The birth of American conservatism, ‘born this way,’ etc…

From the editor’s desk:

On pages 14 and 15 of this issue we have book reviews of three giants of mid-20th century conservatism: William F. Buckley, Frank S. Meyer, and James Burnham. All three were at the founding of National Review, a magazine that has shaped U.S. conservatism since its founding 80 Novembers ago in 1955. NR has certainly shaped my own political thought since I began buying it on newsstands whilst in high school, which led to a subscription for my birthday that continues today, some 35-plus years later. (Thanks mom and dad.) For most of my life and the life of modern conservatism, the movement has rested on three pillars: economic freedom, social conservatism, and a hawkish foreign policy first in opposition to Soviet communism and later against Islamic fundamentalism. Meyer described much of this as “fusionism” and many conservatives have taken for granted that conservatism is each of those three things. That was true until recently, with populist conservatives kicking out two of the three stools on which conservatism stood: economic freedom (free trade, low taxes, minimal interference in the economy) and a forceful foreign policy against threats from abroad. Whatever one makes of this new conservatism, it is important to know the history of the movement and how we got to where we are today. Of course, as we editorialized last year, being pro-life need not align solely with the conservative worldview; it can be, in our view, sympatico with socialism and modern liberalism even if pro-life policy is not given much time within such circles today. But the fact remains most pro-lifers subscribe to some form of conservatism, which is why I hope you will find the reviews of these three conservative thinkers and doers illuminating. At the very least, it is my hope to illustrate that social change is only possible when right thought is put into right action.

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Nathaniel Blake, a fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center and author of Victims of the Revolution: How Sexual Liberation Hurts Us All, writing in The Federalist, supports boycotts against companies that push the LGBT agenda, but says the absence of “a right understanding of human nature and human sexuality” that is necessary to combat the normalization of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender lifestyles is making the fight more difficult. He concludes his brief essay: “Less Netflix is good, more church would be even better.”

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Nathaniel Blake’s essay in The Federalist is titled “The Rainbow People are Not Going to Leave Your Kids Alone.” LGBT content on Netflix (and Disney and Amazon Prime and …) is “carefully curated” to push a message, an agenda if you will. Blake says that defenses of LGBT content in children’s programming that it is merely reflecting reality or representing misunderstood minorities are “laughable”; if either of those arguments were true, there would be more depictions of happy church-going folks and Latin Mass-attending large families, respectively. No, Netflix and other entertainment outlets, Blake argues, are “deliberately grooming kids with LGBT messages.” Recent polling in Canada and the United States suggests a slight dip in support for the LGBQT+ agenda, with conservatives less supportive of same-sex “marriage” than five years ago, and most demographics looking more askance at the transgender ideology. Blake says there are two issues that forced reconsideration: “the first is that kids were not part of the deal; the second is the sudden predominance of the T portion of LGBT.” These two issues overlap and were always under the surface of LGBT activism even if most of the public never noticed, ignoring the warnings of conservative critics. The LGBT activists pivoting from same-sex “marriage” to the more exotic issue of transgender identity and the foisting of that ideology upon impressionable young kids was “always implicit.” The “T” after all, “has been part of the movement for years,” and that movement that promoted the “born this way” narrative was logically applicable to children: if people are born “gay” or “trans” of course it would affect kids, because they are, according to these activists, gay, trans or whatever letter they (choose to) identify with. “Born this way,” says Blake, was “just a useful lie.” Children are shaped by their environment, and part of that environment is the entertainment they consume. LGBT activists and their willing accomplices in the media know that sexual morality and sexuality can be shaped by what children view. LGBT depictions in children’s entertainment is therefore always a form of grooming.

