The Natural Family and the Safety of Children

Ed Kaitz at American Thinker brilliantly assesses the implications of the AP report I addressed in Marriage is about Children in an article drawing heavily on the debate on the nature of the family in civilization explicit in the works of Plato and Aristotle. He quotes Aristotle:

In a state having women and children common, love will be watery; and the
father will certainly not say ‘my son' or the son ‘my father.' As a little
sweet wine mingled with a great deal of water is imperceptible in the mixture,
so, in this sort of community, the idea of relatiionship which is based on
these names will be lost; there is no reason why the so-called father should
care about the so-called son, or the son about the father, or brothers about one
another. Of the two qualities which chiefly inspire regard and affection - that a thing is your own and that you love it - neither can exist in a state such as this.

You have got to read the whole thing! Kudos, Mr. Kaitz!

H/T Lucianne

The Demographic Winter

Yesterday I had a conversation with two young mothers who desired large families, but felt sheepish about it. It's not the thing to do, anymore. I shared a few facts about the world's population trends with them and they were utterly amazed. I am amazed how folks are still making life decisions based on the media scare tactics of a generation ago. Last night, I read a wonderful speech that Don Feder presented in Riga, Latvia that explained the current situation very succinctly. Here is his assessment of Russia's approaching demographic winter:

This catastrophe in the making can be most clearly seen in Russia. What
Lenin, Stalin and Hitler failed to accomplish, the Russian people are doing
to themselves. You might call it auto-genocide.

In Russia, the fertility rate is 1.17 (down from 2.4 in 1990, a decline
of over 50%). Russia is losing three-quarters of a million people a year.
Its current population of 145 million is expected to be reduced by a third
by 2050. In Russia today, almost as many children are aborted as are born
alive (1.5 million to 1.6 million).

The Russian people occupy 17 million sq. km, the largest land mass on
earth. By comparison, the United States has 9.6 million sq. km. and a
population of 303 million -- in other words, a little less than half of
Russia's land mass and more than twice its population.

Where will the Russia of 2050 find the soldiers to guard its frontiers?
Where will it find the workers to operate its factories and mines, to grow
its crops and run its hospitals and schools?

Read the whole thing. If you still believe what you were taught in school about overpopulation, you'll be shocked.

Of course, the Word of God explained this long ago:

In a multitude of people is a king’s honor,

But in the lack of people is the downfall of a prince.

H/T Teresa Wirtz

Marriage is About Children

I found out a few years ago that the Bible said so, but it has only been in recent years that I understood the civil perspective on marriage. Governments have been involved in marriage throughout history, but many people are questioning if government has a role in the regulation of the marriage contract. Why is government involved at all?

The most obvious answer is the orderly devolution of property. A government recognized marriage is the basis for knowing who belongs to one's family - and hence, who is entitled to inherit. This is a critical bit of knowledge for an orderly and nonviolent economy. Instead of vultures gathering to pick the bones of the dead, we have an acknowledged wife, or legitimate children, or blood relatives who naturally and peacefully step into the estate.

A less obvious, and perhaps more important answer is that the traditional family is the foundational unit of civilization. It is the first government established on the earth and the most basic in terms of its function. The function of a family is for mutual help and protection. If that is so, why aren't nontraditional marriages of equal use to society? Children.

I noticed many years ago that the vast majority of the heartbreaking child abuse stories I read in the newspaper involved a perpetrator that was not a blood relative of the child. Now it seems others are noticing, too:

Children living in households with unrelated adults are nearly 50 times as
likely to die of inflicted injuries as children living with two biological
parents, according to a study of Missouri abuse reports published in the journal
of the American Academy of Pediatrics in 2005

This is really heartbreaking news, but I think it points up that God created the family to be one man and one woman for life raising their children. Only in such a family can the adults in the household all have the bond of love and affection of blood relationship that restrains them. What about adoption? In adoption, you have a covenant of commitment in which someone has willingly chosen to contract themselves to accept a child as their own. Commitment and covenant are what marriage and family are all about. When they are missing, it is not a family, and unfortunately, the contract of mutual help and protection is never made. My father died when I was 14, and I do understand that many find themselves single parents through no fault of their own. I urge them to never bring a lover into their home, but only a spouse, and only one willing to adopt their children. Covenants keep families what they were meant to be.

The civil government has a very real interest in encouraging the formation of natural families. In these families, children are protected and adults are committed to help each other throughout their lives. That makes civilization easier to perpetuate.

The Feeling is Mutual

I couldn't believe that Barack Obama slipped up on Meet the Press and actually said it:

I do not believe being gay or lesbian is a choice, and so I disagree with
Reverend McClurkin, but understand, Tim, part of what I hope to offer as
president is the ability to reach to people that I don't agree with, and the evangelical community is one where the Democratic Party, I
think, we have generally seen as hostile, we haven't been reaching out to them,
and I think that if we're going to make significant progress on critical issues
that we face, whether it's education, or health care, or energy, or our foreign
policy in this country, we've got to be able to get beyond our comfort
zones and just talk to people we don't like (pause) or just talk to
people we like, or people that we agree with on every single issue. [emphasis
mine]

So... when he says "we" in this context, I think he's pretty clearly speaking of the Democrat Party and according to Mr. Obama, they just don't like evangelical Christians. I hope you folks who vote Democratic because Granddaddy did will listen when they say it themselves. The Democratic Party is not your friend.

H/T Rush - Thanks!

Taxpayers Win!

I am delighted to report that the taxpayers of Johnston County (and the rest of North Carolina, too) have refused to offer the wino another drink: In Johnston County, voters defeated the real estate transfer tax referendum by 84-16 percent and the sales tax by a four to one margin. It has long been my policy to vote no to all tax referendums until I see some evidence that government at that level is using the money they do have wisely. Hasn't happened yet.