The Rootless Men
Paul Belien at the Brussels Journal has two posts, here and here, on "nontraditional" marriages in the EU. Belien's main argument is that, with the death of the "standard" model of the family, all kinds of families can -- and may become prevalent. For example, one European 'family' is polyamorous. "This is the case in the Dutch trio-marriage, where the partners sleep in the same bed and where the two women, who are bisexual, have sex with Victor as well as with each other." He quotes Bella Abzug's argument which maintains that there are five genders ... "male, female, homosexual, lesbian and bisexual. People can move from one gender to another, according to choice or at will, which liberates them from the sexual constraints of nature," which strikes me as oddly at variance with the advocated idea that gay people ought to be understood because they are born that way, with no choice in the matter. In Abzug's idea, not only do they have a choice of identities, they can mix 'n match
Commentary
Much of the discussion over the shape of the family model is motivated by a desire to predict what Western society will look like after they all unfold. Logically, there is no reason why the religious or traditional polygamy -- such as that practiced by the Mormons or Muslims -- can be proscribed at all. It's uncertain that even incest can be long prohibited. Ironically, the real losers in a society with no standard family models may in the end be those groups which sought to drape themselves with the legitimacy of traditional marriage. With traditional marriage debased to the point of abolition, all modes, including the alternative forms, will simply become ones of cohabitation. In that future, it will be impossible to "get married". That term, as we understand it today, will have lost its meaning. About all that one can do is "live-in".
If Belien's indications are accurate then a future patchwork of alternative "families" may not be a very functional place. Here's a snapshot from one of his polygamous families who live off European welfare:
The wives are also cross because Régnier often withdraws into his room, locking the door. He is the only one to have a room of his own in the house. There he has a television set and a small fridge. The women complain he sits there watching football and drinking beer, while they cook, wash and iron and take care of the children. Régnier ignores their complaints, and tells the journalist: “I do not know whether you are married but if you have one wife you can imagine what it is like to have three.”
It may turn out that the traditional nuclear family played a key role in shaping the human unit that was best suited for meeting the demands of an modern society. The triangular family, father, mother and children, like the triangular military structure may have evolved, not by patriarchy or religion, but by practical necessity into its present state. The last years of the 20th century may have seen such a sense of unshakeable security in the permanence of the Western world that its leading intellectuals believed they had the luxury to pursue all kinds of optional extras: from unlimited sexual gratification to the idea that the ethnic groups could be preserved in some kind of ethnographic museum to visited on photographic safari. The future would be one big party in a world that had no need of God. Religion, national defense, traditional morality -- these were all superfluous obstacles to our enjoyment. Dispensable, unnecessary dead weight from a primitive past; excess baggage at the End of History. The family, once our link to both the past and the future may be slowly dying. Good luck to those who would prosper without it.
62 Comments:
Wretchard said, "In Abzug's idea, not only do they have a choice of identities, they can mix 'n match"
Hope they have a good time, it's all going to come crashing to an end when Sharia law becomes mandatory in the Low Countries in about thirty years. Majority rules, you know.
As usual, the real losers are not even taken into consideration:
The Kids.
And the middle aged children don't even know what they missed by neglecting to become a functional part of the cycle of life.
Read about several folks that chose not to ever have kids, and the great times they were having being single.
"If they had been 20 year olds describing their social lives it would have been unremarkable.
Unfortunately, they were in their 40's and fifties, with the same concerns and responsibilities we had at 20.
No doubt the idea of our heritage going up in smoke concerns them not a whit.
"Pro choice"
While going through Belien's article I found myself going off on a tangent looking at the Marc Dutroux case. The little about Dutroux that is available on the web is extremely suggestive of the existence of a powerful ring of perverts at the highest levels of European, and possibly trans-Atlantic society.
That brought home the possibility that beneath the civilized exterior of respectable society there are actually subcurrents of brutality, evil and depravity that Satanic in scope. I sat tossing this idea up and down and being glad that, to small degree, that cozy little world has been shaken up of late by the advent of the other media sources. But what a pack of lies we have been fed.
