Summary: The Left has worked for two generations to destroy marriage as an institution by making it a bad bet for men. See these examples showing how they no longer even hide their intent. What happens if young men see this?
Marriage has collapsed as an institution; we live amidst its wreckage. The driver is the rise of Girls’ Game: romance, party-of-her-life, marriage, kids, divorce, money, and independence. Now Girl’s Game has become respectable. See this extreme example: “I’m A Woman Who Cheated On Her Deployed Husband, This Is Why I Did It“. She collects his pay and plans to leave him eventually, using feminism to justify her actions. Dalrock’s website has a vast collection of women’s conversations from Christian conservative websites with similar views.
Those in the divorce industry proudly demolish what remains of marriage, as seen in this advertisement. We can no longer recall the public outrage it would have provoked in the past.
This sign appeals to women, but provides an important lesson for men about marriage in modern America: it is often transitory, and casually ended by the wife for her gain. Dalrock states the harsh truth, pointing to yet another advertisement rubbing it in men’s faces.
“One of the ways we deny the obvious truth of the billboard is by declaring any man whose wife succumbs to the temptation to betray her marriage vows a ‘deadbeat’. Deadbeat has become a euphemism for a man who has been kicked out of his family, and we tell ourselves that such men deserve the cruelty our family courts visit upon them. That a man is in so wretched a state after the family courts get through with him is all the proof we need that he is a loser who deserved what was coming to him.”
These advertisements introduce a big question for our society: will a substantial number of men in Generation Z decide marriage is a bad bet – and refuse to marry? Social scientists are quite open about their intent to change marriage so it screws men even more. If the men of Gen Z listen, America will irrevocably change.
Our family policy is designed to terrify married fathers.
By Dalrock at his website. 13 November 2018.
Reposted with his generous permission.
While the claim is that our family courts are primarily driven by the best interest of children, in reality they tend to focus instead on transferring power and wealth from men to women. When considering the family courts, it is critical to understand that they don’t just impact the unfortunate families they destroy. The goal is to undermine all married fathers, who see that the family courts stand ready to take their children away from them and send them a bill for the pleasure.
The term social scientists use for this is bargaining in the shadow of the law, and the use of the family courts to weaken married fathers is an open secret. Economists Stevenson and Wolfers describe this in their paper “Bargaining in the Shadow of the Law: Divorce Laws and Family Distress” published in the Quarterly Journal of Economics, February 2006. Emphasis mine. {Ed note: the threat point is the outcomes from men and women from divorce.}
“In the literature on the economics of the family there has been growing consensus on the need to take bargaining and distribution within marriage seriously. Such models of the family rely on a threat point to determine distribution within the household. The switch to a unilateral divorce regime redistributes power in a marriage, giving power to the person who wants out, and reducing the power previously held by the partner interested in preserving the marriage.”
For an example of this see the paper “Do joint custody laws improve family well-being?” by Martin Halla (professor of economics at the U Linz), published in the IZA World of Labor, May 2015. {Ed. note: I recommend reading this paper!} The paper opens with this …
“Joint child custody laws affect not only divorced families but intact families as well.”
Halla focuses on the implications of moving towards a joint custody model. For the purpose of this post, I’m more interested in the perspective of the author than I am in the paper’s findings*. Number one in the “cons” of joint custody is that it weakens the threatpoint wives can use to gain power over their husbands:
“The introduction of joint custody reforms reinforces the traditional division of labor within the family and gives men greater bargaining power over the intrahousehold allocation of resources.”
Another “con” that stands out is the fact that the study didn’t find an effect on women’s suicide rates:
“Joint custody reforms have had no robust, long-term effect on female suicide rates.”
I’m assuming Halla isn’t expressing disappointment that women’s suicide rates didn’t increase. What I think this bizarre statement boils down to is a complaint that joint custody decreases men’s suicide rate (listed as a pro) without decreasing women’s suicide rate (listed as a con). In a sane world that would be seen as a positive without a corresponding downside, not a pro and a con.
At any rate, the takeaway from both items is the same. When the family courts crush men it is according to plan, and they fully understand the devastation they are meting out to men in the process. They don’t want men to commit suicide, but they know that in order to generate the kind of fear they want to instill they have to inflict extreme brutality on the men who are made examples of.
In closing his Author’s Main Message, Halla advises policy makers to be careful when changing custody laws to avoid the negative consequences he found in the study (number one being lessening the coercive power of wives by reducing men’s fear of losing their children).
