

For example, what if parents could educate their children better than local school factories, with the best teachers, classes and resources of the world piped directly into their own home?

What if a sick person had more time and motivation to research the cases of her symptoms than the factory doctors, and the availability of all the latest medical journals right on her computer screen?

She would also have holistic works, original studies, alternative and collaborative experts, and the ability to email the experts and get answers in less time than it would take to wait in the hospital lobby.

Ten friends would likely send her their experiences with similar illness within days of her mentioning casually online that she was sick. If she chose a certain surgeon, a dozen people might share their experiences with this doctor.

What if a mother planning to travel for family vacation could just book flights and hotels herself, without calling the “expert” travel agent? Maybe she could even choose seats on the flight or see pictures of her hotel room–all in her own home between her projects and errands.

Welcome to the world of the mini-factory. I purposely used examples that are already a reality. But they were just a futuristic dream when writers like Alvin Toffler and John Naisbitt predicted them before 1990.

Technology has helped it, but the impetus of the mini-factory trend is freedom. People want to spend less time at the factory/corporation and more time at home. They want to be more involved in raising their children and improving their love life.

In an aristocracy, these luxuries are reserved for the upper class. In a free society, anyone can build a mini-factory.

What is a Mini-Factory?

A mini-factory is anything someone does alone or with partners or a team, that accomplishes what has historically (meaning the last 150 years of modernism) been done en masse or by big institutions.

If a charter school provides better education for some of the community, it’s a mini-factory. If it does it at less cost and/or in less time spent in the classroom, so much the better. A homeschool or private school can be a mini-factory.

Of course, if the charter, private, or home school does a worse job than the regular factory, it is a failed mini-factory.

If joining a multi-level company and building it into a source of real income serves you better than an employee position, it’s a mini-factory.

If downsizing from a lucrative professional job in Los Angeles to a private practice or job that pays much less but allows you twice as much time with your family and a more relaxed lifestyle in, say, Flagstaff or Durango and makes you happier, it’s a mini-factory.

Entrepreneurship, alternative education, the downshifter movement, environmental groups, alternative health, the growth of spirituality, community architecture, the explosion of network marketing, home doctor visits, the rebirth of active fathering, and so many other trends are mini-factories.

How do Mini-Factories Impact Freedom?

It all comes down to this: Big, institutional, non-transparent, bureaucratic organizations are natural supporters of aristocracy. Freedom flourishes when the people are independent, free, and as self-sufficient as possible.

I am not suggesting going backwards in any way.

Forward progress is most likely in a nation that is both well educated and highly trained, where big institutional solutions are offered wherever they are best and individuals and groups seek smaller solutions where they better serve their needs, where free government enterprise rules apply and there are no special benefits or perks of class (either conservative aristocracy or liberal meritocracy), and where government, business, family, academia, religion, media, and community all fulfill their distinct, equally-important roles.

Such a model is called freedom. It has been the best system for the most people in the history of the world, and it still is.

To adopt freedom in our time, either the aristocracy must give up its perks and voluntarily restructure society, or the masses must retake their freedoms bit by bit, day by day, by establishing mini-factories.

Mini-factories will be more successful if each person only does a few, and does them with true excellence.

Freedom will flourish best if there is no organization or even coordination of the mini-factories; if individuals, partners, families and teams identify what is needed in the world and in their own lives and set out to deliver it.

This is especially hard in a time like ours where the employee mindset wants someone to “fix” things (like the economy, health care, education, etc.), exactly when an entrepreneurial mindset is most needed to take risks and initiate the best and most lasting changes.

If real, positive, and effective change is to come, it will most likely be initiated by the people acting as individuals, small groups, and teams.

If it comes from the top, it will tend to only bring more aristocracy, and the day of freedom will be over for now.

Whatever your mini-factory contribution might be, consider that it will help determine the future of freedom.

Is it Worth the Challenge?

Mini-factories can be hard to establish and challenging to build. Many people fail once or several times before they learn to be effective.

But the type of learning that only comes from failing and then trying again is the most important in building leaders and citizens who are capable of maintaining freedom in a society.

Note that this very type of education is rejected in a training model of schooling, where failure is seen as unacceptable and students are taught to avoid it at all costs.

This mindset only works if an aristocracy is there to take care of the failures.

In a freedom model, citizens and leaders learn the vital lessons of challenges; failures and wise risk-taking are needed.

Starting and leading a mini-factory, and indeed all entrepreneurial work, is challenging.

Those who embraced this difficult path in history established and maintained freedom, while those who embraced the ease of past compromises sold themselves and their posterity into aristocracy.

