If you want to appreciate the divisions in America, all you have to do is look at the editorial page of newspapers. Often you will see two diametrically different views of reality. A good example of that happened last week.

The title of Marc Thiessen’s Washington Post op-ed was “Big Brother Isn’t Watching You.” The title of Senator Rand Paul’s Wall Street Journal op-ed was “Big Brother Really Is Watching You.” Obviously, they disagreed about how to react to the NSA revelation.

Marc Thiessen was concerned that the latest revelations “give terrorists information they did not have about our collection activities.” He also worried that the latest series of leaks teach sources and partners “not to work with us because we cannot keep a secret.”

Only an intelligence expert can tell us whether these leaks really told terrorists anything they didn’t already know. They probably guessed that phone records were being obtained in specific warrants. And even if they didn’t know there was a PRISM program monitoring foreign terrorists, they could have guessed that was possible.

On the other hand, he is right to say that we will have trouble getting future intelligence from certain parties. They rightly will believe that the U.S. government cannot keep a secret.

Senator Rand Paul believes the activities of the National Security Agency do violate the Fourth Amendment, which says that warrants must be specific. He has introduced and will once again introduce the Fourth Amendment Restoration Act. He is also looking into a class-action lawsuit to overturn the decisions of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.

He is rightly concerned with the government “monitoring the records of as many as a billion phone calls.” Marc Thiessen may want to argue that “Big Government Isn’t Watching You.” But when we hear that the government is collecting information on a billion phone calls, it sure seems like Big Brother is watching nearly all of us.

Despite what you have heard, Christian young people are not doing fine. That is the conclusion of Stephen Cable in his new book, Cultural Captives: The Beliefs and Behavior of American Young Adults. Stephen Cable serves as Senior Vice-President of Probe Ministries.

His new book not only analyzes the survey Probe Ministries did with the Barna Group of emerging adults but also analyzes all of the other major surveys (National Study of Youth and Religion, Baylor Religion Survey, General Social Survey). He discovered that even though commentators sometimes cite these other surveys to prove that young people are doing well, all of the surveys are actually quite consistent. When you dig deeper into the data, you find they all paint a bleak picture.

As I have mentioned in previous commentaries, the percentage of people generally who check “none of the above” for religious preference is increasing. That is especially true of young people. In fact, the percentage of emerging adults who do not claim any affiliation with Christianity rose from 20% in 1990 to over 37% of the population today.

Stephen Cable found that only 14 percent of born-again, emerging adults combine a biblical worldview with biblical practices, such as reading the Bible or attending church. He also found that less than 2 percent of born-again, emerging adults apply a biblical worldview to life choices. In other words, only this small percentage has biblical beliefs on topics ranging from abortion to sex outside marriage to science and faith.

This is a major reason why Probe Ministries has developed an integrated strategy aimed at reversing these trends. The learning experience involves an entire church congregation over a seven-week period and includes sermons, videos, original music, and additional material for individuals and small groups.

Stephen Cable’s book is a wake up call to the church. We need to reverse these ominous trends and do it quickly before the trends become even worse.

Sometimes when you fill out a form, you are tempted to check the box that says “None of the above.” More and more Americans are checking that box when asked about their religious affiliation.

In the 1950s, around three percent checked the “none” box when asked about religion. Today that number has grown to 20 percent. The Pew Research Center reports that the percentage of nones is growing rapidly, especially among the young. A third of adults under age 30 are religious unaffiliated. This is the highest percentages the Pew Center has ever polled.

The nones include two groups. There are the 13 million self-described atheists and agnostics, who are nearly 6 percent of the U.S. population. Then there are the nearly 33 million people who say they have no particular religious affiliation, accounting for 14 percent of the population.

The rise of the nones is one major reason for the current conflicts over religious liberty. The number of people who go to church has remained constant over the last few decades while the percentage of nones is increasing. These two groups have strikingly different views about the place of religion in public life. One group talks about freedom of religion while the other group talks about freedom from religion. Conflicts over public displays of religion (crosses, Ten Commandments) and public expressions of religion (public prayers, biblical references in speeches) are inevitable.

