Conservatives tout the importance of the traditional family to our society. Father, mother, children, the family is the building block, the foundation of society. This isn’t news to any civilization. Radical Leftists tell us it doesn’t matter. A family is whatever one or two or more people of any sex wish it to be. After almost fifty years of the Great Society, in which many fathers were replaced with a monthly stipend, we know the results. Directionless, violent and barbaric boys grow into felonious men. Absent the proven institution, the structure of traditional marriage, women still have babies, but our culture and civilization suffer.
Focus on the importance of structure, and apply it to political science, to American history.
In 1776, thirteen American colonies declared independence. Just a few months before the last great battle of the ensuing war, they formalized a quasi-government under the Articles of Confederation. By 1787, it was clear enough the Union was dissolving. The structure of the Articles was insufficient to provide good government. Twelve of the thirteen states sent delegates to a convention to correct its inherent, structural problems. After a summer of effort, they devised a new plan ratified by the people of eleven states within a year.
Structure. There no little difference between the morals and attitudes of the people who drafted the Articles and the Constitution. Indeed, some of the same men who signed the Articles also signed the Constitution. What changed was the structure of the American government.
The American Union, teetering back on its heels under the Articles, thrived when released by the Constitution. The more perfect union of the Constitution set the stage for freedom and prosperity. A largely agricultural backwater in 1789 grew to become a solid second tier industrial and economic powerhouse in less than a hundred years.
Structure. Just as non-traditional “families” are unnatural and destructive, the Articles of Confederation demonstrated that governments not sufficiently divided into their natural functions were inherently unstable and ineffective. The American Constitutional Union, like the timeless husband/wife/children familial structure, recognized the natural structure of free government.
That natural structure meant separation of powers, and not just the civics class horizontal legislative/executive/judicial. The first, and most important separation was the vertical division of powers between the federal government and states, as enforced by a Senate of the States. In this all important structure, state participation meant a federal government and court system well-confined to enumerated powers and one that respected the Tenth Amendment.
Structure is destiny. The 17th Amendment removed the states from the federal government. In their stead, it created another popularly elected body. Make no mistake, the new senate beginning in 1913 is a monster, a political Frankenstein that combines the worst of long-term popularly elected politicians with incredible power tied to the executive branch.<p>
As the modern Left redefined and corrupted the natural order, the structure of family, the Left of a hundred years ago did the same to federated, free government. Restoration of republican free government is impossible without rebuilding the Framers’ structure, and that requires a senate of the states.
The 17th must go.
Article V.