In the long term, though, aristocracy is much harder on everyone than freedom.

What Will You Build?

As you consider what mini-factories you should support, start, and build, just ask what things could be done (or are being done) better by a small mini-factory than by the big organizations that try to control nearly everything in our world.

If it could be done just as well by a mini-factory, the change to the smaller entity can drastically promote freedom. If it can be done even better by a mini-factory, it is better for life itself!

The mini-factory is the new vehicle of freedom.

Take a mini-survey: What are your pet complaints? Government? Develop family government models. Health Care? Educate yourself on prevention and self-care. Education? Learn the principles of Leadership Education. Media? Start a blog. Entertainment? Develop a group of hobbyists who share your interests, whether it be Harley road trips, ice fishing, scrapbooking, etc.

You get the idea: Live deliberately, and do not wait for institutions to change to meet your needs.

Do not waste your energy or good humor on complaining.

Find a mini-factory that does it right and get behind it–or start one yourself. So many are needed, and they can bring the miracle of freedom!

The future remains unseen. It is the undiscovered country.

Many ancients felt that fate drove the future, but the idea of freedom taught humanity to look each to his/herself, to partner with others, and to take the risk to build community and take action now in order to pass on a better life to our children and our children’s children.

Today, that concept of freedom is waning–slowly and surely being replaced by a class culture.

Those who love freedom, whatever their stripe–be they green, red, blue, rainbow, or anything else–are needed. They need to see what is really happening, and they need to educate themselves adequately to make a difference.

The most powerful changes toward freedom will likely be made by mini-factories, in thousands and hopefully millions of varieties and iterations.

Aristocracy or freedom–the future of the globe–hangs in the balance…

Click here to learn more about the mini-factory trend and to purchase a paperback copy of The Coming Aristocracy. Click here to download two hour-long webinars with Oliver DeMille explaining mini-factories.

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Oliver DeMille is the founder and former president of George Wythe University, a co-founder of the Center for Social Leadership, and a co-creator of TJEd Online.

He is the author of A Thomas Jefferson Education: Teaching a Generation of Leaders for the 21st Century, and The Coming Aristocracy: Education & the Future of Freedom.

Oliver is dedicated to promoting freedom through leadership education. He and his wife Rachel are raising their eight children in Cedar City, Utah.

Connect With Oliver:

“World View” is a term recently popularized by philosophers and media pundits who debate spiritual and political matters.

It refers to the lens through which people see (and therefore interpret) the world around them.

All information and observations must pass through this lens and be colored by one’s World View.

Similarly, there is another “View” I would like to propose for consideration, and I’m calling this the “Money View.”

In my nearly two decades of dealing with people and their finances I have slowly awakened to the fact that how people are doing financially is often a direct result of their “Money View.”

Just as with World Views, there are several very different Money Views, each with its own ramifications. These include, but are probably not limited to, the following:

1.  Money as a Mystery – in which people seem to have no clue how money is made (or retained) and therefore think that others who are successful financially are somehow “lucky”

2. Money as a Master – in which one’s entire life is lived out in bondage to the need for more money, or at least the drudgery of scraping by. This is often accompanied by terms such as, “I have to go to work,” or “Another day, another dollar.”

3. Money as a Monster – this is the condition whereby financial pressures become so large they dominate a person’s thoughts and affect him emotionally. Often at this stage relationships are damaged and health is compromised.

4. Money as a Major – in which a person applies most of his focus and fascination on how to acquire more. In this situation money is an idol.

5. Money as a Motivator – this is the condition whereby money is used to push one to higher achievement and greater contribution. This can be for both selfish or selfless reasons. Beware.

6. Money as a Manipulator – whereby a person uses his or her money to get what he or she wants out of other people. It is here where phrases such as “Money is Power” apply.

7. Money as a Minimizer – the condition in which the presence of money diminishes one’s ambition. This is where complacency and mediocrity reside.

8. Money as a Maximizer – where one is driven to utilize his or her money to make a greater contribution and maximize his or her potential. This is usually much more selfless and altruistic than #5 above.

9. Money as a Monument – where money is used as a status symbol, to build a reputation, or as an attempt to establish an immortal family legacy.

10. Money as a Menace – wherein the money one has is a destructive force in one’s life, either by feeding addictions or by causing fights or by dominating one’s time and energy with the care and maintenance required to sustain it.

In considering this list, it may be helpful to ask yourself some questions, such as:

1. Which “Money View” best represents where you are right now?

2. Which of these “Money Views” have you encountered previously in your life?

3. Notice that several of these “Money Views” are quite negative. What are you doing to make sure you are living under a positive and productive one? Which one would you choose?