The conflict is accentuated because a higher percentage of nones can be found in the media. News reporters are less likely to report religious people and their ideas correctly. Hollywood producers are more likely to cast religious people in a negative light. Christians, therefore, often feel that are not represented accurately in the media.

The division between those with religious commitments and the nones also surfaces in politics. A recent Pew study found that the nones are the single most ideologically committed group. The only other group as committed is Evangelical Protestants.

The nones have changed the cultural and political landscape.

Dementia is typically a disease that affects the elderly. But doctors are starting to talk about a new type of cognitive condition affecting younger individuals. They call it “digital dementia.” It results, they say, from the overuse of digital technology, such as smart phones and computers. Brain function deteriorates because of digital overuse.

The left side of the brain is generally associated with rational thought (numbers, and facts). The right side is responsible for creative skills and emotional thought. If the right side is underdeveloped over a long period, dementia develops.

The phenomenon of “digit3al dementia” was first noticed in South Korea. That should not be surprising, since that country has such a large population of Internet users. It also is one of the most digital nations in the world and a place where Internet addiction was identified as far back as the late 1990s.

A doctor at the Balance Brain Centre in Seoul explained: “overuse of smartphones and game devices hampers the balanced development of the brain.” Heavy users of digital technology are more likely to develop the left side of their brains. This leaves the right side untapped and underdeveloped. This affects attention and memory span, which could lead to early onset of dementia in a percentage of the cases. They also found that children were more at risk than adults were because the brains of children were still developing.

The Korean findings come after a study, done at UCLA, found that young people were increasingly suffering from memory problems. A percentage of young men and women complained that their memory was poor.

These initial studies are one more reason why parents need to monitor the digital world of their children. Digital dementia is just one of many reasons we need to protect children from the digital media storm.

What will our digital future be like? Eric Schmidt and Jared Cohen have an idea and express it in their book, The New Digital Age: Reshaping the Future of People, Nations and Business. Eric Schmidt is the Executive Chairman of Google. Jared Cohen is the Director of Google Ideas and was formerly with the U.S. State Department. The book illustrates the adage: you hope for the best but prepare for the worst.

Our high-tech future will automate our lives and improve them with new computer-controlled devices. We are talking about much more that having your coffee maker turn on at the appropriate hour.

We will also have access to so much more data, which they believe will make us wiser and more discerning. They promise a “new accountability.” We will be less likely to be misled by charlatans or dictators.

But they also warn of a darker digital future. Although they acknowledge that the Internet is “the world’s largest ungoverned space,” they also see how authoritarian regimes have walled off sections of the Internet they don’t want their citizens to see. They predict a “Balkanization of the Internet” where more and more leaders in these countries close off onramps to the information superhighway.

Their book describes three types of Internet filtering systems: the blatant, the sheepish, and the politically acceptable. In previous commentaries, I have talked about how governments have stepped in to prevent their citizens from accessing various Internet avenues. Sometimes it might be minor. Years ago, a French court told Yahoo that is had to “make it impossible” for web surfers to purchase Nazi memorabilia.

Often the filtering is blatant. The authors call China “the world’s most active and enthusiastic filterer of information.” Communist China has constructed a firewall that prevents their people from reading articles about Tibet, the Tiananmen Square massacre, or dozens of other topics.

Their book is a reminder that our digital future will not only be influenced by new technologies but by old political realities.

Wesley Smith argues in a recent commentary that the “biggest threat to American freedom, in my opinion, comes from the erection of an unaccountable bureaucratic state.” You might expect him to say that since he has written about medical ethics and patient power. But he goes on to quote from left leaning law professor Jonathan Turley who essentially says the same thing.

Jonathan Turley is a professor at the George Washington University Law School. He recently expressed his concerns with the government bureaucracy in a Washington Post column. He says: “The rise of the fourth branch has been at the expense of Congress’s lawmaking authority. In fact, the vast majority of “laws” governing the United States are not passed by Congress but are issued as regulations, crafted largely by thousands of unnamed, unreachable bureaucrats. One study found that in 2007, Congress enacted 138 public laws, while federal agencies finalized 2,926 rules, including 61 major regulations.”

