To prepare youth for success in entrepreneurial (and free) cultures, education tends to emphasize originality, creativity, breadth, depth and leadership skills rather than rote memorization, standardized curricula or socialization. The latter skill set is vital in societies with strong upper classes employing the lower castes, but the former is essential to free democratic nations.

The shortest distance between where we are today as a nation and an effective return to increasing our freedoms and widespread prosperity is for regular American citizens to read and study the great books.

We tend to let our freedoms slip away because they are tucked away in documents and policies that we don't ever deal with directly.

Most people spend less than 20 hrs a year learning about freedom, yet many wonder why it's in decline. Don't fight upstream. Instead, turn it around.

Americans must either choose big government and be willing to pay for and submit to it, or they must move toward smaller, less intrusive government and be willing to enjoy fewer government programs.

In nations that have become too complex, taxes and regulation cause at least a doubling of the amount employers must spend on labor. Many experts call this 'progress,' but the natural result is that many companies respond by sending their operations and jobs to less costly nations.

Will we follow the course of societies past that have lost their way and crumbled under the devastating forces of economic upheaval, war and other crises? Or we pull together as families and communities to create a brighter future?