The War on the Family

By Tom Quiner

America will prosper or fall as the family goes.

As I wrap up my vacation this week, I’d like to share this excerpt from a book I’m reading called “Common Sense 101, Lessons from G.K. Chesterton.”  The book is written by Dale Ahlquist, president of the American Chesterton Society.

“When we say “the People”, what do we mean?  It is important to understand that the basic unit of society is the family.  The enemies of democracy are the enemies of the family.  The enemies of democracy use democracy as a catchword, but they emphasize “individual rights”, not “family rights”, and individual rights do nothing but atomize society, isolating each person from one another and then regrouping them according to interests that are usually limited or strange but always secondary and always against the primary interest of the family.  Chesterton says, “Without the family, we are helpless before the state.”

If we elevate individual rights over the family, we end up giving all the power in a society to government and to industry because the individual will be dependent on one or both of those entities and will ironically lose all his independence and liberty, even while affirming his so-called rights.  For democracy to work, the family must be recognized as the primary unit of society and the primary focus of society.  Anything “for the good of society” means for the good of the family – for that unit of husband and wife and children, for their home and their happiness.  If the family is subordinate to any other interest, we do not have a democracy.  This great insight of Chesterton is something that Adam Smith never grasped and Karl Marx openly warred against.”

In this current political cycle, it is vital to evaluate candidates on how favorable their policies will be towards strengthening families.