March 24, 2005
REBUILDING THE SHINING CITY:
The Natural Family: A Manifesto (World Congress of Families, 22 March 2005)
A Vision:We see a world restored in line with the intent of its Creator. We envision a culture—found both locally and universally—that upholds the marriage of a woman to a man, and a man to a woman, as the central aspiration for the young. This culture affirms marriage as the best path to health, security, fulfillment, and joy. It casts the home built on marriage as the source of true political sovereignty, the fountain of democracy. It also holds the household framed by marriage to be the primal economic unit, a place marked by rich activity, material abundance, and broad self-reliance. This culture treasures private property in family hands as the rampart of independence and liberty. It celebrates the marital sexual union as the unique source of new human life. We see these homes as open to a full quiver of children, the source of family continuity and social growth. We envision young women growing into wives, homemakers, and mothers; and we see young men growing into husbands, homebuilders, and fathers.
We see true happiness as the product of persons enmeshed in vital bonds with spouses, children, parents, and kin. We look to a landscape of family homes, lawns, and gardens busy with useful tasks and ringing with the laughter of many children. We envision parents as the first educators of their children. We see homes that also embrace extended family members who need special care due to age or infirmity. We view neighborhoods, villages, and townships as the second locus of political sovereignty. We envision a freedom of commerce that respects and serves family integrity. And we look to nation-states that hold the protection of the natural family to be their first responsibility.
Our Platform:From these principles, we draw out a simple, concrete platform for the new century and millennium. To the world, we say:
* We will build a new culture of marriage, where others would define marriage out of existence.
* We will welcome and celebrate more babies and larger families, where others would continue a war on human fertility.
* We will find ways to bring mothers, fathers, and children back home, where others would further divide parents from their children.
* And we will create true home economies, where others would subject families to the full control of big government and vast corporations.
The Call:
A new spirit spreads in the world, the essence of the natural family. We call on all people of goodwill, whose hearts are open to the promptings of this spirit, to join in a great campaign. The time is close when the persecution of the natural family, when the war against children, when the assault on human nature shall end.The enemies of the natural family grow worried. A triumph that, not so many years ago, they thought complete is no longer sure. Their fury grows. So do their attempts, ever more desperate, at coercion. Yet their mistakes also mount in number. They misread human nature. They misread the times.
We all are called to be the actors, the moral soldiers, in this drive to realize the life ordained for us by our Creator. Our foes are dying, of their own choice; we have a world to gain. Natural families of all races, nations, and creeds, let us unite.
The divergence of America from Europe is only in its early stage.
MORE:
Meanwhile, in Euro-America, Vibrant Cities Find One Thing Missing: Children (TIMOTHY EGAN, 3/24/05, NY Times)
The Pearl District in the heart of this perpetually self-improving city seems to have everything in new urban design and comfort, from the Whole Foods store where fresh-buffed bell peppers are displayed like runway models to the converted lofts that face sidewalk gardens.Posted by Orrin Judd at March 24, 2005 12:27 PMEverything except children.
Crime is down. New homes and businesses are sprouting everywhere. But in what may be Portland's trendiest and fastest-growing neighborhood, the number of school-age children grew by only three between the census counts in 1990 and 2000, according to demographers at Portland State University.
"The neighborhood would love to have more kids, that's probably the top of our wish list," said Joan Pendergast of the Pearl Neighborhood Association. "We don't want to be a one-dimensional place."
It is a problem unlike the urban woes of cities like Detroit and Baltimore, where families have fled decaying neighborhoods, business areas and schools. Portland is one of the nation's top draws for the kind of educated, self-starting urbanites that midsize cities are competing to attract. But as these cities are remodeled to match the tastes of people living well in neighborhoods that were nearly abandoned a generation ago, they are struggling to hold on to enough children to keep schools running and parks alive with young voices.
San Francisco, where the median house price is now about $700,000, had the lowest percentage of people under 18 of any large city in the nation, 14.5 percent, compared with 25.7 percent nationwide, the 2000 census reported. Seattle, where there are more dogs than children, was a close second. Boston, Honolulu, Portland, Miami, Denver, Minneapolis, Austin and Atlanta, all considered, healthy, vibrant urban areas, were not far behind. The problem is not just that American women are having fewer children, reflected in the lowest birth rate ever recorded in the country.
and so the metamorphosis from metropolis to necropolis continues apace. maybe these loons will decide to be entombed in their little xanadus, when they expire. forming the human equivalent of a coral reef.
Posted by: cjm at March 24, 2005 02:15 PMcjm: Target!
