It’s difficult to fathom ivory-tower academic Professor Wilmot James’s objections to the Democratic Alliance’s value charter with its emphasis on values in context of the family.
In his article in the Sunday Times titled, “Family values often the antithesis of liberalism” James accuses the DA of lurching to the ‘socially conservative right’ with its charter declaration.
He disingenuously states that ‘that the unit that is protected by the bill of rights is the individual’,deliberately ignoring the fact that the family is comprised of such individuals, thus rendering his statement duplicitous and divisive.
He then hones in on the lack of rights for women in ‘some rural and traditional communities’- otherwise known as customary law, proposing the solution is to ‘drive women’s rights as a weapon into the heart of oppressive family arrangements’- the irony of invoking group rights as opposed to individual ones when it suits his purposes completely lost on him.
His objection is against the DA’s charter statement summarised as follows;
Strong people and strong social structures such as families in all their different manifestations ……,
flourish in strong communities.
His replacement statement that was rejected by the DA congress was to have read;
Individuals and resilient social structures flourish in co-operative communities.
He claims in typically progressive liberalist fashion that that the DA’s charter statement underwrites all family structures, oppressive ones included, in other words by zoning-in on misplaced examples of customary law and equating it with family values, thereby attempting to invalidate the greater good and substance of such values in its entirety. The aim is ultimately confusion of the issue, and muddled thinking - the hallmark of a progressive.
His aversion to the word ‘strong’ is another example of inane nit picking- he apparently prefers the word ‘resilient’ – whatever floats his boat supposedly, but the real clincher is his associating of the word strong with the phrase ‘survival of the fittest’ - quite a leap in language comprehension skills and logic nonetheless.
But wait, there’s more disagreement on his part.
He calls two-further statements contained in the charter as ‘utterly false’, despite evidence to the contrary.
They are as follows; 1)Family helps build successful individuals and provide them with the tools ……
2) A successful nation must have strong family structures …….because no
Government can replace the role of the family.
……… because no government can replace the role of the family.
The above statement alone must have had this social engineer- in the form of Wilmot James- in paroxysms of rage.
James seems to have no problem with the word family per se, as can be gauged by his comments, but in his own words, objects to the term nuclear family.
Just because this ideal might not exist for many does not detract from its value and benefits to society in general as James seems to suggest it does. Surely an ideal is something to be strived for?
In a country plagued by poverty and gangsterism, experience and studies attest to the fact that a strong traditional family unit serves as a bulwark against the ravages of a under privileged environment and the influence of criminals which so often result in school drop-outs and drug addicts, with this cycle perpetuating through to successive generations.
In light of these facts it’s ironic that Wilmot James aims his guns at the nuclear family, the proven antidote to our social problems. It should also be noted that Mr James is a DA MP representing the constituency of Athlone, in Cape Town, an area embodying in part many of the social ills described above.
James readily admits that historically, the rise of individual rights has meant the erosion of the traditional family.
He states further that political parties and the state in a democratic society should have everything to say about freedom. So it’s not the state that should reflect the mores of society but rather the state that dictates what the rights and values of a society should be. Sounds like a dictatorship more than a democracy. Isn’t a democracy meant to be direct representation of the electorate anyway, not the other way around? The erosion of traditional institutions doesn’t mean their functions are obsolete but rather they have been co-opted and revised by the state. The concept of the state as father, husband, or nanny, is not new at all, making the state the new family and/or authority.
All this results in is increased executive and legislative powers – controlled by the top down- therefore bigger and more intrusive government- the bane of Libertarians everywhere.
Which becomes the very antithesis of traditional liberalism in fact, another conundrum that is lost on progressives of the like of Wilmot James?
If it has been lost though, it’s probably intentionally so!
http://anncar.com