June 18, 2020
Permission to republish original opeds and cartoons granted.
The destruction of marriage and family-building is the destruction of civilization itself
Marriage and
families are the cornerstone of not only civilization but of nature itself, without
which humans would have never survived as wandering nomads and early farmers,
let alone building cities, an economy and governments to represent the people
in state-to-state relations. Without families as a basic building block,
children are not nurtured, educated and empowered to raise and sustain families
themselves, and the human race could not continue, always being but one
generation away from extinction. That is why declining fertility and marriage
rates not only in the U.S. but around the world, should be cause for alarm not
merely from a cultural or policy perspective, but a biological one. In the
U.S., fertility was already below 2 births per woman since 2010 and has
continued dropping. Overall, the marriage rate in the U.S. has dropped from 67
percent in 1970 to 53 percent today among men, according to the U.S. Census
Bureau. Marriage is on the decline and so is child-rearing. As for the why,
take your pick, although a combination of the advent of birth control, the
decline of the influence of religion in interpersonal relations, the rise of a
permissive pop culture, the destruction of heroes leading to the emasculation
of men and radical feminism all seem to be among top cultural culprits.
Video: Allowing CHAZ to remain in Seattle is a threat to America's very survival
Americans for
Limited Government President Rick Manning on Newsmax TV makes the case against
the breakaway Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone (CHAZ) in downtown Seattle.
Tom Homan: Trump’s police reforms will help prevent misconduct by bad cops without endangering public safety
“President Trump
took an important first step Tuesday to address problems that exist within the
law enforcement system when he signed an executive order to spur reforms ‘encouraging
police departments nationwide to adopt the highest professional standards to
serve their communities.’ As the president correctly said, the vast majority of
law enforcement officers do an excellent job protecting their communities and
don’t employ excessive force – much less kill people they are arresting. But he
is right that a tiny minority engage in serious misconduct, and that police
departments must remove such officers from their ranks. The unfortunate recent
killing of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police is the exception to
standard police conduct and is far from typical. Recognizing this, the
president’s executive order seeks to prevent such tragedies from occurring
again without harming the efforts of police to protect us from criminals.”
The destruction of marriage and family-building is the destruction of civilization itself
By Robert Romano
Marriage and families are the cornerstone of not only civilization but of nature itself, without which humans would have never survived as wandering nomads and early farmers, let alone building cities, an economy and governments to represent the people in state-to-state relations.
Without families as a basic building block, children are not nurtured, educated and empowered to raise and sustain families themselves, and the human race could not continue, always being but one generation away from extinction.
That is why declining fertility and marriage rates not only in the U.S. but around the world, should be cause for alarm not merely from a cultural or policy perspective, but a biological one.
In the U.S., fertility was already below 2 births per woman since 2010 and has continued dropping, and with the COVID-19 pandemic will surely plummet further this year amid temporary male infertility from those who experienced high fevers, not to mention the breakdown of the dating scene as the economic lockdown response to the virus keeps many Americans cooped up in their homes. Weddings are being postponed.
Overall, the marriage rate in the U.S. has dropped from 67 percent in 1970 to 53 percent today among men, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Marriage among white males has dropped from 68 percent in 1980 to 56 percent today, among blacks from 57 percent to 37 percent today, among Hispanics from 57 percent in 1990 to 47 percent today and among Asians has remained steady at 61 percent from 1990 to today.
The divorce rate has been between 8 percent to 9 percent since the 1990s and the never married rate has risen from 27 percent in 1970 to 35 percent today among men. Never married is most pronounced among blacks, rising from 35 percent in 1970 to 51 percent today. Among whites it rose from 27 percent in 1970 to 32 percent today, among Hispanics it rose from 37 percent in 1990 to 45 percent today and among Asians it remained steady at 35 percent.
Females have the same trends, although the percentages are lower in each category owing to there being 8 million more women than men in the Census.
