The state replaced the family. It told men and women that they no longer needed to make permanent commitments to each or to their parents and children. So long as they paid their taxes, the state would bear the burden of their commitments. And so men and women gave up on each other, parents gave up on their children and children gave up on their parents, the family fell apart and now the state that took its place is also falling apart.
A building cannot be built on nothing. The tallest tower is only as strong as its foundation. A skyscraper may touch the sky, but it is its grip on the ground that truly counts. A civilization may reach for the sky and the stars, but it is sustained by the soil of the family and the roots of the basic social structures created by individuals perpetuating individuals, not the gargantuan social mechanisms of the state.
When a civilization destroys its families, then it destroys itself. A man cannot cut out his own heart and live. A society cannot destroy its own capacity for life and regeneration, and continue on blithely occupying itself with the wars on obesity, poverty, racism, cough syrup and gendered pronouns. The state may seem impressive, but it is only a scheme by which people pay officials to make life better for them. When the number of people begins to decline while the number of officials increases, then the man touches the place where his empty heart was, stumbles and falls.
American cities and states have built up a vast social infrastructure of schools and hospitals that there will not be enough children to use. From Detroit to California, the future is four teachers to an empty classroom and eight nurses to an empty hospital. The state that is too big to fail has grown bigger than its people. Like Saturn, the progressive revolution has devoured its own children leaving behind only the empty hallways and empty treasuries of the state.
Originally published at Sultan Knish.