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In August, three researchers (Danica Dillon, Helen Devine, and Kurt Gray) published a study titled “Pet owners often see dogs as soulmates and value them more than human lives.” Good grief. The study’s abstract provides insights into the problems of growing social isolation and declining fertility rates. The authors state bluntly, “Dogs have ascended to core family members in American households” and using three studies they conducted, “show that modern dogs now occupy roles historically reserved for close human relationships and often receive greater moral concern than people. Approximately three out of four dog owners view their dogs as primary sources of emotional support and companionship, and this ‘soulmate’ bond is associated with a tendency to prefer and prioritize dogs over people.” They found this especially true for childless dog owners, which is not all that surprising. Recall Pope Francis criticizing people for having pets instead of children and using animals to fill needs historically reserved for one’s progeny. Dillon, Devine, and Gray give credence to the criticism of pets-as-substitute-children, stating, “national and country-level analyses further reveal that declining birth rates are strongly associated with increased pet-related spending.” The authors reckon “dogs may fulfill caregiving roles once reserved for children and close kin.” Furthermore, the authors presented a survey of hypothetical dilemmas to dog owners in which they would have to choose between the welfare of a dog and that of a person. The results are frightening. “Owners who viewed their dogs as soulmates were more likely to feed, fund, and save the life of a dog over a person. More than half of dog owners chose to save their dog over a human stranger, one in five chose to save an unfamiliar puppy over a person, and one in four chose to give money to a puppy in need over a child in need.” The authors say, “The moral elevation of dogs may reflect—and potentially contribute to—declines in human social connection.” The research exposing this psychologically and socially unhealthy view of man’s best friend is also a new data point in the decline of human exceptionalism, that mankind, created in Image of God, is not special nor unique among the creatures of the Earth. We forget this fact at our collective peril.

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Writing in the Denver Post, Patient Rights Action Fund and Institute for Patients’ Rights executive director Matt Valliere tells the story of his friend, Jane Allen, who battled anorexia, an eating disorder. In 2018, she was diagnosed with “terminal anorexia.” The controversial diagnosis means doctors say there is nothing that can be done to treat the anorexia so she was offered euthanasia and prescribed a lethal cocktail of drugs. Allen wrote to Valliere that she felt pressured to accept an assisted – read: expedited – death. “It didn’t feel like my choice – I felt coerced and spent an incredibly agonizing months in an assisted living facility.” Her father won guardianship, and took away the lethal drugs and destroyed them. She regained some of her health and was on a positive path with better eating habits and healthy relationships until she eventually succumbed to complications from her years of anorexia. Valliere wondered if those complications could have been avoided if his friend had not been diagnosed with supposedly “terminal anorexia,” after which Allen’s medical team gave up on her and sent Allen down a path that almost included assisted suicide. If Jane Allen’s anorexia was not (mis)labeled “terminal,” might she have received treatment that could have staved off the complications? We do not – cannot – know. What is certain is that eating disorders can be a death sentence in Colorado. Live Action reports that in the state last year, 510 patients were approved for assisted suicide based solely on dietary disorders.

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The high cost of housing is being rightly blamed as one of the reasons that young people are eschewing forming families – not getting married and/or having children. Lyman Stone, director of the Pronatalism Initiative at the Institute for Family Studies, wrote in City Journal, “open floor plans (in housing) are killing the American family.” Based on survey conducted by the IFS, “single-family houses with three or more bedrooms are, without any competition, the preferred arrangement for American family formation.” Most new housing construction in the U.S. is for apartment buildings, but “apartments are not where Americans want to raise kids,” and “even worse, apartments are getting smaller” with fewer bedrooms – “more than half of the units are one bedroom or less.” New home building emphasizes living space over bedrooms. The IFS survey found that when it came to houses, respondents prioritized bedrooms over square footage, and desired same square footage housing units with more bedrooms than fewer. Rental data suggests the same is true for apartments. Stone called for rescinding housing regulations that disincentivizes building apartments and houses with more bedrooms. As is, renters and buyers who want more bedrooms in anticipation of larger families have to buy larger, more expensive homes and move further away from their jobs to afford houses fit for families, neither of which are necessarily possible or all that appealing.