So, marriage is on the decline and so is child-rearing. As for the why, take your pick, although a combination of the advent of birth control, the decline of the influence of religion in interpersonal relations, the rise of a permissive pop culture, the destruction of heroes leading to the emasculation of men and radical feminism all seem to be among top cultural culprits.
But leaving aside those more controversial lines of analysis, the largest determinative factor in this where the rubber meets the road is the steadily increasing median age of marriage from the low 20s to the high 20s for men and women, owing to the increasing length of education, finding a job and career and certainly the higher costs associated with living. In other words, the longer you wait to get married, the less likely you are to do so.
This will have detrimental effects both immediately and down the road. Immediately, fewer weddings and babies can hit the market for marriage and baby-related products. Longer term, lower fertility will ultimately lead to a slowing and ultimately a contraction of the civilian labor force, which will be a major detriment to economic growth, as it has been in Japan and other countries that committed demographic suicide.
The fewer marriages and births, the fewer homes that will need to be built and ultimately purchased and fewer resources will be consumed.
Similar trends were seen during the early 1900s, with declining births per woman through World War I and the Spanish flu (when tens of millions of lives were lost) all the way until about 1930, when it began to pick up again, but not before the U.S. and the world found itself in a global depression.
But the effects of the collapsing marriage institution are not merely economic and demographic, they are affecting our nation’s heroes. A 2015 study from the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) found “Suicide decedents were more likely than nonsuicide patients to be young, male, and unmarried…” Almost twice as likely to be precise with 50 suicides per 100,000 for those widowed, 41 per 100,000 for those separated and 53 per 100,000 for those divorced versus 27 per 100,0000 for those married. On sex, there were 38 suicides per 100,000 for males and 13.8 per 100,000 for females.
This week, the Trump administration is renewing focus on the epidemic of suicides among veterans, and President Donald Trump has already acted via executive order in March 2019 to automatically qualify veterans for mental health services. Based on the 2015 VHA study, additional focus should be paid to marriage counseling and even dating services, and focus mental health resources on veterans who were recently widowed, too.
These trends of declining marriage and family-building did not start yesterday, but they are affecting everything, and it will likely take a culture changing event to shake us to our senses.
A healthy society is one that is growing, and sadly, unless there is a dramatic turnaround in the quality and longevity of familial relations, we won’t have one. The destruction of marriage and family-building is the destruction of civilization itself.
Robert Romano is the Vice President of Public Policy at Americans for Limited Government.
To view online: http://dailytorch.com/2020/06/the-destruction-of-marriage-and-family-building-is-the-destruction-of-civilization-itself/
Video: Allowing CHAZ to remain in Seattle is a threat to America's very survival
To view online: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mNBXeZ1rDzY
ALG Editor’s Note: In the following featured column from former Acting Director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement Tom Homan, President Donald Trump strikes balance between needed police reforms and maintaining public safety:
Tom Homan: Trump’s police reforms will help prevent misconduct by bad cops without endangering public safety
By Tom Homan
President Trump took an important first step Tuesday to address problems that exist within the law enforcement system when he signed an executive order to spur reforms “encouraging police departments nationwide to adopt the highest professional standards to serve their communities.”
As the president correctly said, the vast majority of law enforcement officers do an excellent job protecting their communities and don’t employ excessive force – much less kill people they are arresting. But he is right that a tiny minority engage in serious misconduct, and that police departments must remove such officers from their ranks.
The unfortunate recent killing of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police is the exception to standard police conduct and is far from typical. Recognizing this, the president’s executive order seeks to prevent such tragedies from occurring again without harming the efforts of police to protect us from criminals.
The president’s executive order bans what have been incorrectly called “chokeholds” by police, except when an officer’s life is in danger. The term “chokehold” is misleading. The term doesn’t differentiate between tracheal windpipe compression and a carotid restraint that is taught in many martial arts academies.
These restraints are not always fatal, especially the carotid restraint. In a life-and-death struggle, such a restraint may be the only thing left for an officer to employ other than the lethal force of a firearm. So the president is right to say such maneuvers should only be used in life-threatening cases, but not banned entirely.