I posted this at the Bar, where it was on topic, but figure many here will not want to miss it either:
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Don't Miss all three hours of Hewitt w/Prof White of the US Naval Academy.
Available Here
3 fascinating hours about Handle.
That little Messiah tune he churned out in 27 days!
Wrote more than Beethoven and Bach combined.
Once got in a duel over a musical dispute!
...all this as War raged across Europe.
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Merry Christmas to all.
Sunday, December 24, 2006
From Lt. Col. Marc in Baghdad
Posted by Hugh Hewitt | 2:42 PM
An e-mail from my pal Lt. Col. Marc, recently deployed to Baghdad after reactivating from his retired status:
Hugh,
I have been listening to your show over the internet when I have time. I tried to listen some everyday at Ft Benning and I heard your comments about us Golden Oldies going off to war.
I greatly appreciate your comments and want you to know that having your support for our going helps to define why we are doing this. Thank you. By the way I am 55 years old. But we have some over here that are 59 and one Dr who is in uniform and is 76 years old. I will try to continue to listen as soon as I get my communications systems up.
Merry Christmas
Marc
This Christmas Eve and Christmas Day I will add some particular prayers of Thanksgiving and for protection for Marc and his family and for all the men and women serving this country in far off places.
Christmas Tree Seller in Baghdad
ht-Deuce
ADE said, "When you're cool with everything (v. the Curch of England), you stand for nothing."
And if you stand for nothing, you will fall for anything.
Wretchard,
That is a creepy story about the Dutroux case. However, one caution regerding child witnesses. If they are under the custody of prosecutors they can be led to make crazy charges. In the US 10 to 20 yeaars ago, we had a series of these cases where there crazy charges of extrmeme, perverted child abuse and NO physical evidence. Sadly some of them resulted in convictions, surely false.
I would agree that the relaxation of rules about what constitutes a "family" is merely another way for sexual predators to get at children and young girls, away from the protective embrace of both the law and large stern male relatives.
When Wretchard ponders that incest may, in fact, be OK, doesn't that fly in the face of everything we know about the science of heredity and genetics?
We are told that in the Middle East as well as in Beverly Hills, successful middle-aged men will take a second or third wife as eye candy and an ego boost, and not for the purpose of building a future together, or building a better country or society.
Finally, in the one religion in the United States that practices polygamy, Mormonism, we have seen repeated examples of very young girls forced into marriage with much older men. And this differs from on-going and daily rape, how?
I personally believe that homosexuality is like being born left-handed. I have never met anyone that I believed was bisexual and not just opportunistic or screwed up. If mature people in their 30's or 40's want to play these games I suppose no harm is being done.
But when it starts to involve "families" with children being involved, or polygamy with very young girls being "married" off, then I think society and the full force of the law need to be brought to bear, with the people involved contemplating their actions while being locked up for some years.
The trouble with this article is that it doesn't show the divergence of interests between the upper middle class on the one hand and the rich to super rich on the other. The interests of the latter tend to globalization and a one world state. Whereas the interests of the upper middle class are with those of the middle and lower classes ie in the maintenance of the nation state. This article is a synchophant of the views of the superrich who are a tiny fraction of the 1% who own 40% of the world's wealth. (And yet likely own a considerable portion of that 40%)
Two per cent of population own 50% of wealth
Wednesday, 06 Dec 2006 11:06
[The richest 2% of the world's population own most of the globe's wealth]
The richest 2% of the world's population own most of the globe's wealth
Printer friendly version
The richest two per cent of the world's population own more than half of the globe's total wealth.
That is according to a new report from the World Institute for Development Economics Research (Wider) of the United Nations university.
The study also finds the richest one per cent of adults alone owned 40 per cent of global assets in the year 2000, while the richest ten per cent owned 85 per cent.
By contrast, the poorest 50 per cent of the world's population own little more than one per cent of the globe's wealth.
