| Got Government? A Little Bit May Not Be Too Much |
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| August 2005 | |
| Written by Lia Oksman | |
Senator Santorum Tells It Like It Is in It Takes a Family
It is fashionable these days to hate Rick Santorum. He is religious
right incarnate, leading its conspiratorial mission to infiltrate
Congress, the executive branch, and your bedroom. He is a practicing
Catholic with an unemancipated stay-at-home wife who homeschools his
six (6) children. He thinks abortion is murder, and boy will he tell
you all about it whether or not you care to hear. He is of the
despicable stock of big-government conservatives. He is no stranger to
pork-barreling. He has been accused both of representing everything
that has gone wrong with the GOP and of embarrassing the GOP by his
radicalism. Even worse, he does not seem one bit ashamed of his flaws –
being in general a genuine guy, he seems to be genuinely of the opinion
that everything he does is for the better. Lest my reader feel tempted at this juncture to dismiss its author as a box-headed fascist hardly worth further attention, It Takes A Family is not a book whose main task is to tell you how the government can put a chicken in every pot, a father into every broken home, and a V-chip on every household’s television. Santorum does believe, sometimes reasonably and sometimes erroneously, that government can provide help with these things; it would be false to say that his book is not driven by a political agenda. But first and foremost It Takes A Family is exactly what its title suggests: a piece of polemic responding to Hillary Clinton’s It Takes A Village. Santorum is frustrated that the moral and social views he abhors – the views of Clinton & Co. on marriage, abortion, the rights and needs of children, religion, and government – are flooding the market of ideas. He is afraid of the impact that their policy recipes and relativist social vision will have on American society, and he is out to present a different point of view using a variety of resources. A significant chunk of the book, spread out over several chapters, is dedicated to reflections, statistics, and examples illustrating the harms caused by the weakening of the institutions of marriage and family both in the U.S. and in Europe, as well as plain old parenting advice from a man who is raising, as mentioned, six children of his own. Biographies of former welfare mothers, inmates, and drug addicts are abundant, as well as the success stories of several charitable organizations in helping promote ownership and healthy family structure in low-income areas. Finally, Santorum treats us to an abridged but not unintelligent philosophical discussion of morality and its origins. With its broad subject matter and its powerful emphasis on the building of community and the common good rather than the promotion of liberty, It Takes A Family sheds light on an important reason why Santorum is so famously unpopular, besides his overabundant religion and his alleged simplicity (somewhat doubtful, given his ability to get reelected in swing Pennsylvania and to hold the third-ranking Senate leadership position while making no secret of his views): his allegiance to a rather new kind of conservatism. Whether or not we bother calling it “compassionate,” after the President’s manner, it is one that both liberal and libertarian types are having a hard time getting used to. It is quite telling that It Takes A Family covers a much wider range of issues than a typical Libertarian’s Guide to Everything That’s Wrong With America: Santorum addresses everything from taxes and government handouts through cultural and social issues affecting, in particular, low-income Americans to the dangers of relativism. While retaining his dedication to small government and limited spending – he is quick to point out in the book that he has never voted for any measure that would increase taxes – Santorum’s approach to culture and society is by no means an indifferent laissez faire. Santorum’s book is a manifesto of a conservatism that sees the need not only to conserve, but to actively protect and reestablish certain cultural structures and institutions. It is a panicky kind of conservatism, if you will: its proponents are panicking because they see important social forces, previously thought immutable and taken for granted, eroding under the assault of the statist relativism that has sadly acquired the name of liberalism, and they are grasping for solutions to this unprecedented problem. The problem is certainly real and grave: Santorum’s account of how the gospel of the welfare state has undermined the foundations of happiness and productivity in our country is utterly persuasive, if not entirely original. The quality of the solutions – those few that are to stem from the government, in Santorum’s view – still remains to be assessed. But Santorum is quite right to put us on the alert as to the state of domestic affairs. Lia Oksman is a senior in Trumbull College and Managing Editor of The Yale Free Press. |
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