“Policymakers should acknowledge that regulating families’ post-divorce life may affect intact families and try to minimize any unintended negative consequences.”
He further elaborates in Summary and Policy Advice (emphasis mine).
“Joint custody laws affect both intact and non-intact families in substantial ways. A very crude description is that joint custody improves men’s bargaining position within marriage, enforces traditional gender roles, and leads on average to worse outcomes for children. A more detailed account would contrast these clearly negative and unintended effects with positive effects on other outcome variables (such as lower male suicide rates and less domestic violence)…
“Despite the negative effects of joint custody on some family outcomes, abolishing it may not be a desirable policy option …. To predict the effects of a planned reform, it would be important to assess how the relative bargaining positions of spouses will be affected. This can be approximated by checking how the reform affects the well-being of each partner in the case of a potential divorce. The party who will benefit from the reform will gain power within the marriage.”
*See Larry Kummer’s caution on papers like this.
Update! See Dalrock’s follow-up post: “Never forget the eager role of the conservative anvil.”
He shows how the Right is complicit in this social revolution.
—————- End of Dalrock’s post —————-
Editor’s note
The destruction of marriage is just another symptom of an underlying illness. We’re in a process of broad institutional decay. That’s the core insight – my little satori – that led to A new, dark picture of America’s future. Unfortunately, we don’t see the process.
We are like primitive people looking at an epidemic of syphilis. So many diseases! In fact there is only one. As nicely said in The Exorcist
Father Karras: “It might be helpful if I gave you some background on the different personalities Regan has manifested. So far, I’d say there seem to be three.”
Father Merrin: “There is only one.”
When we identify the underlying cause of our problems, we will have taken a giant step towards reforming America.
About Dalrock
He is a married man living with his wife and two kids in the Dallas/Fort Worth area. He is very interested in how the post feminist world impacts himself and his family, and uses his blog to explore these issues. See his website. Especially these posts ….
- Why aren’t men responding to economic signals?
- Will Wilcox and the men of National Review respect you in the morning?
- America is destroying the Hispanic family.
- Let them become elite.
- How to close the gender pay gap once and for all.
For More Information
Ideas! For shopping ideas, see my recommended books and films at Amazon.
If you liked this post, like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter. See all posts about women and the gender wars, about marriage, about divorce, and especially these …
- Marriage today – and its dystopian future.
- Millennial girls had a golden age. Gen Z’s inherit wreckage.
- See how women’s calculus of marriage shapes America.
- Red Pill knowledge is poison to marriage.
- The coming crash of marriage: why, and what’s next.
- Men are going Galt. Marriage is dying. – A review of books from the cutting edge of the revolution.
- Marriage dying. Less sex. More loneliness. Society dying.
- Men are abandoning the rat race, & changing American society. — See the data.
- Will young men break America’s family structure?
- Part 1: Why men are avoiding work and marriage.
- Part 2: Will today’s young men marry? America’s future depends on the answer.
Two major books about modern marriage
The classic: Men and Marriage
Men on Strike: Why Men Are Boycotting Marriage, Fatherhood, and the American Dream – and Why It Matters
Not marrying would be sensible, but most of the sturm und drang comes from isolation from children and fathers support obligations post separation, so the most sensible option would be to not have children marriage or not. Tricky to achieve reliably without the equivalent of the male pill. In that absence of the latter, I would strongly recommend that all men quietly have their children’s paternity tested. Some may be surprised. From what I’ve been reading https://www.gibsonkerr.co.uk/guardianship/cuckoo-children-how-germanys-approach-to-family-law-could-have-repercussions-for-scotland/, around 10% of children may not have the father they think they have.
But I suspect that the matriarchy will never allow men full control over their fertility…
Steve,
There is another aspect of marriage that works against most men: community property laws. In effect, in divorce the marriage contract becomes a hire-for-use contract, under which the amount paid can be quite high.
Also, most estimates of false paternity in the US from studies are (from memory) about 3%. But that’s the past. It would not surprise me if it is rising, perhaps steeply.
In a just world (Ha!) the attorney who ran that deeply cynical billboard would suffer loss of reputation and business. However, I’d be willing the bet just the opposite has happened.
If I were a young man contemplating marriage, that sign just might dissuade me.
Scott,
I agree. I considered mentioning that in the post.
I wonder if her practice represents both women and men, and if she gives each equal levels of dedication. I rather doubt either.