In fact, having possessions worth just $2,200 (£1,119) would have been enough to make you wealthier than the majority of the world's population in 2000 - the year the study examined.
To get into the richest ten per cent you would have needed $61,000 (£31,038) and to become one of the wealthiest one per cent you would have needed assets worth more than $500,000 (£244,444).
However, while owning a two-bedroom flat in London might be enough to make you richer than 99 per cent of the globe's population - it is not that exclusive a club, with 37 million members across the planet.
And the majority of these super-wealthy individuals live in the US and Japan - with the two countries accounting for 64 per cent of the world's wealthiest households.
But after these playgrounds of the super-rich, the UK is the place with the third-highest number of rich residents - narrowly pipping France, Italy, and Germany.
The study also looks into what sort of wealth people are holding - noting large differences between the wealth of the west and the far-east.
Overall, savings accounts are far more dominant the further east you travel.
"There appears to be a strong preference for liquidity and a lack of confidence in financial markets [in Asia]," the report's authors said.
"Other types of financial assets are more prominent in countries like the UK and USA which have well developed financial sectors and which rely heavily on private pensions.
wretchard said....
The little about Dutroux that is available on the web is extremely suggestive of the existence of a powerful ring of perverts at the highest levels of European, and possibly trans-Atlantic society.
That brought home the possibility that beneath the civilized exterior of respectable society there are actually subcurrents of brutality, evil and depravity that Satanic in scope.
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imho the drive to one world government is driven by the super rich around the world who don't really live anywhere. they are nomads. they have houses on several continents and fly about in their own private jets--like thersa heinz or George Soros.
However, abetting and enabling the super rich are a group I call the transnational sodomites in the media, the academy and government who believe in a borderless world as a means of protecting their lifestyles.
ie warriors are protectors of the boundaries. But if there are no boundaries then there is no need of warriors who are anethma to the sodomites in the high places.
The sodomites are part of and enable the culture of death because -- as in the ancient world that Abraham looked at --child sacrifice and homosexuality in the priesthood are two sides of the same coin. The sudden profound power of homosexuals in western societies has coincided with the legalization of abortion in the 1970s.
the great problem with these twin practices is that they are utterly vain and hopeless. They rot any societies they touch.
Thank You Lord for sending your son Jesus.
"...beneath the civilized exterior of respectable [Euro] society there are actually subcurrents of brutality, evil and depravity...."
Geez, ya think?!?!! Here in the States it ("respectable [Euro] society") is the holy grail of the the Dems and their Moveon buddies. Such bourgeois dolts!!!!
They cannot see it's dissolution and perversion as a result of their own. The jihadis see it and are on the move...and, smart guys that they are, are using that dissolution, through the willing cooperation of our dissolute (makes sense that Ted Kennedy is one of their big leaders, don't it?), against those among us who would stop the jihadis in their pursuit of their fundamentalist utopia; the great joke in it being that our dissolute do not see, in their dissolution, that the jihadis mean, very clearly and openly, the end of their way of life.
Charles,
Amen.
Charles said, "the great problem with these twin practices is that they are utterly vain and hopeless. They rot any societies they touch."
Name one society anywhere on the planet or in history not touched by homosexuality, and therefore free of "rot" from that source as you claim.
RCM - no, I do not mean like we apply laws to our borders. In deliberately conflating the two, you are being obtuse and facile. And more than a little stupid.
Doug is right - the immediate victims of these "alternative" family arrangements are children. (See Pope Benedict’s Christmas Eve homily for an idea how much is at stake in our treatment of children. Hint; it’s that untouchable part that may be immortal.) Since most of these "alternatives" revolve around taking the father out of families, it is important to ask how the children raised in these ways fare. The statistical linkage between fatherless households and violent crime is indisputable. So the secondary victim is society.