4. What are you doing to grow in your financial understanding and education?

In each of the above views we see that money is always used as a Means. The key question in money matters is therefore, “As a means for what?”

This is why the Bible again and again treats money as a heart issue.

Money in itself is not evil, but the heart is desperately wicked, who can know it? Money becomes a dangerous or productive tool, depending upon the heart that wields it.

Make sure you choose your “Money View” deliberately and intentionally, don’t simply let it choose you.

Pursue some financial education to enable you to be in charge of money instead of it being in charge of you. And guard your heart when it comes to money, in plenty or in want.

That’s my view.

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Chris Brady co-authored the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Business Weekly, USA Today, and Money Magazine best-seller Launching a Leadership Revolution.

He is also in the World’s Top 30 Leadership Gurus and among the Top 100 Authors to Follow on Twitter. He has spoken to audiences of thousands around the world about leadership, freedom, and success.

Mr. Brady contributes regularly to Networking Times magazine, and has been featured in special publications of Success and Success at Home. He also blogs regularly at Chris Brady.

He is an avid motorized adventurer, pilot, world traveler, humorist, community builder, soccer fan, and dad.

Connect With Chris:

In the American founding era, most of the leading thinkers were rationalists.

This means that they believed in reason as a top method of determining truth.

Note that the general concept of reason has changed since then.

When most people think of reason today, they tend to mix it with the ideas of logic, science and determinism.

In the American colonial and early republican era, this was not the case.

The term “science” was often used to mean general thinking and the idea of learning, and in this sense it coincided with the rational perspective.

But today’s technical science, based on a general consensus of experts along with the empirical use of the scientific method, is quite the opposite of the rationalist viewpoint.

And logic, which is actually a branch of mathematics (rather than philosophy), is very different than reason.

Reason, in the original sense, is the use of one’s own mind to test and analyze the words of the experts, the ancients, and all authority.

In the founding generation, reason was a check and balance on the smug groupthink[i] of the upper classes and elites.

Most of the leading founders usually used the term “right reason” rather than simple “reason,” since this first phrase carried the connotation that all right-thinking people would come to the same conclusions if they had the benefit of adequate information.

In this view, no king, priest, aristocrat or expert can rely simply on some claim to a “divine right” of expertise to be correct—each individual citizen can test everything said by the elites simply by taking the time to obtain all needed information and then think it through.

Forrest McDonald wrote in the introduction to Empire and Nation, a collection of writings by American founders John Dickinson and Richard Henry Lee:

“In the historical view, men have such rights as they have won over the years; in the rationalist view, men are born with certain rights, whether they are honored in a particular society or not.”

Using reason, leading American founder John Dickinson wrote:

“Ought not the people therefore to watch? to search into causes? to investigate designs? And have they not a right of JUDGING from the evidence before them, on no slighter points than their liberty and happiness?”[ii]

It is always up to the people to maintain their freedom, and one of the first steps is to think—independently as they see fit—regardless of the assurances, promises and statistics of experts and elites.

Throughout history, the experts have nearly always worked for the elites, and the regular people have held reason as their first line of defense.

When the regular people put expertise, tradition, authority or official promises above their own reason, they have always lost their freedoms and prosperity.

Dickinson put it this way:

“Indeed, nations, in general, are not apt to think until they feel; and therefore nations in general have lost their liberty.”[iii]

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Oliver DeMille is the founder and former president of George Wythe University, a co-founder of the Center for Social Leadership, and a co-creator of TJEd Online.

He is the author of A Thomas Jefferson Education: Teaching a Generation of Leaders for the 21st Century, and The Coming Aristocracy: Education & the Future of Freedom.

Oliver is dedicated to promoting freedom through leadership education. He and his wife Rachel are raising their eight children in Cedar City, Utah.

The American framers overcame domination by an elite upper class by establishing a new system where every person was treated equally before the law.

This led to nearly two centuries of increasing freedoms for all social classes, both genders and all citizens—whatever their race, religion, health, etc.

During the Industrial Age this system changed in at least two major ways.

First, the U.S. commercial code was changed to put limits on who can invest in what.

Rather than simply protecting all investors (rich or poor) against fraud or other criminal activity, in the name of “protecting the unsophisticated,” laws were passed that only allow the highest level of the middle class and the upper classes to invest in the investments with the highest returns.

This created a European-style model where only the rich own the most profitable companies and get richer while the middle and lower classes are stuck where they are.

Second, the schools at all levels were reformed to emphasize job training rather than quality leadership education.