370,
For pleasant divorces, fair mediators can be helpful as attorneys. But I’ve heard to many stories of men represented by attorneys who were tilted to the wife. Of course, divorces have become so routine that much of it – esp child support – is almost automatic.
A good attorney is essential when the wife plays hardball, such as with accusations of spousal or child abuse – which have become just negotiating tools. WMD-like negotiating tools.
I heard once that states keep some alimony as a handling fee. So if true the states make money off broken families.
Sven,
State agencies can levy fees on child support they collect. Employers can levy processing fees on garnishments, such as those for child support. Neither are profits, but to offset costs.
As Larry notes, some states take a cut of child support to defray costs, but a real driver for states to maximize child support payments is Title IV-D of the Social Security Act (Child Support Enforcement Program).
Basically the federal government pays states to collect child support. The more a state collects, the more federal funding received. The stated purpose of this program is to maximize support for children, but the obvious outcome is the incentivization to destroy families to maximize state funding. This is a prime factor in the 85%+ female primary custody rate, absurd practices in calculating support, and the overwhelming resistance of states to more equitable parenting legislation such as default presumption of shared custody.
The funding is not insignificant, with several hundred million dollars available, and of course “the best interests of the children” is used as a shield against criticism. So yes, states do indeed profit off broken families.
Excellent overview. Good links to Dalrock, who’s made heroic efforts to document thr feminist corruption of Christianity. Couple of points:
1) No question state-sanctioned marriage is biased towards women. Distinction should be made from Church or covenant marriage (no marriage license). That should clarify the question, “Should I marry?”
2) People who refuse to reproduce are irrelevant and should be ignored (they are a literal and metaphysical dead-end). If anything, politics is about the “art of the possible” with an eye towards a future worth living.
3) Ultimately, men will be unable to outrun the imposition of draconian family law policies; Feminists will impose them upon non-marital relationships anyway (ex: Common-law couples as good as married in B.C.). This will be the cat-and-mouse pattern until the collapse.
Life=suffering. No way around it. Find something worth living for and stay true to your values — even if/when society goes nuts. Having a community with shared values will help you weather the storm.
Excellent framing Larry, and thanks for the linkage and the kind words.
This is where conservatives come in. The conservative anvil is every bit the tool of the feminist blacksmith as her man-smashing hammer. Conservatives have responded to the sexual revolution and the destruction of marriage by adopting a highly selective sense of moral outrage. When women delayed marriage to focus on sexual freedom and career, conservatives cheered them on (while ignoring/denying the whoring). Thus the 700 Club touts a book by a 50 something never married career woman advising young Christian women to follow her lead and never settle. Likewise pastors regularly lecture young Christian men that they have a duty to marry single mothers, because:
But make no mistake, if a man is foolish enough to follow conservative Christian moralizing, they will find the modern Christian taste for moralizing ends the instant the rube has taken the bait and said “I do”. If the man naively expects his pastor to continue to exert strong moral pressure after the wedding he is in for a massive shock. Suddenly the Christian taste for moralizing evaporates, and the man being obedient to conservative instruction is proof that he deserves a rebellious wife. After all, he is the one who was foolish enough to marry her in the first place!
The same is true for secular conservatives.
Dalrock,
Thank you for raising that important point. While most of the changes to marriage in America have been pushed by the Left (not all, Reagan signed the first “no fault” marriage bill, the most radical change in marriage law in a long time), the Right either did nothing or cheered.
This supports one of the core themes of the FM website – We are alone, as both Left and Right are moving against us.
Pingback: Never forget the eager role of the conservative anvil. | Dalrock
Fantastic discussion. Very informative!
One note on changing child support levels. It is indeed often embedded in state law and not left up to the discretion judges.
The (western) state I live in has an equation where you plugin a) man’s income b) woman’s income c) custody percentage and d) number of children and it will spit out the man’s monthly quota.
As marriage fades, you would think all the single women would become angry and look for answers. But if black women – the most single demographic – are any indication, all women will eventually embrace single-mommery with gusto.
Jonathan,
I have briefly tried to determine who sets the guidelines for child support (by State). I think (with little evidence) it is usually done by the relevant State agency. However set, in every State software crunches the individual circumstances to produce the amount due. Courts seldom change it. See the list of vendors by State.
“But if black women – the most single demographic – are any indication, all women will eventually embrace single-mommery with gusto.”