Take heart though, Tom Holsinger, it isn’t cultural suicide, but homicide! This breakdown in society isn’t the unintended consequence of well-meaning, but stupid behavior, like a bunch of doting mothers spoiling their children. It is the result of a concerted attack on traditional society by the Left. All Belmont Clubbers should read "Explaining Postmodernism: Skepticism and Socialism from Rousseau to Foucault" by Stephen R. C. Hicks. This is a short but powerful survey of philosophy that gives a good historical perspective on how consistently and patiently the Left has gone about undermining all sources of traditional authority in our culture and society except those they control – the universities and transnational institutions.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to the Belmont Club!
IMO w's comment re: the Marc Dutroux case deserves a post of its own. My view is that the "powerful ring of perverts" mentioned is not just Eurocentric, but literally world-wide in scope. And is supported surreptitiously by the so-called 'elites' in most - if not all - cultures of the globe, including Asian and Arabic. Hints of it have existed for years within the once-radical but now "normal" US political and judicial system ultra-liberal environments.
That the book in question has even been published in Europe must be an occasion for "shock and awe" for thousands of wealthy individuals for whom contraints of 'the law' do not normally exist.
Good catch, w.
Call it Natural Law. Call it evolution. But after thousands upon thousands of years of experimentation, it's been conclusively proven that heterosexual marriage provides the best vehicle for survival of the species.
The rest is perversion. I tend libertarian, but gender and sexual orientation are not matters of choice. Genes are relentless, even when the result is confused.
"Genes are relentless, even when the result is confused."
Great sentence.
'When Caroline De Gruyter, a journalist from the Netherlands, visited Wallonia five years ago she was amazed to meet several families that had been on the dole for three generations and did not have a single relative who was officially employed. The families liked it that way. They all voted for the Socialist Party, because it guaranteed that Flemish money would keep flowing to Wallonia. They described the attitude of Flemish nationalists “who do not want to pay taxes to support the Walloon jobless” as “unsocial behaviour!” One of the things that struck De Gruyter was that they admitted to having no shame. It prompted her to call them “a Community beyond Shame.”' -emphasis added-
Shouldn't that be "a Community of Thieves beyond Shame" and how unsurprising it's the Francophone part of Belgium. As has been posited here before, the French Revolution was not a revolution; it was just hoi polloi adopting the dissolution of the monarchy by force. They then went on to pillage their colonies to support their monarchical lifestyles....
Wait a second! Wait...a...second!!! We're all tied up in Jesus' birth and whether it means anything and this balding, pudgy Francophone is getting $100K/year for knockin' up a couple sisters and his old girlfriend!!!!! And they wonder about his going in "his" room and locking the door!!!!! And they're surprised/jealous that he may be out taggin' some other silly girl when he was put knockin' up #3 while she was still married!!!!!! These people deserve their fate.
Funny that when a culture is fat, happy and in decline, that the fringe of humanity receives all the attention.
dla said, "Funny that when a culture is fat, happy and in decline, that the fringe of humanity receives all the attention."
The Pareto principle states that for many phenomena, 80% of the consequences stem from 20% of the causes. For instance, 80% of the bloodshed reported by the news stems from the 20% of humanity that is in the Religion of Peace(tm).
Cedarford wrote, "It wasn't democracy that resolved the differences between North and South - it was killing 1 of every 3 Southerners of military age and burning amny of their cities that did."
On the contrary, it wasn't raw killing that did it, in fact, the Union suffered more deaths according to Wikipedia:
UNION:
110,000 killed in action,
360,000 total dead,
PECKERWOODS:
93,000 killed in action,
258,000 total dead
What it all boiled down to was the fact that Richmond was finally captured after being invested by Grant and having her defenses stretched just beyond the breaking point. After the breakthrough at the Battle of Five Forks it took just over a week to roll the Confederacy up like a carpet.
Woman Catholic wrote:
The Pareto principle states that for many phenomena, 80% of the consequences stem from 20% of the causes. For instance, 80% of the bloodshed reported by the news stems from the 20% of humanity that is in the Religion of Peace.
Indeed that may be true as Islam is about 20% of the world population. But regarding the perversion in Europe, I think "fringe" is 1 percent or less, and prior to the neo-socialist enlightment of the last 30years, that behavior could not be supported in a debate amoungst intelligent people.