Today great leadership education is still the staple at many elite private schools, but the middle and lower classes are expected to forego the “luxury” of opportunity-affording, deep leadership education and instead just seek the more “practical” and “relevant” one-size-fits-all job training.

This perpetuates the class system.

This is further exacerbated by the reality that public schools in middle class zip-codes typically perform much higher than lower-class neighborhood schools.

Private elite schools train most of our future upper class and leaders, middle class public schools train our managerial class and most professionals, and lower-class public schools train our hourly wage workers.

Notable exceptions notwithstanding, the rule still is what it is.

Government reinforces the class system by the way it runs public education, and big business supports it through the investment legal code. With these two biggest institutions in society promoting the class divide, lower and middle classes have limited power to change things.

The wooden stake that overcomes the vampire of an inelastic class system is entrepreneurial success.

Becoming a producer and successfully creating new value in society helps the entrepreneur surpass the current class-system matrix and also weakens the overall caste system itself.

In short, if America is to turn the Information Age into an era of increased freedom and widespread economic opportunity, we need more producers.

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Oliver DeMille is the founder and former president of George Wythe University, a co-founder of the Center for Social Leadership, and a co-creator of TJEd Online.

He is the author of A Thomas Jefferson Education: Teaching a Generation of Leaders for the 21st Century, and The Coming Aristocracy: Education & the Future of Freedom.

Oliver is dedicated to promoting freedom through leadership education. He and his wife Rachel are raising their eight children in Cedar City, Utah.

There are a few interesting factors we should study when we look at our free enterprise and capitalistic-natured economy.

First, consider that free enterprise evokes and encourages competition.

Second, consider that the capitalist system requires an entity to generate profit to survive.

Two things that I think have made America the world leader in innovation.

The competitive environment and the need to produce a profit generated the need for corporate entities to develop systems.

This is what led Henry Ford to create the assembly line, the most famous industrialized system to date.

As Seth Godin explains in his book Linchpin, the key-factor of using an assembly line was to have parts or resources that were identical and replaceable.

“If this part breaks, no problem, we’ve got hundreds more.”

This drove the cost of making a car down substantially.

The basic goal of a system is to do two things: make each part of the system as easy to do as possible, and make each part of that system as inexpensive as possible.

This is great when we are thinking about assembly lines and widgets.

However, what about the term “human resources”?

Once we start thinking about humans as being resources, the equation seems to change a bit.

It was still ok when it was “those people,” the low-income humans whom we can replace on a construction site, at a retail counter or in a call center.

But when it’s us, the middle managers with college degrees that seem to be the victims of the replaceable equation, everything changes!

Now, suddenly, the system seems malicious, evil, corrupt, vindictive, unfair and just-downright-scary when we consider that it’s gotten so good that it has made the entire American middle-class employee pool REPLACEABLE!

Well, I, for one, will contest that it’s still a great equation!

When people with little or no education were working on the assembly line, having the income from that job was a blessing, as it was for the middle managers and so on.

It blessed them with the level of comfort they decided to engage.

Now that the majority of the middle class has decided to engage in levels of comfort that were available, but not within their means, they are getting very scared about the ever-improving ability of the system to replace them.

Instead, I challenge people to start thinking about how they can create their own systems.

I challenge them to fight the nearly-irresistible seduction and vice-grip addiction we have to comfort; to start thinking of ways that we can create systems that provide value and bless the lives of others who are glad and willing to be assembly-line workers.

International communication systems are getting faster, better and cheaper!

People from around the world are getting more and more familiar with American culture and systems.

This allows them to be able to work in our economy without having to move from their home (let alone their country) or have to embark on a huge learning curve.

A few final things to think about. 

We are no longer in an industrialized economy.

Our younger generations have an understandable disdain for all forms of authority, to include the corporate hierarchy.

Corporations don’t hold the power that they once had, as evidenced by the growing number of younger people generating small businesses that are competitive with the corporate Goliath’s of yesterday.

The playing field is now Level and Global.

Most of the rote memorization, Speck-and-Dump things you learned in school are useless to you here.

My question to you is, are you going to stay on the sidelines and watch as the employee middle class disappears, or are you going to get on the field and play?!

One very good thing that our school system taught us:  1^st grade prepared us for 2^nd grade, Middle school prepared us for High school…  And so it is with business:  your first business is to prepare you for your second business, and so on…

One very bad thing that our school system taught us:  you fail a test and it has a negative effect on your ‘final grades’.

In business, if you fail a test, it almost always has a positive effect on your final grade!

Those who avoid failure in business tend to learn very little, thus their business grows very little as well; Those who embrace failure in business, on the other hand, learn a great deal, and thus this reflects in their business.