Think of that for a moment. Congress passed over a hundred laws, but the federal agencies created nearly 3,000 rules. While we might have some recourse through elections to change Congress, we have no ability to affect any meaningful change on the government bureaucracy. This is rulemaking with little or no accountability.

The federal bureaucracy not only has superseded the legislative branch. It has also replaced a significant part of the judicial branch. Jonathan Turley explains that when an average citizen goes to court, he or she is more likely to have a case heard within the bureaucracy.

He says: “As the number of federal regulations increased, however, Congress decided to relieve the judiciary of most regulatory cases and create administrative courts tied to individual agencies. The result is that a citizen is 10 times more likely to be tried by an agency than by an actual court.”

The fourth branch of government is growing in both size and influence. Liberals and conservatives warn it is eroding our liberty.

John Whitehead believes our government is becoming a police state and makes a convincing case in his book, A Government of Wolves. In a recent column he asks a series of questions. These are questions I think we should ask our elected officials and other candidates during this election year.

Why has there been a buildup of SWAT teams with non-security related federal agencies such as the Department of Agriculture, the Railroad Retirement Board, the Tennessee Valley Authority, and the Office of Personnel Management?

Why have government agencies been stockpiling hollow point bullets? For example, why does the Department of Agriculture need .40 caliber semiautomatic machine guns and 320,000 rounds of hollow point bullets?

Why does the Postal Service need “assorted small arms ammunition”? Why did the Department of Homeland Security purchase 1.6 billion rounds of hollow-point ammunition, along with 7,000 fully-automatic NATO personal defense weapons plus a stash of 30-round high-capacity magazines”?

Why has the federal government been distributing many of these resources to police departments around the country? The Department of Homeland Security acquired more than 2,500 Mine-Resistant Armored Protection vehicles and then distributed them to local police departments. Thousands of military weapons, such as M-16 rifles and grenade launchers, are now in the hands of local police.

Why is FEMA stockpiling massive quantities of emergency supplies? This year FEMA made a statement enlisting the service of contractors who could “supply medical biohazard disposal capabilities.” There were other requests for massive amounts of supplies ranging from 31 million flu vaccinations to 100,000 each of winter shirts and pants and the same for summer.

It is reasonable to ask what is all of this equipment for? What is the government preparing for? These are good questions to ask during this election season.

During this election year, we are once again hearing comments and criticism of the proposals for voter ID. The president and the attorney general have been critical of voter ID laws. Some commentators have even labeled them as racist. Even Republicans like Senator Rand Paul have said that it is “wrong for Republicans to go too crazy” on voter ID because it might offend potential voters.

These comments would lead you to believe that voter ID laws are unpopular. But that is hardly the case. Jason Riley, writing in Political Diary, quotes from a few polls that show significant support for voter ID laws.

A poll by Fox News shows that support for these laws is quite strong in every demographic category. People were asked if they supported laws that “require voters to show a valid form of state- or federally-issued photo identification to prove U.S. citizenship before being allowed to vote.” Seven out of ten of respondents supported such laws. That breaks down to 91 percent of Republicans, 66 percent of Independents, and 55 percent of Democrats. Men (71%) and women (70%) overwhelmingly supported voter ID laws. Three-fourths (75%) of whites and a majority (51%) of blacks also supported these laws.

These findings match previous polls on this subject. For example, the Washington Post poll conducted in 2012 asked if people should be “required to show official, government-issued photo identification?such as a driver’s license?when they cast ballots on Election Day.” Three-fourths (74%) of all respondent agreed, including 65 percent of blacks.

These polls demonstrate two things. First, the American people have basic common sense. We need to show an ID to cash a check. We need an ID to board an airplane or rent a car. We often need to provide an ID with a credit card purchase. Asking for ID to vote hardly seems inappropriate. Second, the poll also shows that opponents of voter ID will continue to have difficulty building opposition to such laws. They would be wise to drop the issue.