……a reco to “the-powers-that-be” for this diary to be front-paged.

FP

I like the really good diaries to hover in the Reco box for a while.
Welcome back!

Note to lefties;
“Don’t be afraid to see what you see.”
Ronald Reagan

Join the RedState Strike Force

Chip in to get rid of “Babs” (Yes ma’am) Boxer.

“Because in the end, it is not our village that is under attack, but our families”

GREAT QUOTE!!!!

I’m in and out myself.

read at RedState, and there are many. All of your points are right on. Related to your observations about the African-American family and the attack on them, no one has yet talked about the impact of the Healthcare reform bill. IMO, of all the groups in America, it will have the most negative impact on the poor and minorities. That is a subject for a different diary.

As I said, this is one of the best. Thank you for being able to put this into words. Liberalism, with help of the State is destroying the core foundation of our American Society.

I have always been socially conservative. But I must warn you that no matter what intellectual road you go down you always end up with the following: It is very difficult to craft any government program or legislation that promotes social conservatism. You will usually always be better off with less government involvement in people’s lives. Laissez Faire, “Leave us alone” is almost always the best solution even to social concerns.

Of course that does not mean you cannot fight against policies that actively attack families and the social contract. Such as government funded abortion or gay marriage.

Although Libertarian I have always been against that last one because I see it as a tyranny of the minority pushing a change upon centuries old traditions.

Might I suggest as part of one of Erick’s Roundups or link lists instead of the unrecommendable FP status?

no fault divorce also, at least in cases where children are involved. I credit my parents’ strong marriage and commitment to putting their children’s needs before their own as the reason my siblings and I are fully functional members of society, and conservative Republicans to boot.

I wonder how a voter who did not grow up in a family environment can comprehend the family’s role as a bedrock of our society.

The problem is not the Christian Right attempting to foist a morality on the United States,a s I previously believed, but a need to defend our way of life from the liberal left which would seek to destroy our institutions in the name of the “common good”.

Our goal should be to have laws and government systems which support morality, rather than enforcing immorality. The problem with allowing gay marriage is that it puts a societal stamp of approval on gay unions, which from my point of view (and that of most people) enforces immorality.

Anyway, recommended.

This is a superb diary. You have powerfully gotten to the root of the matter: destroy the family and you destroy civilization.

Thank you for writing this!

Take Care, mailloux

This is a brilliant summary of so many threads running through my head. Thank you for taking time to put it on “paper”. I very much believe you can judge the health of a nation by it’s family.

As an IT employee, my company works with many Indian consultants. Interestingly, in the part of India where some coworkers live, extended family is incredibly important. It is common, if not the norm, for 3 generations (or more) to live in the same house. Sons live with parents and grandparents…all taking care of each other. While I don’t look at this with an eye to “import” the customs, I do look at it with an eye toward the future. Given the strength of the Indian family, I can’t help but feel that their culture will grow on the world stage. Conversely, it concerns me that my children’s country could shrink on the same stage, for reasons you eloquently describe.

For putting into words for me something that has been weighing on my mind and which I was seriously considering writing about just this morning.

The movement from on high in this country to eliminate any rule of morality other than relativism or even forced immorality is appalling and cannot be allowed to succeed.

I was blessed to grow up in a whole family. We had our issues and I am far from a perfect person, but I was blessed nonetheless.

I am aware that it is not workable to legislate morality. It is morally repugnant to force religion on people. Each person must make his or her own moral decisions. But I fear that the road we are currently traveling as a country will cause this country to lose its bearings and fall into irrelevance and impotence in the eyes of the rest of the world. Our moral compass needle has lost its magnetism and is freewheeling.

God is not for or against countries. God is for individuals that make up countries. He blesses (and disciplines) those whom He loves.

While it’s true that social/cultural conservatives have a much better grasp on the moral and societal problems that confront our nation (infidelity, abortion, underperforming students, ghetto violence, the list goes on) I find that, with the notable exception of abortion, their “solutions” tend to be somewhat underwhelming. As an example, let’s look at the growing acceptance of homosexuality as a sexual norm: though it is accurately assessed by social conservatives as being damaging to the institution of marriage, the “solution” seems to be to prevent the government from issuing a slip of paper to two people who live together. Would it not be better to remove government from the business of marriage and entrust it to those who will be better stewards of such a sacred institution (churches, mosques, synagogues)? The same goes with marriage: social conservatives rightly remind us that marriage is a sacred institution which has positive benefits, and lament the break-down of marriage, but the solution seems to be providing tax cuts to married couples, or to provide more affordable loans. This is besides the question of whether or not it is moral to force another human being to change their behavior by using the power of government, which is certainly an open question, as far as Christianity goes. In short, the question of whether or not a government should concern itself with the morality of its citizens is one without a clear answer. (I personally fall on the side of that it’s both somewhat creepy and too much in the tradition of considering the citizenry as “subjects” who must be paternalistically “guided” to the right decision, but I digress.) Even if we do accept that the government does have that prerogative, we have to acknowledge that the solutions offered up so far are either ineffective, or such egregious offenses to freedom that they are incompatible with republican government, or even the precepts of religion itself!

To conclude my long-winded post, I would probably agree with much of what the social conservatives of the 80s stood for (w/the exception of the drug war), as their goals were both limited and seemed to stem from a “leave me alone” type platform. The social conservatism of today, OTOH, with its ineffectiveness and seemingly perennial penchant to intrude in the private affairs of its citizens, is something I can’t get behind, esp. considering that many (though certainly not all) of the most prominent social conservatives in the public sphere gave Bush a free pass on his fiscal irresponsibility.

You came back with a vengeance this time, didn’t you?! Thanks so much for writing this diary as you have expressed the fear and frustrations of so many of us right now. We see our children and grandchildren’s futures being stripped of morality as we would teach it to them and having it replaced with the sterility of the left’s moral relativism. And that is just evil cloaked in a sociological term.

Your growth as a political creature is directly tied to your evolution as a husband and father. That’s the way it’s been for me as well. What makes for an interesting theoretical discussion when you’re single and childless is something completely different when you have a family and measure society’s quality by how it will affect your kids. Welcome Home, BR/BC!!!! You’ve been missed.

Its good to see you back!

2 over active sons (recovering from a long weekend) I concur that it will take stong families to fix a government. My sons are not supporters of Obama any longer….I told them about Obama’s plan for year round school and longer school hours…..I told them to “tell their friends” about that idea….

Very nice. Funny what a couple of kids will do to ya, eh?

You’ve been missed. Glad to hear the family is doing well. I’m getting close to the other side now….3 1/2 years to an empty nest. 30+ years now with at least one kid in the house. Trust me when I say….I’m ready for the next chapter.

That post says it all, exactly where we are as a Nation, unfortunately.