Go on, Be a Warrior, Create your own System!

Or your second, or your third system, and keep going until you learn how to make one that works!

Otherwise, go be a part of a system that is naturally designed to create ways to replace you.

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Kevin Mogavero is a co-founder of “Six Degrees of Leadership,” a personal development company that empowers people to live their purpose and passion by building “Social Capital.”

A graduate of West Point Academy, Kevin served six years as an officer in the U.S. Army Field Artillery. He held a combat arms leadership role for his entire career, except one staff position, during which he obtained a Master’s Degree in Leadership and Management. He also served in Iraq during “Operation Iraqi Freedom.” Since the military, Kevin has worked for Honeywell as an earned-value analyst in the aerospace department, in Phoenix Arizona.

He started testing his leadership skills in the entrepreneurial world by starting several companies, to include a real estate company and a business mailing-address company. Kevin loves to serve people who have a yearning to create a better life for themselves and others. He is passionate about teaching people the importance of something that most take for granted: relationships.

Kevin lives in Phoenix with his wife and two daughters. Read and subscribe to Kevin’s Warrior Blog here.

Nothing will have more impact on the future of the world than the future of families.

This truism is sobering as we watch the decline of the family.

As we consider the industrialized world, it is disturbing to note that even amongst those who espouse, promote and live a strong family lifestyle, some of the most basic roles have been lost.

For example, consider the following from an editorial by John Rosemond:

“A journalist recently asked me to name the number one problem facing today’s family. I think she expected me to address education, the economy, or some other “hot” topic. To her surprise, I said, ‘A confusion of roles.’

“In today’s parenting universe, married women with children think of themselves first and foremost as mothers. This is confusion. If you are married with children, you are first and foremost a wife or a husband. In your wedding vows, you did not say, “I take you to be my (husband, wife) until children do us part.” Those vows, many generations old, read the way they do for a reason.

“I’ve been telling recent audiences that parenting has become bad for the mental health of women. Today’s all-too typical mother believes that whether her child experiences success or failure in whatever realm is completely up to her. If she is sufficiently attentive to her child’s needs and sufficiently proactive in his life, he will succeed. If not, he will have problems. The natural consequence of this state of over-focus is anxiety, self-doubt, and guilt.”

Marriage is the central relationship of society, and in society, no roles are more important than husband and wife.

As I talk to young people about their plans for life, career is usually the first thing they mention.

Once in a while, a young man will mention that his main goal is to be a good father, and a little more frequently a young woman will say that she really wants to be a great mother.

But I’ve never heard the following: “I want to be a great wife,” or “my most important goal is to be a great husband.”

This is a concern. In a way, feminism has had moved society by persuading our generation to focus on parenthood even more than marriage.

I’m convinced that most people who say they want to be great parents just assume marriage as part of it. But that’s the problem. Just assuming marriage isn’t enough. It reflects a lack of emphasis on our primary roles.

The future of the world certainly depends on the quality of fathering and mothering in the twenty-first century.

The quality of marriages is even more important. The state of the world ten, twenty, even seventy years from now will be determined by the depth and quality of our marriage relationships. Parenting will largely be determined by the level of success our marriages attain.

The recent politicization of the institution of marriage raises concerns in the minds of virtually everyone, no matter where they stand on the issue.

Of most concern to me is that 64% of married women and 82% of married men responded to a survey in the early 2000′s that they had been unfaithful to their marriage vows.

I see no greater threat to the institution of marriage than the tepid level of commitment of the spouses, and the way they characterize and fulfill their roles.

Marriage is hard work, worthy work–the work of a lifetime. If there is one thing we should teach our youth, it is the value of building a great marriage.

More precisely, we need to teach—by precept and example whenever possible—that “wife” and “husband” are vital roles to society, requiring preparation, consideration, emphasis and great effort.

Once married, these must always be the primary roles of each individual—not secondary to career, social endeavors, or even parenthood.

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Oliver DeMille is the founder and former president of George Wythe University, a co-founder of the Center for Social Leadership, and a co-creator of TJEd Online.

He is the author of A Thomas Jefferson Education: Teaching a Generation of Leaders for the 21st Century, and The Coming Aristocracy: Education & the Future of Freedom.

Oliver is dedicated to promoting freedom through leadership education. He and his wife Rachel are raising their eight children in Cedar City, Utah.

Why can’t the freedom movement seem to get any traction?

Why have we lost battle after battle for at least the past century?

It’s because we tend to make the good the enemy of the perfect, the pragmatic the enemy of the ideal.