That is the most interesting observation I’ve seen in a long time. White upper class women seldom pop out kids without a ring on their finger, although they advise to lower classes to do differently. But many celebrity women are embracing single motherhood, and they might be the wave of the future.
Also note how the increasing number of feminist State and Federal legislators push for additional State benefits for single mothers – usually said for the support of “families.”
Yours is an easy winning for Best of Thread. It deserves more thought!
Single mummery is definitely being normalized among young white women. Yes, by celebrities but even, as Dalrock notes, in churches.
I stopped going to a particular church after six years because it became a kind of ‘cult of the single mom’. They were establishing a system – like a government would do – to come alongside single moms, give them money, free cars (yes, really…), training and employment with associated companies.
In effect, this church is institutionalizing itself as part of the Child Support alternative to husbands. On a personal note, it’s very sad for me to watch. It’s a large church that has done a lot of good for a lot of people and I’ve taken my kids there for so long…but they are sooo misled and blue pill now. …sad.
As a result of all this, I have seen in my little circle two 18-year-old white girls getting knocked up and becoming single moms and going on section 8, and all the rest. They come for very good people, intact families.
But the message they are getting is that single moms are heroes deserving of support. And wives (their alternative life-path) are disrespected, put-upon and over-burdened by lousy husbands. They’re just eighteen year old kids with high sex-drives and are making what seems like an easy choice.
Jonathan,
Wow. That’s an interesting story about a church. Good intentions, the paving stones to hell.
“But the message they are getting is that single moms are heroes deserving of support. And wives (their alternative life-path) are disrespected, put-upon and over-burdened by lousy husbands.”
Wow, again.
@Larry Kummer
”“But if black women – the most single demographic – are any indication, all women will eventually embrace single-mommery with gusto.”
Now how to we undo the feminist State and Federal Legislators doing their bid to destroy the family.
info,
The solution is easy: the American people must decided to take the reins of America – bearing the burden of self-government.
How to encourage or facilitate this? I have no idea.
I think this is another pretty good take on the effect of socio/psycho/logical alterations in our society. Couple of things I would point out as not necessarily ‘precise’ — the Left and the rise of feminism should not be singled out as the dominating actors in this. (E.g. as partially admitted: “We are alone, as both Left and Right are moving against us.”)
While the article “Our identities are changing…” had a deeper analysis of our recent predicament — our society is in state of flux, commitment and loyalty (etc.) became just empty words instead of the guiding principles in the tension state like our present liminality.
And these changes in respect of traditional weight and functionality of a family are not bound to the US locale. This transformation is present in the whole western culture: e.g. a birth certificate in France no longer identify ‘mother and father’ but ‘parent 1’ and ‘parent 2’, ouch!
It seems to me our slump into decadence is irreversible, that is — short of radical changes in our lives. I feel like the Cato the Elder (a good friend of Quintus Fabius Maximus BTW) ending many of my posts such as: Humanity is incapable of a fundamental change voluntarily, we have to be ‘pushed against the wall’…
In the state of nature, females raise their offspring alone. Males just contribute sperm and move on, their efforts focused on copulating with as many females as possible in order to maximize the number of their offspring. In fact, males of some insect species have evolved specific appendages designed to remove sperm of other males from females with whom they mate. The male black widow spider, before making his final sacrifice after mating, plugs the female’s genital orifice with a waxy substance so that she can’t mate with any other male, at least until she lays the clutch of eggs that will guarantee his paternity.
The assault on marriage is by design, as has been well established here, but there’s one very big difference between its alternative and conditions in the state of nature: in the state of nature the provision for offspring was never socialized. Today our society tells vast numbers of men that their efforts to get laid will be criminalized, but also that even as incels they are on the hook for the bastard spawn of the fewer and fewer men who get to pass their genes on. Long term this is not tenable.
The destruction and rejection of family IS the underlying illness. Families just are the bricks from which a nation and its institutions are built. A plan to reform a building is useless unless we get the foundation, bricks, and mortar correct.
In our particular case, the first big error which compromised structural integrity was women’s suffrage. That was the signal that fathers are not the representatives and voices of their families; that we are to be utterly individuated. It was the equivalent of deciding that you could build with bricks of clay alone, and and then mortar them with straw alone; assuming that–because all the components were present–structures would hold together as well as it previously had when the components were messily mixed together.
Cane,
“The destruction and rejection of family IS the underlying illness”
You confuse cause and effect. The fever and cough are not the flu. The virus is the flu.
