A week ago the administration put out the news, quietly, on a Friday, that they were doing something earth shaking and historic. Which they didn’t want to call undue attention to? It was “the first ever national gender strategy to advance the full participation of all people, including women and girls, in the United States and the world.”
You can read the fact sheet here, which includes a link to the full Gender Strategy Report.
This was brought to my attention a few days ago in commentary by Glenn Beck. He read from the report, and then made some comments. And I’ll get to his. But first I want to cover a couple of things I notice—which may not be anything beyond an editor’s eye.
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| Glenn Beck talks about the new National Strategy on Gender Equity and Equality, screenshot from here |
There is a high saturation of abstract words: fundamental,
essential, ensuring, opportunity, potential, imperative, inflection,
exacerbated, underscored, systematic, interconnected, priority. It’s not wrong
to use such words—unless you’re using them to hide plain meaning. I’ll leave that
issue for another time.
Another thing that caught my attention is a list of priorities:
The strategy identifies ten interconnected priorities: 1)
economic security; 2) gender-based violence; 3) health; 4) education; 5)
justice and immigration; 6) human rights and equality under the law; 7)
security and humanitarian relief; 8) climate change; 9) science and technology;
and 10) democracy, participation, and leadership. These priorities are
inherently linked and must be tackled in concert.
The first one that jumped out at me was 2) gender-based
violence. Certainly that’s something we don’t want. But number 1 was something
I’m assuming we’re supposed to want—as are the remaining 8. Why is there a
priority to avoid among a list of priorities to aim for? Without clarification?
It appears, then, that it is a priority to achieve greater gender-based
violence. No, I don’t think that’s what they literally intend; but I think that
unclear writing shows unclear thinking. So there’s that.
Then there are the priorities containing “and.” Why is “justice
and immigration” a single item; why is there not a separate priority for
justice and for whatever it is you want related to immigration? Or, if it’s
something about immigration that ought to have justice and doesn’t, why not “immigration
justice,” whatever that might be? How do "justice and immigration" fit together as one thing?
I don’t really have a problem with “human rights and
equality under the law,” other than that, for clear-thinking people, equality
under the law is a human right already, so it’s redundant.
Then there’s “security and humanitarian relief.” Security,
in government terms, is like border security, and protection from our foreign
enemies (military defense), and protection from domestic enemies to the people of the nation (FBI,
or lawbreaking involving multiple states). Humanitarian relief is not a bona
fide enumerated power, but as it happens we give aid to foreign nations, ostensibly
to improve our relationships with them. But the connection of those two things
as a single item is odd—unless they’re doing some conflation of security and
economic stability and assuming that’s a government responsibility instead of
the natural outgrowth of appropriate limited government.
“Science and technology” probably do go together, no problem
there. But then there’s a three-part item: “democracy, participation, and
leadership.” Why those three words together? All three abstractions sort of
relate to self-government of the people, but what are the separate aspects of
them requiring all three to be mentioned, and the common elements that make
them together one item? I don’t know. And I suspect whoever wrote this doesn’t know
either; they just thought it sounded weightier.
The real issue with this statement hidden on a Friday
afternoon release is what Glenn Beck identifies: it attacks the family.
Here at the Spherical Model, we identify the essentials of
civilization: 1. Civilization requires a religious people—including honoring God, life, family,
truth, and property ownership; 2. Family is the basic unit of civilization. You
see family come up twice—because it’s such a big deal. Family is what enables
the perpetuation of both the species and the civilization. The Spherical Model
has three overlapping spheres: political, economic, and social. And we have a
long article identifying the principles in each, leading respectively to
freedom, prosperity, and civilization—and away from tyranny, poverty, and savagery.
In the section on civilization, we have a large sub-article on family, and why
it’s essential to civilization.
So I’m on the same page with Glenn Beck. Beyond that, I
recognize the words he’s using—because he’s referencing, and doing a lot of
quoting from, “The Family: A Proclamation to the World,” signed and sent out to the world September
23, 1995. I wrote about it for the 20th anniversary. In that I tell the story of the late Richard Wilkins, who helped institute the
World Congress on Families, when he attended his first international conference
on families:
He told me that he spoke about the Proclamation on the Family,
issued shortly before that by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints,
to which he was a devout member (as I am). At the time it came out, the issues
in the Proclamation were such standard doctrine to us that he said he wondered
at the reasoning. Since that time, he says he sees it as prophetic; every line
in it is challenged in the world today. But in 1996 he happened to take a
brochure of the Proclamation with him and had it in his pocket. When he shared
those ideas, the opponents to the family (the previous speakers) hissed their
disapproval, but the room at large gave him a standing ovation. They came up to
him afterward to thank him for speaking what so many of them believed, and they
formed long-standing alliances to work toward protecting the natural family
from the international onslaught.
