La Shawn Barber writes in Pajamas Media:
"...So-called social justice, the impetus behind government policies like racial preferences, drives the Democratic platform. But no matter how level the proverbial playing field, individuals will always possess different levels of drive, initiative, intelligence, motivation, skill, and talent. Individuals will never have equal amounts of stuff. Equality of outcome cannot exist. We are equal where it counts in a free, pursuit-of-happiness kind of country: under the law.
One factor driving the inequality liberals claim they’re concerned about is family instability. As research and common sense have borne out, marriage benefits the whole of society, the adults who made the vows, and the products of the union — the children. An article in the New York Times making the rounds, “Two Classes, Divided by ‘I Do,’” compares and contrasts two women with several similarities and one important difference, especially where children are concerned: one has a husband and the other doesn’t.
...The largest predictor of child poverty is a single-parent household. Family instability, and not racism or bias, has created different classes of children. And since liberals are big on class warfare and social justice, they should wage war on single parenthood and make marriage — the legal union between one man and one woman — a social justice issue. In the name of human rights, strongly recommend people marry before having children. Marriage would decrease children’s risk of poverty and the social pathologies associated with growing up in a home with no father.
... The solution to reducing inequality isn’t more government, but more marriage. Although the government has no power to make people marry before having children, branding marriage a social justice issue might inspire liberals to focus less on social programs and more on that stifling, patriarchal institution called the traditional family.
8 Comments
That's a very funny article. Liberals have spent the last 60 years trying to destroy the family. Poverty creates reliance on government, the hallmark of Socialism that the libs believe is the source of Utopia.
My thoughts exactly, Overcame.
Couldn't have said it better myself.
Though I take issue with this line.
"branding marriage a social justice issue"
They already have.
Social justice is if the rich man pay for the crimes of the poor man. Justice would be if a poor man committed a crime, he should be punished. The idea behind the former is that the rich man got that way by "exploiting" the poor man which led the poor man to commit heinous acts, therefore the rich man should be punished.
"In the warped world of traditional family opponents, however, it seems a far, far better thing that a woman and her children depend on the government instead of a husband and father."
Exactly. Because in their warped world, they believe that taking care of people shouldn't be left to private families--society should do it. These warped people see marriage and the private social welfare it fosters as a tool of capitalism.
Some feminists see the private family as a tool of patriarchy, which subjugates women to a man by making her dependent on him. But notice that nothing has changed with the realization of their utopia. Women, with their unique burdens of pregnancy and child-rearing, *remain* dependent on someone-- that someone being we the taxpayers, instead of the man who helped get her pregnant. We sometimes hold him responsible for his kids (once we find out who he is), but it takes of a lot of money and government officials to do that as compared to a man becoming a father in marriage.
The prototypical social justice advocate won't like our "marriage as social justice" message because of their fundamentally different views on the purposes of marriage. Governor O'Malley of Maryland, for instance, believes that marriage is important for the children of same-sex couples--1 out of 160 households in the state. Although he wants to focus on the pathologies resulting from marriage breakdown among the vast majority of people, he doesn't think the government would be particularly good at reducing unwed childbearing and divorce. http://dailycaller.com/2011/09/16/maryland-divorces-marriage/?print=1
Nevertheless, we need to seize the message. Marriage IS a social justice issue. Not because gays and lesbians want to feel good about themselves, coerce societal approval of their sexual practices, and punish people who disagree with them; but because we need to protect children and society from what happens when a man and woman have sex.
I actually have some material from a group who argued why this is so. Really good stuff. They created a whole curriculum with videos and everything. I'll post the name of the group when I find the documents I've saved.
Yes, rebuilding the social fabric around marriage in poor communities probably would reduce certain social pathologies. But in a lifeless economy, how much this would reduce poverty is debatable.
Also, Ms. Barber repeatedly raises the specter of "class warfare" in her mis-aimed accusations against liberals. However, when marriage and the social fabric are intact at the bottom of a society, the result can easily be more class conflict -- not less. The rise of a large broken, disorganized, fallen-away underclass has been an enormous blessing for elites, both liberals and conservatives, who have jointly presided over forty years of stagnation and decline without having to face an organized challenge from the unemployed and the left-out.
Lefty said, "Yes, rebuilding the social fabric around marriage in poor communities probably would reduce certain social pathologies. But in a lifeless economy, how much this would reduce poverty is debatable."
Part of the marriage formula involves husbands and wives making decisions together about whether or not they can afford to have a child. When the government sends a bigger check for each new child, it promotes reliance on government and encourages having children that are unaffordable, destined for failure.
Government support with no conditions created the underclass that has become reliant on government, and it has destroyed the culture of self-help and independence that had previously existed.
I disagree, Lefty. The "left" have replaced Father with Sugar Daddy/a.k.a. Uncle Sam, promoted "safe sex" via pills, birth control, and abortion, as opposed to promoting personal virtue, and incentivized co-dependance on the government dole, instead of self-reliance through an intact family structure headed by a married mother and father. Their "values" have lead to wreck and ruin, heartache, disappointment, poverty, and hopelessness. Quite simply, the left, and those who put their trust in them, have reaped what they sow. They did it by choices, and choices have inescapable consequences. There simply aren't any government programs or enough funding to fix the consequences of broken homes and immorality.
If anyone would like to see real studies showing how marriage between a man and a woman gives society the greatest advantage, and benefits everyone, please see this link:
http://unitedfamilies.org/downloads/Marriage_Guide.pdf