Foreign Policy Fails without Family 5/12/05
There is very much discussion about the Bush Doctrine, the bold challenge to dictators in foreign countries, and whether or not he will succeed. The news from Iraq is terrible, and now they are rioting against us in Afghanistan. Why are we failing when all we want is for people to have the right to vote in their country instead of being slaves to a dictator?
In my very small community, of ultra-Orthodox Jews, we dress differently than others. I have a long beard. As I grew up, many people utterly despised us and wished we would disappear along with the ghettos of Vilna. Now, however, these very same secular people who denigrated us are joining us, or their children and grandchildren are. A major force in this explosion in our population is family. People want a chance for a life. They appreciate freedom, of course, but after watching all of these free old ladies with great degrees and oodles of money moaning about not having children, or even not marrying, those with hopes for these get out.
Family doesn't just mean marrying and having children. Family means natural gender roles, not the idiocy propagated by America's college and cultural elite, brainwashing young women and men with ideas of how to destroy their happiness. An older woman once was describing how wonderful her daughter was, until she almost broke down in the middle.
Smart people realize that America's anti-family culture, the Fun Philosophy, will destroy gender, marriage, children, and family. They want out. They hate America with its culture of consuming, its love of money and pleasure, its movies and videos, its assault on nature and natural living. When some rabid fanatic gets up and says hate America, he has a ready audience. Even women who get beaten regularly are not anxious to die alone or subsist in a Nursing Home with few visitors.
So pervasive is the poison, that even Religious Right people don't always do it right with family. I spoke not long ago to a figure in the Religious Right. I shook my head. What about his children, my goodness. The answer, however, is that although he was Religious Right, and tried to raise his children that way, he didn't throw out the television. He didn't forbid his children to go to movies. He didn't provide an environment other than the public school and general community. What did he expect?
Many of us were shocked about the remarks of Mrs. Laura Bush and her jokes, recently, in May 2005. The news of her words surely went all over the world. You don't have to talk philosophy. Just hang up her remarks in the middle of a Middle East community, and America has lost. Finished. Any family people who think that Mr. Bush is coming to turn their daughters into his wife are going to resist.
When I grew up, I remember how the media was always offering stories about the children of the President. I remember Harry Truman and his daughter Margaret, if my memory is holding true after all of these years. I think she managed to go through years of scrutiny with flying colors and ended up marrying a nice pianist, if, again, my memory is accurate. I remember later about Dwight Eisenhower and his son David. I believe David entered the army, a chip off the old block. Great news, very family and very positive.
Through the fog of the past in my memory come others, such as Nixon, and then Ford, who was divorced, and I don't remember any news of children. There were Carter and Reagan, religious people strongly idealistic, but I don't recall too many positive family stories. Reagan's divorce and problems with his children did not inspire people. Strangely, the sex fiend Clinton was never divorced, married his college sweetheart after years of courtship, and had a positive family. His daughter, after years of White House drought, was a good student, and a fine person. Here was family, and whatever their politics and quirks, Hillary and Mr. Clinton seemed to be good parents. But for those of us starving for a fine First Family, Clinton was not the star we required.
The older Bush produced a great American political dynasty. Whether or not real family people can relate to that dynasty is something else. Bush senior clashed with the Religious Right and retired. The younger Bush, who invaded Iraq because Saddam Hussein tried to kill his father, did not make that mistake, but we are not sure what he will do in his second term. He doesn't need us anymore.
Karl Rove is trying to make the Republican Party the majority party. He can do this by appearing more secular. Laura Bush's provocation to Religious Right and family people was a carefully scripted step in that direction. After all, am I going to react by voting Democrat? But some Democrats may for Republican.
The Bush Doctrine is an historic war of ideas. In a world where family makes or breaks a society, can America sell a revolution with movies and fun even while it poisons family and natural gender life? Can it convince people to trade the comfort of their family lifestyle for the freedoms that have brought such misery to America?
On a personal level, at what point are people like me going to party company from a Republican Party where the President's wife tells dirty jokes?