Friends, I know, there’s a lot of irony here…. A bird protected under Section 1-c, Rule A4.015 of the Endangered Species Act, and a coal operation shut down by EPA Rule 24-d.547, are being used to sound a warning against national hari-kari. But it’s true that before the advent of Red Diaper Dawn, miners would send birds underground to determine whether the air was safe to breathe. If the canary came back, it was time to head down, but if the canary died – a common occurrence – an official from the EPA would slap a lawsuit on the owners and fine them into bankruptcy on behalf of the Sierra Club.
Kidding!
If the canary died, the miners would simply drill another shaft. Which naturally leads to a discussion of large birds – storks – known to deliver babies! Under Barack Obama – who once said that “if my daughter makes a mistake, I don’t want her punished with a baby” – maternity wards have put out the Vacancy sign, a disturbing development that portends a dark future.
According to the Pew Research Center, the U.S. birth rate is below replacement level and, at 63.2 births per 1000 women, trilling a distinctly European tune. Yes, the bleak, desolate world of European-style malaise – a world in which couples put off raising families, because they fear they won’t be able to provide for their children – has come to America. For perspective, the birth rate in 1957, at the height of the Baby Boom, was 123 per 1000, nearly double, and it wasn’t sound finance alone that bore babies. Children are expensive, so as the Circle of Liberty is proscribed, and the Federal Leviathan plays hangman, couples become cautious. The decrease in birth rate – down 8% since 2007 – has an economic component; but what’s different today compared to 1957 is also
religion. America is significantly less religious – and specifically less Christian – than it was 55 years ago. Stable Christian couples bear children – “fruit” not inspected by the FDA – and so it’s natural that birthrate and religious fervor follow the same line.
It’s natural to tie the growth of government – and the subsequent economic downturn precipitated by high debt, high taxes, over-regulation, and misallocation of capital – to the decrease in religion, as well.
John Quincy Adams: ”The highest glory of the American Revolution was this – that it connected, in one indissoluble bond, the principles of civil government with the principles of Christianity.”
John Adams: ”Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”
Noah Webster: “
The religion which has introduced civil liberty is the religion of Christ and His apostles. To this we owe our free constitutions of government.”
Notice a pattern? Hint: If you rewrite the quotes and replace the words “religion” “moral” or “Christianity” with “debauched,”Snoop Dog” or “free contraceptives” their meaning changes. Indeed, perhaps the greatest cause of American prosperity – up to now – has been its rootedness in the Judeo-Christian ethic which emphasizes individual responsibility, marital fidelity, and familial virtue.
Robert Winthrop, former Speaker of the House: “All societies of men must be governed in some way or other. The less they have of stringent state government, the more they must have of individual self government. The less they rely on public law, the more they must rely on private moral restraint… Men, in a word, must necessarily be controlled by a power within them or a power without them; either by the Word of God or by the strong arm of man; either by the Bible or the bayonet.”
William Cullen Bryant, American poet: “The very men who, in the pride of their investigations into the secrets of the internal world, turn a look of scorn upon the Christian system of belief, are not aware how much of the peace and order of society, how much of the happiness of households and the purity of those who are the dearest to them, are owing to the influence of that religion extending beyond their sphere.”
James McHenry, signer of the Constitution: “Neither, in considering this subject, let it be overlooked that public utility pleads most forcibly for the general distribution of the Holy Scriptures. The doctrine they preach, the obligations they impose, the punishment they threaten, the rewards they promise, the stamp and image of divinity they bear, which produces a conviction of their truths, can alone secure to society order and peace, and to our courts of justice and constitutions of government, purity, stability, and usefulness.”
Ah, I can hear it now: “Bigot!” … ”Zealot!” … ”Racist!” … “Caveman!” The left’s reaction – part and parcel to a purposeful strategy – is always to demonize self-reliance and its parentage. My favorite is the old saw: “Jesus was a liberal.” Yep, the Son of Man, were He alive, would tout: confiscatory tax-rates, withering propaganda, the coercion of charities, on demand abortion, massive debt, and taxpayer funded coitus.
“Classical liberal,” is that what they mean?
No, that definition, a casualty of progressivism, is archaic. The liberal worldview, from a math perspective, subscribes to 2 + 2 = 4, but only if no one’s feelings are upset. If feelings are upset – or, worse, challenged – and “5″ makes it better, then, 2 + 2 = 5!!
Don’t agree? You’re a “Racist!”
Canaries don’t see race, however, not underground. And not where historical truth seems to be. Today’s culture is a canary flying blindly, deep into darkness – down, down, down – the air growing thicker, the walls spewing gases, away from the opening, the light far away.