It is still Christmass day in my part of the world, so I'll refrain from commenting further.
not particularly pertinent, but the two combatants in the Civil War lost a combined two percent of the national population, equivalent to six million today. And the huge majority of the "peckerwoods" didn't see themselves as fighting for anything other than throwing off an invader. Just for the record. I'm glad the Union was preserved, and slavery banished, of course. But--the private southern soldier shouldn't be "peckerwooded", he was a pore farmer, and as good a people as anybody ever was.
tarnation
The real losers are, I suspect, the children. Our generation performed a massive social experiment with divorce. It was said that a happy single parent was better than a family with tension. The results are in, and in any category one cares to look at, children of divorce are worse off. Now we're beginning a new experiment. It will take a generation to see the impact on children. I will not be surprised if the impact is not good.
reintarnation: (n) rebirth of the soul in a hillbilly body.
If you miss them old 19th century God-afearin' whiskey-adrinkin' Highlanders, you just reload, adjust for windage & elevation, squint down the barl and far agin.
"Rurals"
that soundtrack'll set ye to cloggin
Woman Catholic,
You make a legitimate point but you might want to keep in mind that the reason the taking of Richmond was as much of a blow as it was came about simply because the Confederacy no longer had the men to take it back because they had been killed. Whether or not the North lost more men then the Rebels, the fact remains that the North had more men to start with than the Confederacy did and could therefore afford to lose more so long as they kept their nerve. Raw killing was indeed what did the job in that regard.
I'll agree that morale is to the physical as three to one but that one part in four should still not be underestimated. If you are losing your battles because your enemy has become better at killing than you have in the latter phase of the fighting, your troops are hungry while their are relatively well-supplied, you are undermanned because you can't replace your losses and they not only replace their losses but add more and more then your moral isn't going to stay too hot for too long either.
One reason this matters in the long term is that Bin Ladin has made the same bet that Jefferson Davis, the 1930s Japanese generals and the North Vietnamese all did; that they could win in spite of significant material disadvantage and being relatively outmanned by betting on having better morale than America does. Davis and the Japanese lost that bet because we kept our nerve when things got bloody (while the Communists won that bet when we did not), but in all cases raw killing on the battlefield was what did it whether sooner or later. I respect both Basil Lydell-Hart and Sun Tzu but suspect that a prolonged struggle will eventually require Clausewitzian elements as well.
The war produced about 970,000 casualties
(3% of the population), including approximately 620,000 soldier deaths—two-thirds by disease
Wiki
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Confederate Population 1860
9 Million
1860 SIXTH CENSUS:
U.S. population totals 31
New York, Mass, Conn, Maine, and Pennsylvania alone
9 Million
Neither wisdom, nor common sense, resides in Washington, DC; it resides elsewhere - in our people in our towns. Washington, DC obtains its power from the income tax, and the ignominous power of vote-buying.
But many will vote away their personal freedom for a bowl of lentils, especially when they feel spiritually and personally uncertain, frail, and lacking in a "support system".
(snip from a slightly larger piece @ Maggie's Farm)
I guess it's related to the Hollywood syndrome--
"Hey, I'm rich, I can afford to be trash!"
I find it hilarously telling that these stories are always reported about a family of one man and two women, when most of the polyamorous families I know are two men and one woman (that is, the ones that all live together).
So does "normal," I guess Catherine:
Marriage is between a man and a woman, always has been, that's normal in my book.
Argue for whatever rights you want to argue for, whatever unions, but to argue for same-sex *marriage* is to promote normalization, not to mention doing harm to the plain meaning of the word, imo.
Opps was reading comment above as saying you were arguing for the M word.
Sorry.
The way I see it re: marriage rights is this:
I, a straight man, have a right to marry a woman.
I, a gay man, have a right to marry a woman.
That should be clarified first and foremost in any such debate.
My second move would be to ask whether the issue is venerating a particular exercise of sexual freedom, as with homosexuality, or with pursuing sexual freedom itself?