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Related to the high cost of housing, is the fact that a growing number of adults under 35 are living with their parents. The Conversation reports that in the U.S., about 1.5 million more adults under 35 live with their parents than did 10 years ago, an increase of 6.3 per cent, twice the growth rate of that particular population cohort. Earlier this year, the Pew Research Center reported that in 2023, 18 per cent of adults 25 to 34 were living in a parent’s home, with men (20 per cent) more likely to be doing so than women (15 per cent). Statistics Canada uses a slightly different population parameter; in 2021, 35.1 per cent of young adults ages 20-34 in Canada lived with their parents, a figure that has been increasing over time. It does not take much imagination to realize it is hard to find a romantic partner when an adult’s roommates are  his parents. Survey data of young women find that most are uninterested in dating men who live with their parents, even if the current housing and rental markets make such arrangements not only likely, but logical. Still, junior living with mom and dad well after graduating from university is yet another impediment to family formation and healthy fertility rates.

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The Wall Street Journal has a regular feature showcasing high-end properties for sale and last month there was an article about Alex Da Kid’s Los Angeles mansion “with a pleasure suite” that is on the market for $85 million. I was curious what a pleasure suite was and instantly regretted clicking on the story about the 24,000-square-foot home which has multiple swimming pools and an elevator for his luxury cars. The pleasure suite is a room with a bed, fully mirrored wall, chairs with restraints and chains, and a collection of what is euphemistically referred to as sex toys. Da Kid, a 44-year-old British music producer who is not married, told the Journal of his pleasure suite – which is more like a bondage dungeon with a great view of the ocean – “When people find out about it, they are pretty excited.” I did not expect the real estate section of a financial paper to be normalizing sadomasochism, but here we are.

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In our September edition we reported that some politicians are more equal than others, with lawfare and censorship limiting the rights of certain politicians and political parties, both in Canada and abroad. Often this limits the choices available to voters, while at other times, after anti-establishment politicians are elected, they are stripped of their right to speak or vote stripping voters of effective representation. We reported that one such victim of politicians silencing their political opponents was Germany’s Alternative for Germany (AfD), and the German Bundestag is at it again. The rest of the parties on both the left and the right voted to lift parliamentary immunity from two AfD Members of Parliament, Stephan Brandner and Matthias Moosdort. Brandner called a journalist a fascist and Moosdorf is alleged to have made a Nazi salute in the Reichstag two years ago. It is hard to see how Brandner’s comment rises to the level of criminality while Moosorf says the accusation is a witch-hunt designed to silence the AfD. Lifting parliamentary privilege means that both are likely to face politically motivated criminal investigations. One way or another, Germany’s political establishment is determined to silence the populist party.

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Josie Zayner writes against the idea of immortality at Free Think: “I’m not a believer in the modern longevity movement. While there are serious scientists studying how to extend healthspan or delay aging, much of it seems more like a religion than a scientific initiative … But immortality is a dangerous fantasy. It sounds like salvation, but it’s just another form of control. A refusal to let go. A denial of the very conditions that make life work … Immortality isn’t progress. It’s paralysis. Without death, things would never evolve, never adapt, never give rise to the beauty we experience.”

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The Catholic Near East Welfare Association (CNEWA) is a papal agency founded by Pope Pius XI in 1926 to support Christian churches in the Middle East, northeastern Africa, India, and Eastern Europe. This year, the Canadian chapter of CNEWA is celebrating 20 years of humanitarian aid to churches in those areas. CNEWA is active in several current international hotspots: Gaza, Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, and Ukraine. Speaking of the Nov. 7 gala fundraising CNEWA Canada is holding in the nation’s capital, Marcel Damphousse, Archbishop of Ottawa-Cornwall and the organization’s board chair, said the event “will allow us to recognize the critical work of CNEWA and its Canadian donors, but also celebrate the hope that we hold for peace in the Middle East – hope rooted in our faith and in the daily work of our partners throughout the region.” The organization deserves our prayerful and financial support because Christians in these parts of the world need our support. As we report elsewhere in this edition, Christian persecution is especially acute in northern Africa, the Middle East, and India.

~ Paul Tuns

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