To be clear, it’s because the most passionate among us have adopted a rigid, dogmatic, uncompromising “either-or” stance in the fight.

Rather than winning hearts and minds in the trenches inch-by-inch, we drop rhetorical nuclear bombs and make enemies of potential supporters.

There’s one critical distinction that explains this tendency and, if understood, can overcome it and make all the difference to our success:

Do we view the fight for freedom as an election-cycle battle, or as a 100-year war?

These vastly different mindsets generate completely different strategies and tactics and produce completely different results.

If we view the fight as an election-cycle battle, the battlegrounds are primarily political and governmental.

The tactics include:

• Public, energetic, and angry marches and demonstrations
• Passionate, vitriolic, and partisan commentary that preaches to the crowd and riles the base but fails to win new supporters
• Literal, logical, and personal argumentation
• Directing energy primarily at getting individual political candidates elected

But in a 100-year war, the battlegrounds are cultural and educational, and the short-term tactics above shift to the following long-term strategies:

• Personal, lifelong, classical education in the quiet of our homes
• Respectful, thoughtful, open-minded discussion with people across the whole spectrum of belief, with the intention of winning hearts and minds, rather than simply spewing passion or proving how smart and “right” we are
• Symbolic, metaphorical, and artful story-telling and persuasion
• Directing energy toward reforming education, building families and communities, and becoming successful entrepreneurs (see the three choices in FreedomShift by Oliver DeMille)

In a 100-year war, we moderate our passion and smarten our strategy.

We heal the roots of our demise, rather than hacking at the symptomatic leaves.

We work from love, rather than anger.

We reform from the outside-in and bottom-up, rather than the top-down. In other words, we focus on fixing ourselves, rather than Washington.

We understand that studying Montesquieu in our homes is far more effective than waving banners in the streets.

We spend our time and energy teaching the rising generation the depths of freedom and political philosophy, rather than debating opponents in chat rooms and on radio and TV shows.

We build successful small businesses, rather than complaining about losing jobs overseas.

In a 100-year war, idealism and pragmatism aren’t mutually exclusive. We’re more concerned with direction than destination.

In other words, we don’t reject particular policies because they’re not ultimate, black-and-white ideals.

Rather, we judge them based on whether or not they take us closer to the ideal, however slight the progress.

In a 100-year war, we learn and teach principles, rather than fight candidates.

To be perfectly clear, we don’t waste time forwarding mass emails about the status of Obama’s birth certificate.

Most importantly, in a 100-year war, independent freedom lovers create an inclusive tent, rather than an exclusive club.

For example, many conservatives denigrate environmentalists, or as they’re disdainfully labeled, “tree-huggers.”

But many of these environment-conscious, thoughtful people are also highly-conscious and passionate about local, organic food production and sustainable agriculture — which is a primary battleground for freedom.

So rather than building on common beliefs and bringing these people into the tent of freedom, many conservatives banish them with narrow-minded labels.

The Occupy Wall Street movement is also a favorite target of many conservative commentators.

But wise freedom-lovers would do well to harness their energy.

The truth is that they raise a critical point that most conservatives fail to see: Vast inequities in wealth distribution and power are, in fact, killing America — every bit as much, if not more so, than governmental wealth redistribution from rich to poor.

The government does favor those with capital over those with little or none, big businesses over small businesses, which creates these unfair and unsustainable inequities.

We don’t have to occupy Wall Street with them, but we can at least be wise enough to recognize where we agree in order to work together toward a more free, just, and sustainable society.

We can start winning more friends and creating fewer enemies. We can be pragmatic coalition-builders, rather than dogmatic clique-builders.

I’m as passionate about freedom as anyone — freedom is my mission.

But passion alone isn’t going to win the fight for freedom.

The war will be won through wisdom.

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Kevin Mogavero is a co-founder of “Six Degrees of Leadership,” a personal development company that empowers people to live their purpose and passion by building “Social Capital.”

A graduate of West Point Academy, Kevin served six years as an officer in the U.S. Army Field Artillery. He held a combat arms leadership role for his entire career, except one staff position, during which he obtained a Master’s Degree in Leadership and Management. He also served in Iraq during “Operation Iraqi Freedom.” Since the military, Kevin has worked for Honeywell as an earned-value analyst in the aerospace department, in Phoenix Arizona.

He started testing his leadership skills in the entrepreneurial world by starting several companies, to include a real estate company and a business mailing-address company. Kevin loves to serve people who have a yearning to create a better life for themselves and others. He is passionate about teaching people the importance of something that most take for granted: relationships.

