Santorum's new book 'It Takes a Family' throws down the gauntlet
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Sen. Rick Santorum holds a copy of his new book, "It Takes a Family" >>>>>

Throwing Down the Gauntlet: The Santorum Manifesto

"It Takes a Family - Conservatism and the Common Good" by United States Senator Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) (ISI Books, 464 pages)

You don't need to read much more than a page or two to understand why "It Takes a Family – Conservatism and the Common Good" has driven Hillary Clinton bonkers.

Aside from the not too-subtle play on the title of her book "It Takes a Village," Santorum's book is both a surgical dissection of the kind of elitist and authoritarian liberal political philosophy avidly embraced by Mrs. Clinton, and a prescription for restoring the health of our body politic that her philosophy has weakened.

He pulls no punches, starting with the declaration that liberal economic policies, allegedly advanced in the interests of the poor, "have not only been devastating to the poor and the middle class economically, but have actually undermined the basic structures of our society."

He wastes no time in getting to the reason why liberal policies have done this damage – they have undermined the family, always the basic foundation of any healthy society. Sick families create sick societies.

Observing that where once our social, governmental and educational institutions, along with the popular culture, seemed to aid parents in raising their children, today many feel that these same institutions are somehow conspiring against them.

Noting the deleterious affects of the public's growing reliance on "big government or cultural, social, moral and intellectual power brokers to solve our problems," Santorum alleges that "the more the public relies on the powerful elite, the worse it gets," which, perversely, leads the public to rely on these elites even more.

In Santorum's book, these elites constitute the "Bigs" - big news media, big entertainment, big universities and public schools, some big businesses and some big labor unions, and of course the biggest big of them all, the federal government.

In Hillary's village, the people who run the Bigs are "the village elders – the liberal elite who think they know what is best for individual Americans and how best to order (or re-order) our society along the lines of their ideological abstractions."

He describes the liberal definition of freedom as "the freedom to be and do whatever we want – freedom to chose, irrespective of choice, freedom without limits (with the caveat that you can't hurt anyone else directly)." It is "No Fault Freedom (all the choice, none of the responsibility)."

He contrasts this with the conservatives' idea of freedom. "It is the liberty our founders understood. Properly defined, liberty is freedom coupled with responsibility to something bigger or higher than self. It is the pursuit of our dreams with an eye toward the common good."

This leads him to the need to strengthen the family and protect it against inroads by the village elders. Children need to be nurtured in a family consisting of a happily married father and mother.

He pleads for economic policies that enable families to be economically viable, for social policies that define families in the traditional manner – a permanent union between a man and a woman - for government policies that defend families from intrusive laws undermining the authority of parents, and for a culture that promotes morals instead of undermining them.

This is a manifesto – a call to his fellow Americans as heirs of the legacy bequeathed to us by the founding fathers. He lays out step-by-step the actions required to restore this nation's social, economic, moral and political health – all of which can be achieved only by strengthening the family as society's basic unit. He calls for an investment in the varying kinds of "capital."

♠ Social capital – "all the habits and forms of trust, mutual responsibility, and solidarity and connectiveness that make it possible for us to get along together."

♠ Economic capital - "financially secure families standing on their own two feet are the basis of any good society."

♠ Moral capital - "the virtue, proper conduct and respect for human life that builds trustworthiness and binds us together in a common mission."

♠ Cultural capital - "all the stories, images, songs and arts that explain to us, and in particular our children, who we are."

♠ Intellectual capital – "our traditions of education and schooling. The most essential thing any society does is to help parents raise the next generation."

Senator Santorum insists, "We must be good stewards of each of these stores of ‘capital' so our children will inherit a strong, vibrant country."

He completes his manifesto by explaining how we can go about creating these forms of capital, never neglecting to show how liberalism has squandered all of them.

Anyone who wants to understand what needs to be done to restore the America our forefathers bequeathed to us should consult this marvelous book.

News Max.com ~ Phil Brennan ** Throwing Down the Gauntlet: The Santorum Manifesto