Rand Paul said something or other today about capping assistance for mothers who have children out of wedlock. That's not a good idea. It's not a good idea from a conservative perspective. The key to the triumph of so-called "family values" (which I've never heard a Republican actually say, but I digress) is families. It's not rocket science or news to say that the Christian revelation forms at least the religious basis for those appeals, but it isn't the only basis, nor does the secular basis for those appeals find itself in conflict with those, or with social policy that would be broadly harmonious to the good life for all our citizens.
In the 1960s, it made sense to criticize the particular design of social welfare programs, because the new programs directly attacked families, and disincentivized the formation of new (permanent) ones. There is a social context into which we all enter; who we are, and indeed, how we are affects countless others, and affects everyone as a whole, in ways we tend not to notice. I'll just cut to the chase: So called "big government" is bad precisely because it denies human agency, in that it harms the person's ability to connect with the organic social units of which he is already a part, replacing them with itself. But "freedom" conceived individualistically, outside its social dimension not only ignores those social relations and their impact upon morality, but tends to deny that "morality" even exists! In its "free market" form, it turns the man into a commodity; it says that his only worth is his economic utility. The government justly exists to preserve his freedom of movement and action, but it cannot relieve him of his moral obligations, imposed on him by his prior social relations, written into the world itself. The "progressive" error pretends that material poverty or any problem is abstract and collective, and that the State is alone responsible for its correction. It becomes downright tyrannical when it not only does this, but takes the liberty (if you will pardon me) to define the terms, as well.
Because we are now in a context where "personal freedom" includes everything except economic self-determination and the freedom of association, where "reproductive choice" sanctions not only murder, but, if carried forward logically, assures the death of our society, it makes sense to prioritize demographics over moralism, in this case. On the other hand, re-defining marriage obscures and attempts to deny this, our most pressing problem. Marriage is a tool to minimize the bad socio-economic impacts (that is, the collective ones) of personal morality, or the lack thereof. Pressing the State to recognize anything other than permanent heterosexual sexual unions is not only pointless; it's suicidal. Pretending that any social policy can be "amoral" is equally foolish. The law of nature conspires to thwart those who govern when they attempt it. That is not only the story of our social safety net; it will be our destiny, if we do not discard the lie that a plurality of ethical systems means that our polity can tolerate any of them.
In the 1960s, it made sense to criticize the particular design of social welfare programs, because the new programs directly attacked families, and disincentivized the formation of new (permanent) ones. There is a social context into which we all enter; who we are, and indeed, how we are affects countless others, and affects everyone as a whole, in ways we tend not to notice. I'll just cut to the chase: So called "big government" is bad precisely because it denies human agency, in that it harms the person's ability to connect with the organic social units of which he is already a part, replacing them with itself. But "freedom" conceived individualistically, outside its social dimension not only ignores those social relations and their impact upon morality, but tends to deny that "morality" even exists! In its "free market" form, it turns the man into a commodity; it says that his only worth is his economic utility. The government justly exists to preserve his freedom of movement and action, but it cannot relieve him of his moral obligations, imposed on him by his prior social relations, written into the world itself. The "progressive" error pretends that material poverty or any problem is abstract and collective, and that the State is alone responsible for its correction. It becomes downright tyrannical when it not only does this, but takes the liberty (if you will pardon me) to define the terms, as well.
Because we are now in a context where "personal freedom" includes everything except economic self-determination and the freedom of association, where "reproductive choice" sanctions not only murder, but, if carried forward logically, assures the death of our society, it makes sense to prioritize demographics over moralism, in this case. On the other hand, re-defining marriage obscures and attempts to deny this, our most pressing problem. Marriage is a tool to minimize the bad socio-economic impacts (that is, the collective ones) of personal morality, or the lack thereof. Pressing the State to recognize anything other than permanent heterosexual sexual unions is not only pointless; it's suicidal. Pretending that any social policy can be "amoral" is equally foolish. The law of nature conspires to thwart those who govern when they attempt it. That is not only the story of our social safety net; it will be our destiny, if we do not discard the lie that a plurality of ethical systems means that our polity can tolerate any of them.
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