Kevin lives in Phoenix with his wife and two daughters. Read and subscribe to Kevin’s Warrior Blog here.

When 28 year old Jared Massey was tasered alongside the highway by a Utah state trooper in 2007, the incident elicited a lot of strong opinions.

Comments ran the gamut from, “The motorist was a criminal who deserved it” to “The trooper is living proof that the police are out of control.”

As is the case with most incidents of this nature, the truth is most likely to be found somewhere in between the two extremes.

Contrary to the declarations of absolute guilt or innocence on the part of the motorist and the trooper, the video shows that neither side was entirely wrong or entirely right.

The trooper’s actions were upheld by his superiors and Massey received a $40,000 settlement for his troubles.

But the incident was a solid learning experience for the rest of us.

The trooper, while beginning the stop with polite professionalism, quickly became the more confrontational of the two when Massey refused to simply shut up, sign the ticket and take it.

The men were obviously on different wavelengths and it appears that the trooper, as he explained to a sheriff’s deputy later, finally decided to show Massey who “was really in charge.”

For his part, Massey fell short on a number of fronts, but his lack of cooperation was among the most minor of them.

He failed to realize that in any disagreement with a law enforcement officer, the side of the road is the absolute worst place to try to argue your case.

As at least one former police officer puts it, “You have to be willing to lose on the side of the road, in order to win the real battle; not being arrested and taken to jail.”

That advice, by the way, is not for the sake of hardened criminals, but for ill-informed people like a motorist who through his own ignorance, inadvertently provoked a frustrated trooper and escalated his traffic ticket into a tasering, his arrest and jail.

He simply didn’t understand that the deck is hopelessly stacked against any person who tries to reason, complain or argue his way out of a citation at roadside.

And if that person happens to encounter into one of those thankfully rare officers who feel the need to show their dominance, the motorist will soon be enjoying a long, lonely ride to jail.

Apologists for Massey maintain that the video proves our police are becoming increasingly brutal in enforcing the unbending will of the state.

Apologists for the trooper claim that failure to immediately bow and scrape to an officer’s authority heralds the imminent onset of anarchy.

Both are painting but a partial view of the bigger picture, though there are elements of truth in each viewpoint.

Few people have an accurate foundation by which to understand what their local police actually do on a daily basis, unless they are related to an officer or have attended one of the excellent citizens’ academies offered by many departments.

Those who have had the opportunity to observe for themselves and to speak to officers firsthand can attest to the professionalism and down to earth nature of the vast majority of their local police force.

Most police take seriously the confidence placed in them by the public they serve and when one of their officers crosses the line, they aggressively weed out those who would betray that trust.

Police are expected to respond to some of the worst situations imaginable and to bring order to temporary chaos while behaving impartially and respecting the rights of those with whom they are dealing.

That’s a tall order for mere mortals.

But the vast majority of officers do it anyway knowing that not many people understand their profession and fewer still will hesitate to criticize based upon that incomplete understanding.

Having said that, there are some highly disturbing trends in how the state uses its police powers.

With the increasing procurement of federal funding and equipment by local police agencies across the nation under the auspices of homeland security, there is a real danger of local law enforcement becoming just another arm of the federal government.

Somebody get these guys a terrorist event. Stat!

The ever-increasing militarization of even small town police forces and the use of paramilitary tactics in serving arrest warrants on even the most mundane, non-violent offenses have served to create an “us vs. them” mentality among some members of law enforcement.

What starts out as a group of sheepdogs can quickly become a pack of wolves.

When officers no longer see the public as a community to be served, but rather as an adversarial mass of potential criminals who need to be managed for the safety of the state, trouble isn’t too far off.

The official mentality is shifting from training peace officers to training code enforcers and this creates a corresponding hostility toward those who are not agents of the state.

It also fosters an attitude in which lack of accountability to the general public can lead to a sense of being able to operate above the law.

This flies in the face of one of the nine principles of policing as espoused by Britain’s Sir Robert Peel, who was considered to be the father of modern policing.

His instruction was: “Police, at all times, should maintain a relationship with the public that gives reality to the historic tradition that the police are the public and the public are the police; the police being only members of the public who are paid to give full-time attention to duties which are incumbent on every citizen in the interests of community welfare and existence.”

Law enforcement officers perform a difficult and stressful job that depends upon the respect and trust of the public they serve.

But when the mindset of, “It’s better to be feared than respected” takes hold, both they and the public will find themselves increasingly polarized and more prone to viewing one another as a threat.

Keeping government operating within its proper role is the best defense against the creeping tyranny of a state that is tempted to use the police to advance its interests over the the public’s.

