Stephen Baskerville, who holds a PhD from the London School of Economics, teaches political science at Howard University,a nd is President of the American Coalition for Fathers and Children, has posted a much-needed article at the Free Congress Foundation's site explaining why "the next conservatism" must tackle the Left's program of destruction of the American family. The Left's old program of socialism, understood as the near-complete de-privatization of the economic sphere, has been largely discredited. But the de-privatization of the family proceeds apace; thus in Hillary Clinton's words, "there is no such thing as other people's children." The result has been divorce becoming a virtual norm, the breakdown of parental discipline, and the demonization of men by the family-law system.As Baskerville and many others have pointed out, the main tactic for promoting the de-privatization of the family has been brilliant: hammering on the theme of "protecting" women and children from men, who are officially presumed to be brutishly domineering and, after the breakup of a marriage, louts who will support their kids only if the alternative is jail. I have personally experienced that, and I know many other men who have as well. Every day in this country, restraining orders are used to expel men by force from their homes and families without any evidence—and often without even any allegation—of physical violence having been presented; and many unnecessarily broken families are poor precisely because maintaining two households is much more expensive than maintaining one. Current family law in most states makes it advantageous for wives and mothers to ditch their husbands in such a manner, which is mainly why women initiate divorce at least twice as often as men.
But by and large, conservatives have not awakened to what's been going on. Their approach to no-fault divorce is that it's not as bad as the alternatives. Their approach to child support is: "You play, you pay." Their approach to domestic violence is "brutes deserve to be treated like brutes." All that plays right into the hands of liberal and radical feminists who want to radically remake the very idea of family and are well on the way to doing it. Conservatives need to stop jerking their knees and start engaging their brains.
Anybody know of evidence that it's starting to happen?