I remember that feeling at the time it was given, of “Why
are we being told this? Isn’t this all obvious?” It was obvious then. But I
look at it now, and it seems even more prophetic than it did six years ago. The
family, sex and its purpose, procreation, gender, marriage—all of it. It’s all
still true, but you might get yourself booted from social media, or fired from your job, for saying what
was so obvious in 1995 that we didn’t even know it needed to be said. And it
will put you at direct opposition to our current government.
So, as Glenn Beck speaks the words, they sound very bold. They need to be said—again. I’ve transcribed the last 6 minutes of his clip and include that in full:
I want to share with you the fact that the family is
under attack. That the sacredness of being a man, and the sacredness of being a
woman, is under attack. And it’s under attack to do one thing: destroy the
family. That’s it. This is the most evil plan I have ever encountered—to
destroy the family.
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| screenshot of the BLM beliefs page, August 24, 2020 since removed from their website. |
So I’m gonna go through a few things that are true. And, if
you disagree with them, well, then we can still be friends, but I don’t think
we’re on the same side. You may be fighting for the wrong side. And I want to share
what I hold to be self-evident truth.
I’ll give you 90%, 95% Agree 95%? Great. Let’s fight
together. If not, we should part ways.
Now, if one of your objections to what I’m about to tell you
is that there is no God, see if you can work around that objection. I truly
believe there is one, and we need to implore Him for His help. But if that is
your objection, see if you can’t get around that to go with all of the other
truths that I’m’ about to speak.
All human beings, male and female, were created in the image of God. They were created for a purpose male and female. Each—each has a divine nature and a destiny. Gender is an essential characteristic of that eternal identity and its purpose. You were born a male or a female for a reason. And there are only two genders. God commanded, at the beginning, to multiply and replenish the earth. And that still should be our goal. It still is in effect. And procreation, and the powers that it takes to procreate should only happen between a man and a woman who are lawfully wedded as husband and wife.
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| The beginning of The Proclamation on the Family |
[sigh] Have I gone too far now?
Which means that, because that is a sacred power, to
procreate, and it should be happening between a man and woman lawfully wedded
as husband and wife, it means that that life that you create is divinely
appointed. And thus all life is sacred, and abortion is murder.
Husband and wife together have a responsibility to love and care for each other and their children. Parents together have a sacred duty to rear their children in love and righteousness, to provide for the physical and spiritual needs, and to teach them to love and serve one another; to observe the commandments of God and to be law-abiding citizens wherever they live. That is the responsibility of mothers and fathers, and they will be held accountable if they fail to discharge those obligations.
The family is sacred. It is the basic, fundamental building
block. Thus, a marriage between a man and a woman is essential to, not only
God’s plan, but to the universe.
Children are entitled to be born within the bounds of
matrimony, to be reared by a father and a mother who honor their marital vows
with complete fidelity. And happiness in family life is found most likely in
the followings of the Judeo-Christian values and principles.
Successful marriages are established and maintained on
principles of faith, prayer, repentance, forgiveness, respect, love,
compassion, work, and wholesome recreation.
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| from The Proclamation on the Family |
As a dad, I am responsible to provide the necessities of life
and protection of my family. My wife is primarily responsible for the nurture
of our children. But we help each other on both of those things as equal
partners. Now, that doesn’t mean that there aren’t special cases. Of course
there is. And extended families should lend support when needed.
But the disintegration of the family—the destruction of the family—will bring upon us as individuals, our communities, and our entire world calamities beyond your imagination. That’s why I believe: family first. You must stand up for these principles first.
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| The warning near the end of The Proclamation on the Family |
A lot has changed in our world in the relatively brief 26 years since that proclamation was written. But every word of it is still true. And we do face calamities in our world, in our communities, when these words are abrogated.
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| Sometimes I use big, less familiar, possibly abstract words too. But I try to do that when it's the right word for meaning. |
Conversely, many of the ills in the world would be relieved
if we valued family so much that a critical mass of intact functional families civilized
our savage world.
I stand for the family. When necessary, I declare opposition
to the government in order to stand for the family. I hope at least some of us can avoid the calamities.
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