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Bryan Hyde is a radio host, husband, father, graduate student at George Wythe University, and seeker of truth. He does professional voice work through his company One Clear Voice.

Bryan blogs at The White Rose Society and writes firearm reviews for The Truth About Guns. He and his wife Becky are raising their six children in Cedar City, Utah.

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As a father I am constantly on the lookout for lessons, stories, experiences, and role models that will be edifying for the development of my children.

Several years ago, while he was still a surprising sensation at the University of Florida, Tim Tebow came onto my radar screen.

There was something attractive about his relentless drive for excellence, his incredible work ethic, his will to win, and his unflappable attitude.

I also appreciated his testimony as a Christian.

Watching Tim Tebow go from being the youngest winner of the Heisman Trophy to a number 1 draft pick in the NFL was a source of excitement for my young boys.

I felt comfortable allowing them to watch his interviews, read his book, and listen in to his exploits as he transitioned into the professional ranks.

Tim Tebow, a home schooled missionary’s kid who preaches at prisons and responds openly and honestly to crass questions from interviewers and critics alike, seemed the perfect role model for my children.

But something was amiss.

As Tebow put on his NFL cleats a disturbing chatter seemed to grow around him.

It seemed that the football “experts” were breaking their necks trying to see who could be more critical of young Tebow and his abilities.

They railed against his throwing motion. They railed against his accuracy. They laughed at Josh McDaniels, the then NFL head coach of the Denver Broncos who drafted Tebow in the first round.

And they even poked fun at his faith and his purity.

My children were learning hard lessons from this, but I guess that’s what role models are for.

“Why are they saying so many negative things about him, Dad?” “Those people sure are being mean to him.”

And on it went.

Then nearly a year went by before he got his real shot.

There were flashes of excitement in a couple starts his first season, but Tebow didn’t win the starting job and was sitting on the bench as the first five games of his second professional season rolled by.

Finally, however, Tebow had waited patiently and prepared in obscurity long enough.

His opportunity arrived, and just five games into the 2011 regular season, with the Broncos languishing at 1 and 4, Tebow was given his chance.

But nothing is that easy, not even in fairy tales.

Tebow’s play seemed to justify the claims of the critics. He missed wide-open receivers. He overthrew easy passes. He fumbled. He got sacked in the backfield.

He rolled up terrible statistics the likes of which no NFL quarterback could expect to post and still retain his job.

All the while the critics howled with their “I told you so’s.”

However, one thing Tebow did was win. In fact, his whole team seemed to start playing better. The defense stepped up to an unbelievable level.

Receivers started making stupendous catches. Running backs started nearly defying gravity. And Tebow himself seemed to come alive when the pressure was the greatest and pull victory out of the jaws of defeat – several times.

I am writing this article a bit early.

Althought Tim Tebow and the Denver Broncos have won four out of the last five games, anything could still happen and they could end up at the bottom of their division.

Their near-miss wins could easily start turning to losses, and if that happens, I have no doubt whatsoever the critics will have a field day once again.

None of that matters, however, because Tebow has already proven something extremely valuable, namely, that while people talk about lack of skill they should never underestimate the power of will.

What Tim Tebow brings is leadership.

He has that special ability to energize a team of players to each perform at their very own personal best.

He inspires, instills confidence, and makes those around him believe that anything can happen if they just have faith.

While the statistics bemoan his performance, Tebow proves again and again that there are some components in victory that can’t be measured.

There are intangibles to greatness that come from deep within, that defy the odds and mystify prognosticators, and that just simply can’t be contained.

Leadership matters. Character matters. Attitude matters. The will to win matters.

Critics, however, don’t matter.

Tebow has shown all this and more.

I personally hope he keeps on winning in his unconventional way, in front of the NFL experts who so haughtily claimed “That’s not the way it’s done here.”

The world needs to understand that unconventional doesn’t mean wrong, inadequate, or below grade.

Unconventional just may mean revolutionary.

They said Tim Tebow wasn’t ready for the NFL. Perhaps the NFL wasn’t ready for Tim Tebow.

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Chris Brady co-authored the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Business Weekly, USA Today, and Money Magazine best-seller Launching a Leadership Revolution.

He is also in the World’s Top 30 Leadership Gurus and among the Top 100 Authors to Follow on Twitter. He has spoken to audiences of thousands around the world about leadership, freedom, and success.

Mr. Brady contributes regularly to Networking Times magazine, and has been featured in special publications of Success and Success at Home. He also blogs regularly at Chris Brady.

He is an avid motorized adventurer, pilot, world traveler, humorist, community builder, soccer fan, and dad.

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