The family is not being destroyed by itself. Although the Left is working at it, there are many others contributing – including (as Dalrock notes) many on the Right. And large elements of the US population. Also, this is just part of a larger process wrecking our institutions (e.g., political, military, education).
CR Wiley and Aaron Renn have good antidotes. We don’t know all the answers or have the solutions to our current problem. We need to do our duty as a form of piety and slog through until the current order is replaced.
Getting married and raising a family is essential to being a man. It is what we were created for. Given the legal environment, I understand everyone’s hesitation. The truth is that most men will be happier and healthier in a marriage but we have to support our marriages with practices that strengthen it like fitness, alpha frame, and financial success as well as institutions like good churches that support men. All the other societal guardrails have been removed.
There are no easy answers or solutions. “Don’t get married” is not an easy answer or solution. There are a lot of reasons not to marry but also a lot of reasons to marry.
I’ll give Sir John Glubb the outro:
Bryce,
(1) “Getting married and raising a family is essential to being a man.”
Says who? The Greek concept of teles – the end or purpose of every object – is fun philosophy but ungrounded in anything.
(2) “It is what we were created for.”
Even the Bible disagrees with you.
(3) “The truth is that most men will be happier and healthier in a marriage”
Evidence? With the divorce rate running close to 50% (higher in subsequent marriages), that seems unlikely.
(4) “‘Don’t get married’ is not an easy answer or solution”
You confuse responses available to the individual with those available to the group. They operate on different levels. A man can decide not marry, while working to reform the institution so it works better for the next generation.
Theology and philosophy are not your strong suits. The links I provided flesh out the ideas further. The reproductive organs you have between your legs were created for a purpose. God man woman out of man for man with complementary organs saying, “It is not good for man to be alone” and giving man the mandate, “Be fruitful and multiply…”
If you ignore your organs and Genesis 1 and 2, you might be able to say that the Bible disagrees with me. Some people are definitely called to singleness though. The fact is that marriage and family give men and women meaning to their lives. Your own life is evidence of this, surely. Don’t you find marriage, children and grandchildren meaningful?
I’ll let you read Renn and Wiley and draw your own conclusions. You’re a smart guy that doesn’t need to be spoon-fed even if you are reflexively disagreeable.
“It was not so from the beginning (Creation)” Getting married and divorcing is definitely bad. That doesn’t mean all marriage is bad or that marriage is still the wrong answer.
I’m not confused at all about this.
Bryce,
From the paper by the Strategic Studies Institute.
That was written over 11 years ago. The passage of time provides near-zero supporting evidence. I’d classify it as blue sky speculation (i.e., theories with nothing behind them but the blue sky).
Sounds like you disagree with Bill Lind and Martin Van Creveld also. “Decline of the State” seems to be what I’ve experienced most of my life. You and I grew up in different eras under different circumstances. YMMV.
Bryce,
Yes, I disagree. Martin van Creveld wrote The Rise and Decline of the State twenty years ago. He has not written about it for many years. Time has not been kind to this forecast. Nobody hits 100%. Or perhaps he was not wrong, just early. Like Robert Heinlein’s crazy years.
Pingback: No easy solutions but some good antidotes – Bryce Sharper
Married 10 years to my first wife, 32 years now with my second, raised three great kids, now have grandkids. Daughter #2 getting married next weekend.
Happiest times of my life were with my small children
That divorce was tough, yes, I was single parent with 6 year old daughter when I met my wife
But I’d do it again in a heartbeat, gives a man something to go on
I’ve been studying the family law/child enforcement Gestapo since 1991; the majority of my research has been conducted in and on, my home state and county of Los Angeles and California respectively. I also spent three years in Ohio’s, Hamilton county and conducted interviews and retrieved data from Clermont and Butler counties while there.
In U.S. divorce and custody matters involving minor children mothers are awarded “Primary Physical Custody” – the cornerstone in the setting of child support amounts – in over 90 percent of cases. The egregiousness of this proportion is visible almost weekly, with “Non Custodial Parent Round Ups” – All one need do, is read through the names.
With respect, “transferring power and wealth from men to women” while clever, is a distant second to the dynamic above, and on topic, I know of NOT ONE case wherein an obligor’s child support has decreased as a direct result of his being granted “joint physical custody”
NEVER lose sight of the fact that the huge entourage that makes up the family law Gestapo relies upon – for it’s very existence – single mother households. Therefor, the first order of business when a father has been summoned on a divorce petition, even though he may have done nothing wrong nor even want or agreed to the divorce, is to strip him of custody of his own children via court order to either vacate premises or enable the removal of his children from the household they’d just been sharing.
