The Family is the Basic Cell of Society
Based on this premise, we are forging a new theory of justice to change the way we think about politics & economics.
The Family in America
The most pressing domestic issue confronting the future of our country is the disintegration of the traditional family. It is in the family that we learn to take our place in the larger society, exercise our rights and duties as citizens, and leave the world a little better than we found it.
In the family, we learn:
- to have our lamps lit but not be woke
- that Free Speech must be moderated by justice and charity
- the proper use of our sexuality
- to work for our daily bread
- use our freedom wisely
- treat others with dignity and respect
The Family and the Government
The family is the basic cell of all more complex societies, the government being the most complex. Without tightly integrated families, the entire fabric of complex societies unwinds.
The principle of subsidiary holds that the more complex society should defer to the more simple societies if these have the resources to perform needed functions.
Today, our vast Administrative State has offset the Family’s proper function as the basic cell of all societies, and the principle of subsidiary is increasingly abandoned. Many legislators are ignorant, ignore these realities, or take the inverse view, regarding the State as the supreme authority.
The Family is not an extension of the Government, nor is it in any way subordinate to it. Each is a separate society with its own limited autonomy and each is mutually dependent on the other:
- the family should function as a wellspring for the virtues of self-government, providing broader society with a citizenry conducive to a regime of limited state governance.
- society exists to foster and protect the family in all that the family cannot do for itself.
There is no need to recite the diverse influences undermining the integrity of the family, but our modern Administrative State is definitely one of them. It undermines the separation of powers so essential in our constitution and substitutes the will of bureaucrats for the will of the people, its policies and regulations often undermine the integrity of the family by:
- Interfering with the responsibilities that belong within the family, infantilizing parents,
- Contradicting the moral teachings of healthy family life,
- Discouraging family formation through economic and welfare policies,
- Incentivizing both spouses to work outside the home, putting the care and formation of the children in the hands of third parties,
- Demonstrating allegiance to large corporations rather than families,
- Hindering parents in their duty to instill their morality and values, and the virtues of self-government,
- Corrupting the very meaning of the family by attacking tradition and hereditary practices as irrational and obsolete, while expanding a rule of hyper-rationality and expert administration,
- Fomenting hedonistic individualism, to the point where communities have no cultures of their own,
- Encouraging relationships strictly based on free choice, undermining the strength of families and communities and eliminating natural obligations and codes of honor that form the bedrock of a strong society.