Posted by: Luciferous at March 24, 2005 02:28 PMThere's nothing new here. Cities have always been demographic sinks, filling more graves than cribs each year. Every city in history from ancient Babylon to modern New York has required a steady influx of peasants from the country side to maintain its population. The reasons for this were twofold: poor sanitation and exposure to disease vectors shortened the lifespans of city dwellers (see "Plagues and Peoples"), and children are not an economic asset in the city as they are on the farm. Even with modern sanitation, the second reasons still holds true.
It's silly to make something out of a long established historical pattern. Europe (which is urbanized to a degree few Americans outside of the NE corridor can appreciate) is repeating this pattern on a large scale. Only today, the peasants are Muslims from North Africa and the Middle East.
Damned odd that cities used to have so many schools then.
Posted by: oj at March 24, 2005 03:10 PMdd: i think in general you are right, about cities needing a steady influx of people to keep populations up. but what is unique historically (i think) is that now, there are no families moving to the cities, only single people or childless couples.
maybe its the improved transportation of goods, and the ability to provide services remotely, that allows this demographic centrifuge to function.
imagine the filtering effect if the bulk of american leftism were extinguished by a multi-city nuke attack.
Posted by: cjm at March 24, 2005 04:12 PMFamilies with children live in the suburbs and exurbs and commute to the cities to work (unless they work in the edge cities).
City dwelling is mainly an attraction for young singles, arthouse/coffeehouse types, and gays. We have lifestyle apartheid at work. If there were too many children in the cities, the gays and anti-child singles would find somewhere else to live.
Posted by: Robert Duquette at March 24, 2005 06:06 PM"The neighborhood would love to have more kids, that's probably the top of our wish list," said Joan Pendergast of the Pearl Neighborhood Association.
Baloney...if they wanted kids, they'd have them. Put up or shut up.
If they weren't devotees of a political creed that is distrustful of humanity, they'd do something about this problem pronto.
Posted by: Matt Murphy at March 24, 2005 07:14 PMI'm told there's even some sort of medical procedure that can enable them to have children in the neighborhood.
Posted by: Timothy at March 24, 2005 07:36 PM"imagine the filtering effect if the bulk of american leftism were extinguished by a multi-city nuke attack."
Which means their long-standing and continued opposition to a ballistic missile defense system is just another facet of their self destructive illogical behavior that borders on self-hatred.
Posted by: Raoul Ortega at March 24, 2005 08:15 PMNo more convents?
Posted by: Harry Eagar at March 24, 2005 08:52 PMWhy not?
Posted by: oj at March 24, 2005 09:02 PMraoul: i truly believe the essence of leftism is a desire for death, a profound inability to cope with the rigors of life. the only way they seem able to survive at all is by expending huge amounts of psychic energy to sustain a fantasy world. so its no surprise they want to make all of us vulnerable to extinction.
Posted by: cjm at March 24, 2005 10:01 PMcjm:
Yes, but it is a desire to create a 'death' of their own making, a death that is stripped of pain, loss, fear, and yes, even judgment. Because, to face them, something would have to be done while still alive.
Posted by: jim hamlen at March 25, 2005 09:01 AMAnd Christians are not expending huge amounts of psychic energy to sustain a fantasy world?
Come on.
Posted by: Harry Eagar at March 25, 2005 02:41 PMHarry, everybody expends huge amounts of psychic energy to sustain a fantasy world; and yourself not least, but honored of them all. The only open question is which sort.
Posted by: joe shropshire at March 25, 2005 03:07 PMMal.4
[1] "For behold, the day comes, burning like an oven, when all the arrogant and all evildoers will be stubble; the day that comes shall burn them up, says the LORD of hosts, so that it will leave them neither root nor branch.
[2] But for you who fear My name the sun of righteousness shall rise, with healing in its wings. You shall go forth leaping like calves from the stall.
[3] And you shall tread down the wicked, for they will be ashes under the soles of your feet, on the day when I act, says the LORD of hosts.
[4] "Remember the law of my servant Moses, the statutes and ordinances that I commanded him at Horeb for all Israel.
[5] "Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and terrible day of the LORD comes.
[6] And he will turn the hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the land with a curse."
My fantasy world does not calling for stoning to death people who believe in a different fantasy, if that's the way you want it.
I like mine better. Your mileage may differ.
You probably won't believe it, but I do not spend my time ransacking history books for evidence of Christian atrocities. I just wanted to know something about how the Shakers recruited people, I had no knowledge that Anglicans were stoning them to death for blasphemy around 1775.
Odd. Answer me this, please.
If Christians today do not (and would not, given the civil power) stone people to death for blasphemy, what happened since 1775 to bring about that change?
Be specific.
Posted by: Harry Eagar at March 27, 2005 11:39 PMHarry:
Odd, I recall innumerfable times you've called for us to kill the Muslims you disagree with. Your fantasy world appears to richly homicidal.
Posted by: oj at March 27, 2005 11:47 PM