Stand Up Like A Man

This post from the Men's News Daily forum lays out a point that has otherwise been ignored in all the shouting about race and poverty as the supposed root causes of the unfolding post-Katrina disaster in New Orleans: the breakdown of the family because of the absence of fathers to take leadership in times of crisis may have doomed a good many to die:

One theme of mine is that our social fabric is worn very thin
and possibly near the tearing point. One major reason is the
destruction of fathers and thus families and thus children.

New Orleans tends to show that the social fabric is not as
solid and untearable as many seem to think.

New Orleans also tends to make other points.

First, families headed by intact fathers tend to be more self
reliant than torn apart families who tend to be more reliant
on government services. Could it be that the disaster
would be less if there were more self reliant intact familes?
Who is more reliable as a family protector: an intact father
or the Department of this or that with the State, City or Feds?

Second, men who retain their role as fathers tend to be more
law abiding (many men never attain that role -- others lose
it through divorce). If men were looking after their intact
families, would there be less looting and lawlessness?

Third, if government was not so preoccupied with attacking
and tearing down fathers would they have paid more attention
to making sure the levies and other infrastructure was solid?
Isn't government spending most of its resources now on
things other than building and maintaining sold infrastructure?

Fourth, if massive wealth transfers were not legally mandated
by taxation, child support, etc. wouldn't these people have
more resources to take take of themselves instead of
relying on government, red cross, etc. How many of these
victims are women with no man to help them in this type
of crises because the man has been driven away or
driven into the ground by family law, child support issues. etc.
How many of these men with no resources are men financially
destoryed by family law, child support, etc. issues?

Fifth, if government was more masculine than it is (the Louisiana
governor is a woman, and it seems women are starting to dominate all
levels of government) would there be more focuse on maintaining
and building solid infrastructure rather than tearing down families
and men with policies promoting family breakdown and encouring
women to tear down their men and destroy their families?

I realize that not every important event is a father's issue.
Certainly, the hurricane wasn't created by feminism anti father
forces however I think father's issues are a bigger factor
in our world and how it functions than many will admit.
Our world / society was founded on the family and when
the family is destroyed our ability to function is at a minimum
diminished and arguably decimated. I just think that if New
Orleans was a City with 95% in tact families the crises would be
much less. This is no criticism of New Orleans. I doubt it
has a worse family law / father problem than most other cities.
It just happens to be the City that has been most recently tested.
Other cities would fail just as miserably if tested similarly.

We can debate gender roles at our middle-class leisure when we're secure from disaster, but in the face of natural disaster, human nature invariably asserts itself. Responsible family men take the lead in protecting their wives and children; responsible men without families of their own do what they can to help others.

The welfare state, for too many women and children, has become the substitute husband and father. It encourages young men and women alike to be sexually and financially irresponsible. Fathers can lay down the law, teach their sons to be men and look out for their daughters in a way that no single mother, no matter how responsible, can replicate exactly.

How many of the poor single mothers in New Orleans have no man to help support their children, and/or themselves were raised without knowing their fathers? How many of them turned to sexual promiscuity as young girls, which itself is often an expression of the need to seek the missing father's love?

How many of the young men who were rioting and looting in the streets of New Orleans grew up without fathers to teach them right from wrong and to provide a firm hand when needed? How many of them have fathered children out of wedlock with no intention of ever taking responsibility for them and their mothers?

How many of them are young black men and women who took to heart the toxic message of the gangsta rap culture, which glorifies the conquest and mistreatment of women as "hos" and "bitches" and praises the "mack daddy" for his "pimpin'?"

Liberal social engineering with the family has claimed untold thousands of victims. It stands to claim many more with such novelties as homosexual civil marriage, which eliminates all notions of family and responsibility from the marriage contract and reduces it to a financial partnership for two adults sharing sexual intimacies.

Responsible fathers look out for their families and teach their sons to look out for those less fortunate than themselves, and raise young men who grow up to do the same.

The state is no substitute for a father.