Subsidization

"You get more of what you subsidize and less of what you penalize. Over time, what you subsidize and what you penalize reveal what you are actually after." - Douglas Wilson, Father Hunger

The things we detest with our tongues we should detest with our actions. The principles we profess with our tongues we should profess with our actions. Over time, what we truly believe in will be revealed by our actions, and not proven by way of our tongues.

What does modern culture subsidize and penalize by way of the family, and what does that say about modernity's view of fathers?

Though many say they value commitment, they subsidize flight. Roe v. Wade established that whether he be a committed father and husband with every intention of raising a child, or he be a wanderer who happened to stop in for a night with no intention of pursuing responsibility, he has equally no legal say in the life or death of his child. Furthermore, the state offers to take care of the mother only if she does not marry the father and then wonders why illegitimacy (and its associated social recourse) is so prevalent. You get more of what you subsidize.

Have you ever heard a woman complain about finding a man willing to commit? Could it be in fact that our culture of leisure, sexual indulgence, and flight by way of social acceptance subsidizes an abhorrence to commitment?

We should find ourselves in direct conflict with anyone seeking to profiteer off of male irresponsibility - and with a quick glance, we can see that the vulgarians abound.

Christen men should be utterly opposed to this, but it is not just a problem with culture, modernity, or the state.

"But in most normal cases of family joys and sorrows, the State has made no mode of entry. It is not so much that the law should not interfere, as that the law cannot. Just as there are fields too far off for law, so there are fields too near; as a man may see the North Pole before he sees his own backbone." - G.K. Chesterton. 

Men should not be opposed to irresponsibility solely because they are reacting to others who support it. We are not defined by what we are against but by what we are for. If we are always reacting then we always respond to an Enemy who is taking the initiative on us. The most decisive form of warfare is the offense because it is defined by our own initiative, not a reaction to our opponents. It is the only way we impose our will. Therefore obedience to Christ is not described as doing the opposite of what the antitheist does.

"Liberty is to be defined by God and not by what irritates me." - Douglas Wilson, Father Hunger

"But he who looks into the perfect law of liberty and continues in it, and is not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the work, this one will be blessed in what he does." - James 1:25

"Now the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty." - 2 Cor. 3:17