The single most important building block of any nation is her families. Destroy that and you can easily lay claim to a nation’s soul.
I agree. I think we have failed to maintain the nuclear family and lost the fundamental building block. Part of the reason so many folks are enticed by government support (socialism – and why the liberal left is making headway today)is that they don’t have strong family ties and are looking to replace that support structure with something.
Read the whole thing. I don’t agree with his last few paragraphs where he gets religious and I am not as pessimistic but I do believe that our families suffer at our own peril.
Rabid far-right demagoguery of the most repulsive kind. The most representative line:
You’ll forgive me if I missed the allegedly self-evident “rot” in the midst of the most prosperous, freest culture on Earth. If America is rotten, none have ever been healthy.
As for family problems being a precondition to socialism, take a good look at the social argument in that piece. The genuine advocate for liberty would look at the alleged failings of society and dismiss the entire premise on the grounds that people are free to choose their own associations in a free society. It is the socialist who would seek comprehensive redress against the invented political crimes of abstractions, as that writer does. He’s nearer his opponent in form and substance than he understands.
I think you have missed the rot that is there. This does not mean that American culture is rotten, but there are parts of it that are rotten and it is getting worse, not better. Most large urban areas have parts of their cities that are run by gangs (read another social structure that takes the place of failed families). These areas are high in crime and murder rates and low in education and opportunity for children. They are supported by the welfare system (read socialism). The rule of law that you and I enjoy where we live is barely evident there. They live in a different America. The most recent, stark, reminder of this is the aftermath of Katrina in New Orleans. This city was unable to take care of itself because it was rotten at its core. An entire failed city, not just a bad neighborhood. This would have been unthinkable 50 years ago.
Yes, we are currently the most free and successful culture on earth, but there are undercurrents that need to be taken care of. Historically, great societies failed from within when they did not to heed the signs that they were changing for the worse.
My daughter in law is a 4th grade teacher in a mid size farming community in Arizona. Heavily influenced by immigration issues from Mexico. Her biggest complaint about being a teacher is that she does not get to teach. A majority of her effort is spent trying to manage children who are unprepared to learn because they have not yet learned how to behave in “normal” society. Most of the problems for her children can be traced back to failed families. Grandparents raising children, single parent families, children raising children – all kinds of failed families that do not give the children the support they need to grow into adjusted adults. I am not a huge supporter of government schools. I think they fail us in many ways, but this is not their problem. This is a societal problem.
I agree with your comment that “people are free to choose their own associations in a free society”. I didn’t get the sense that this author was advocating against that. I did not see that he was prescribing some form of control, some “comprehensive redress”. Perhaps I read it differently than you.
I don’t like what is happening yet I support the idea of free choice and I don’t advocate more government to fix it. I don’t have an answer for this. I have seen some interesting articles recently discussing “paternal libertarianism“. This is a new concept for me, at least consciously. I don’t know what do do with it yet.