It is within this methodology too, that the State creates a whole host of problems for itself to solve: Child poverty, child abuse, juvenile crime, and other problems associated with single-mother households. It is in this manner that the family law industry is self-perpetuating and self-expanding. Involuntary divorce is a marvelous tool that allows for the infinite expansion of government power.
While the terminology changes slightly – along with some law(s) – from state to state, for men, boys, and fathers ensnared by this Gestapo the nightmare is essentially the same regardless.
Consider, and while the statute of limitation(s) vary by state, it remains a fact that in all 50 of the United States, Paternity Fraud – cases wherein a man or boy has been misidentified as “father” on a birth certificate, whether accidentally, intentionally, or otherwise – is the only article of court or law in this country in which scientific proof of innocence does not nor will not, exonerate. You’re outside the obscure statute of limitations on disestablishing paternity, you’re on the hook for child support for a kid DNA evidence has proven you did not father. This dynamic is a daily reality for thousands of men and boys in this country and nearly without argument, this atrocity remains thee single largest miscarriage of justice conducted by this Gestapo. My research also clearly shows that while somewhat accurate, the hypothesis “What happens if young men see this?” is more off than on, the mark, it doesn’t convey the half of what’s really going on.
Consider, in fiscal year 2016-17, California’s Department of Child Support Services received approximately $658 million federal dollars – up $11 million from the previous fiscal year – for its child support enforcement and case management efforts. Of that, about $51 million was earmarked strictly for DCSS’s horrifically flawed IT Department, a department which represents waste and abuse of tax payer funds on an epic scale in a state rampant with such waste! The California state coffers have been and remain, controlled by economic illiterates in both appointed and elected positions.
Of course, not a dime of these federal funds ever makes their way into the lives of children of divorce or impoverished kids, no. Those funds augment the salaries, benefits packages, paid-time-off, and pensions of those employed by – or retired from – the state of California’s child support enforcement industry. In this manner, the mythical “Best Interest of the Child” remains just that because the So, my stratagem has been – and for the MOST part remains – to try and inform the tax payer who views him or herself as “unaffected” by the family law Gestapo; here’s why.
In Warren Farrell’s brilliant and exhaustively researched book “Father and Child Reunion” he cites – paraphrasing here: “The only definitive, federally funded study ever conducted on the subject of child support showed that – when employed – American men pay between 83 and 91 percent of all court ordered child support and that they do so without intervention of any kind.
But, when these figures became apparent the commissioner of the federal office of child support enforcement at the time – who’d commissioned the study – had it discontinued, going so far as to demand formal Freedom of Information Act submissions merely to review the study’s data.” – So here’s the word that needs to get out: If the data shows that men are indeed paying, why are the tax payers financing “enforcement”?
And lastly, consider the following: In the United States divorce and custody account for OVER HALF of all civil litigation, constituting the cash cow of the judiciary and bringing employment and earnings to a host of public and private officials including judges, lawyers, psychotherapists, mediators, counselors, social workers, child support enforcement agents, and many, many others.
Again, the “Best Interest of the Child” has NOTHING whatsoever to do with their either their goals or the viciousness of the methodology they’re willing to employ in order to attain those goals.
Peace…..
It sounds like you’re disagreeing with some of your earlier stuff.
https://fabiusmaximus.com/2018/02/23/martin-van-creveld-on-loss-of-free-speech/
https://fabiusmaximus.com/2009/11/06/sjs/
https://fabiusmaximus.com/2007/10/19/4gw-at-work-in-a-community-near-you/
I tend to think he was early. We both agree that very little holds the USA together culturally. It’s really just an economic zone.
Bryce,
Of the three posts you cite, two are over a decade old. The third is a year-old post by MvC, but it discusses the growth of State power – not its decline. I have changed my opinion in response to the news. As the saying goes, “when the facts change, I change my mind.”
“We both agree that very little holds the USA together culturally. It’s really just an economic zone.”
A fashionable but absurd theory. The US has a strong and highly cohesive culture, which is why we can assimilate large numbers of immigrants – and why other nations try to fight off Americanization. The Left is working to weaken our culture, with so far little opposition. It is easier to wreck than build, so they will succeed unless stopped.
Great analysis, pulls the pieces together in one place. Thank you.