In either case, I have to wonder, what is the place of the government in sanctioning any sexual behavior as state-sanctioned sexuality, one self-evidently deserving of various entitlements? And if we prefer such an arrangement as government sex, on what basis do we set the boundaries?
Is it, as Santorum posited, limited only by the coffers and broadcast capability of advocates, opening the public commons to the carnival of human sexual depravity?
Move aside, Rosa Parks, here comes the welfare satyrs and Ovarianist Supremacists!
If Catherine seems like she is being inconsistent, it's because she is.
The problem is part of the whole issue of being told by society's self-appointed minders that "people believe they should never be inconsistent".
No, people don't really believe that. They DO believe that they *should* believe that.
But if they did, they'd love getting speeding tickets, because they love not being run over by speeders.
Torturously twisted position masquerading as balanced normal consistent: lassez-faire for adults has to mean lassez faire for your kids. That's "approved" consistency.
Nah--far better to be human--and accept your inconsistency, or even your prejudices. Being prejudiced against a lifestyle does not require you to persecute innocent people who happen to be different from the norm.
The hell with critics--they're criticizing human nature, and they might as well take a flying fark at the mooooon.
PC is wicked--it is all surface, and asks you to repeat after it that surface is all there is.
Just say it, and you can join the others in feigning your goodness.
I don't think I saved you, Cat--I just joined you in the doghouse.
:-\
Fleas Navidad !
I remember those few years in the late 60s when a lotta the gals did quit. Hell, that may be where PC started--you hadda act like you didn't notice.
Bobal, that was purty writin', right up to that 'anguish' part--
ha--true--and it was Handel's "Moosiah" tonight.
Georged said, "Once you support one immorality you wind up supporting them all."
Not true. I don't know anyone in the lesbian community who supports (or ever has supported) pedophilia, bestiality, polygamy, or any number of other sexually immoral things. Basically what two adults do in the privacy of their home is no one else's business, and this is actually a conservative Small Government position.
buddy larsen,
re: late 60's leg shaving
Which came first: hairy ladies' legs or drugs?
I'm asking you because I think I am too young to remember. Coulda been sumpin I et, though.
Buddy Larsen wrote, "I remember those few years in the late 60s when a lotta the gals did quit. Hell, that may be where PC started--you hadda act like you didn't notice."
Buddy you should look into getting an Asian girlfriend, her legs are covered with fine vellus hair that can only be observed on close observation, and does not require shaving at all.
Mercy, drugs, 60s, hairy women, vellus-haired women, elks in heat, what could be next?
WC,
re: privacy
Gay marriage is not something done in the privacy of one's home.
As to homosexuality being a moral perversion, that has been scientifically debatable since at least the time of Lorenz.
Frankly, I have never “gotten” the argument positing homosexuality as a lifestyle “choice”. From childhood to the present (nearly six decades), I have loved (LOVED!!!!) women exclusively, never even once considering any other coupling. There was never that special moment when I had to make a choice of sexual orientation.
buddy larsen,
re: what could be next
Animal husbandry?
;-D
Oh, man, one a those Haydel's MEB-85 Magnum Elk Bugles for me!
"There goes my arrow!" cried Tom, archly.
I was reading about "renunciation".
I'm all for it, no more horseless carriage, no more singing wire or iron buffalo. Hay, and bringin in the sheaves.
Allen said, "From childhood to the present (nearly six decades), I have loved (LOVED!!!!) women exclusively, never even once considering any other coupling. There was never that special moment when I had to make a choice of sexual orientation."
The irony is that the very appeal to nature in the argument that people are "born" this way undermines the argument that marriage should not be rooted in biology but should reflect a person's choice.
buddy larsen,
re: renunciation
Good link!
The Chinese renounced or abandoned any number of technologies, which came to haunt them later.
WC,
As is so often the case, irony is more evident than reason.
Mark Twain was once asked by a Mormon acquaintance where exactly did Scripture expressly forbid polygamy.
He responded, "No man can serve two masters"
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