The Destruction Of Community

     The most successful and civilized cultures are those which have the most intact and strongest base units, i. e. families and communities. It is the essential ingredient for raising productive and contributory members of the society and for producing an orderly and prosperous people. It is a virtuous people that become prosperous, and it requires eternal vigilance to that virtue to assure that prosperity doesn't destroy it. This concept was best illuminated by the 18th century Puritan and author, Cotton Mather, when he wrote, "Virtue begot prosperity and then the daughter ate the mother."
     For most of U.S. history, the concept of strong communities and families was the linchpin of our culture. In fact, the Founding Fathers believed in it so much, they based our Constitution on the concept. The idea of a limited central government necessarily meant that space was made available for families and communities to become stronger. When assistance was required, the request traveled from the bottom upward, beginning at the family and progressing to the local church and then the local community at large. Laying claim to taxpayer money from a different area of the country through a request to the Federal government was not even considered an option for previous generations of Americans. They instinctively knew that the path to prosperity and individual liberty was laid with the paving stones of limited government.
     Policies that are borne of a Leftist ideology do not encourage investment in one's own community. The more dependence on a large and distant government is inculcated in individuals, the less they see the need to involve themselves in their own community. And Leftist policy does not only aim to consolidate power in a central government, but consolidate compassion and charity as well. This is the reason that the Left tries to destroy the impact of community organizations like churches and synagogues through regulations like the recent ObamaCare mandate for these organizations to provide birth control and abortions against their religious conscience. The goal of Leftism is to make an all-powerful Federal government the only source of charity as well as the provider of as many of the people's daily needs as possible.
       To fulfill the goal of creating more dependence and thereby consolidating their power, the Left has purposely destroyed the family, the very basic unit of a civilized culture. By encouraging women to be single-parents, and thereby depending on the Federal government for support, the Left has created offspring that will also depend on the government in some way. Whether it is through drug addiction programs, incarceration expense or direct financial aid due to an ability to support oneself, the children of single-parent homes are many more times likely to need government assistance than those from two-parent homes. Another way in which the Left has destroyed the family is by expanding its definition until the concept loses all relevance to the building of a civilized culture. If a family is any set of two or more people, which is the Leftist definition, all virtue, morality and expectations are removed from the concept of family which has existed for thousands of years and has been instrumental in building great cultures throughout history.
     The Left has figured out that the best way to destroy a culture of independence is by removing as much local support as possible and replacing it with a thriving and powerful central government. If they are allowed to continue their march towards their ultimate goal in this country as they have in so much of the world, the last best hope of man on earth will be destroyed and the engine of liberty will silenced forever.