The executive order also requires police departments to share information about officers who have been found to have used excessive force, after complaints against them have been fully adjudicated. Law enforcement agencies will be required to report such cases to the Justice Department to receive federal grants.
This means that when officers who have engaged in misconduct in one police department apply for a job in another department, their potential new employer will be aware of their misconduct.
In addition, the president said his administration is looking at new non-lethal weapons that police can use to subdue people resisting arrest.
Within the executive order, there is also a call for the attorney general to garner the support and assistance of independent organizations that will help credential police departments to meet professional standards.
These organizations will review law enforcement agency policies concerning training on de-escalation techniques and systems. Many agencies already have this training and practice “the minimum force necessary to achieve compliance.” However, a closer review may identify some breakdowns or improvements needed in this area.
The independent organizations will also examine use-of-force standards and review increased community engagement practices. The attorney general will hold law enforcement agencies accountable to these standards in order to qualify for applicable Justice Department discretionary grants.
In addition, the attorney general and the Health and Human Services secretary will identify programs that will assist police departments with training and resources to better deal with individuals suffering from mental health problems, homelessness and addiction. There will also be an increase in federal funding to enable more social workers to work alongside law enforcement officers, so their efforts will complement one another.
I have written several op-eds the past few weeks concerning the issue of police and the unjustified vilification of the entire law enforcement system because of the misconduct of a few.
In my three decades in law enforcement, which started as a police officer, I have dealt with thousands of law enforcement officers at the local, state and federal levels. I do not hesitate to say that these men and women are the finest 1 percent of our population.
However, like every other occupation out there, there are some people working in law enforcement who do not uphold the values of the profession and need to be held accountable.
In the same way, we’ve all seen horrific news stories about teachers who rape students, doctors who act negligently and kill patients due to medical practice, and pedophile priests. Yet no one advocates defunding or shutting down all hospitals, all schools and all churches due to the wrongful actions by a minority of doctors, teachers and clergy members.
More than 800,000 men and women are employed in U.S. law enforcement agencies. In the wake of killings by police of unarmed African-Americans, we must redouble our efforts to address misconduct and restore trust between law enforcement officers and communities.
The president’s executive order clearly addresses the changes needed, along with additional training necessary to weed out bad cops and help officers do their jobs using only the force necessary.
President Trump’s order is a far cry from the calls by some Democrats to “defund the police” or even abolish police departments – actions that would only bring chaos to our streets and an increased crime rate. And tragically, many of the victims of an increased crime rate would be African-Americans.
Right now in the Democratic-run city of Seattle police have abandoned an entire precinct under orders from the city, and a state of anarchy exists. This kind of action is intolerable and will hurt law-abiding residents.
A new ABC/Ipsos poll shows 64 percent of Americans oppose defunding the police and 60 percent oppose reducing police department budgets.
President Trump is with the American people on this issue. The president is demonstrating clear leadership and taking historic action to unite the country. By signing his executive order he has shown his commitment to ensuring safe communities and a fair justice system for all regardless of race, ethnicity, religion and gender.
While many on the left want to defund police, President Trump wants to ensure police have the resources and training to keep our communities safe and succeed in their dangerous mission, while treating everyone fairly.
I have said many times that President Trump has done more for law and order than any of the six presidents I have worked for – and I respect each of them because I respect that office.
This president has shown time and again that he has the backs of our brave law enforcement officers. I have seen it this firsthand when I was director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
President Trump understands the very dangerous job police do and he understands the ultimate sacrifice made by the 20,267 officers killed in the line of duty whose names are on the National Law Enforcement Memorial. He knows the tiny number of bad cops need to lose their jobs and – if convicted of crimes – need to be imprisoned.
Now it’s up to Congress to build upon the solid foundation of police reforms that the president has created with his executive order.
To view online: https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/police-crime-george-floyd-tom-homan
