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Summary: Bennett popularizes the marriage movement
Review: "Each divorce is the death of a small civilization." William Bennett quotes the words of novelist Pat Conroy as he eloquently explains why marriage and family are critical to the healthy community in his recent book, The Broken Hearth. Bennett has always been timely in his writing. During the impeachment, Bennett quickly produced The Death of Outrage". After the invasion of Afghanistan, Bennett published Why We Fight to make the moral case for the war against terrorism. The Broken Hearth was the exception that proves the rule. Hearth was poised to serve as a forceful summation for the marriage movement which would bring the message to the large audience his books typically reach. Like so many other good things, however, Hearth was somewhat lost in the wake of September 11. Now that Congress is considering the re-authorization of welfare reform that emphasizes the importance of marriage lifestyles over serial cohabitation, it's a good time to revisit Bennett's superb work. In six quick chapters, Bennett brings the reader up to date on the need for marriage-based families better than virtually any who have tried. He surveys the current situation, the meaning of family in history, and suggests productive ways to repair a culture that does too little to keep families together. Perhaps more importantly, Bennett analyzes homosexual unions with the sensitivity and erudition the topic deserves. He makes his points firmly, but without rancor. Get the book and read it with pencil or highlighter. It's the kind of volume that rewards careful reading.
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Summary: The de-evolution of thought
Review: Bennett book is underpinned by fear and loathing. He blames parties not responsible for the so-called collapse of the family and of morality. Self-righteous myopic heterosexuals like himself need to take stock of their own role in what ever de-evolution they perceive. Stop scapegoating minorities!
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Summary: The family is the foundation of any society.
Review: Bennett has written an excellent book showing how the strength of a nation depends on the family and the decay that sets in when the value of family is not supported.If one considers any society which has fallen apart;look to the families there and you will see the problems first occurred in the home.The leftist, socialist agenda that "It takes a Village to raise a child"is diabolically wrong;it takes a Family to raise a child properly.The time for a village to raise a child is only after the family has been destroyed;a poor subsitute,but an agenda.If you don't believe in the importance of the family ,give this book a read,it will expose the Socialist rhetoric for what it is.
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Summary: A conservative outlines what's wrong with America
Review: Conservative stalwart and political lightning rod William Bennett believes America is rotting from within and the deterioration of family values is to blame. With a mountain of evidence to back him up (single-parent children are more likely to drop out of school, use drugs and suffer physical abuse at home), Bennett shows how co-habitation, divorce and fatherlessness are doing more than just harming the traditional view of "family"; they are working to undermine our country's productivity, safety and way of life.
Clearly, the reaction to this book will rely heavily on the reader's own values. Those who believe in the model of the nuclear family will agree with most of Bennett's points, as his logic and evidence are solid. But acceptance of Bennett's arguments will require a reader to believe the nuclear family and civilization go hand-in-hand, and many in our country do not share that opinion. To some, the nuclear family works as an institution of oppression against women, children and individuality, and to those people, Bennett's entire premise will appear faulty.
Bennett's strongest arguments come in his evidence of how fatherlessness harms children tremendously and how the current politically correct culture works to suppress that fact. To back up his claim, Bennett uses the opinions of two men who would be on the 20th Century Liberal Mt. Rushmore, Martin Luther King and Daniel Patrick Monahan. Through their words, Bennett is able to create a strong argument that this issue is not just one for conservatives. Dr. King himself said one of the greatest ills in the black community was the increasing presence of single-parent homes. Bennett says today's numbers would shock King, as fatherlessness has increased three-fold throughout much of the country. If Dr. King were concerned about that issue in the 1960s, what would he think of it today?
While his evidence on divorce, co-habitation, and fatherlessness seem to work well in his argument, Bennett becomes sidetracked on the issue of homosexuality and seems to have an almost obsessive fixation on the subject. He never makes a clear case as to why this issue as important as the others (he tires, but it is a reach), and would have been wise to stay avoid the subject.
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Summary: Some important truths about us
Review: I am sure Mr. Bennett is used to ad hominem attacks, as in Mr. Zimmerle's review of this book. While I don't agree with everything Mr. Bennett has to say, he's pretty much on the mark here. Mr. Bennett starts with a review of the current state of our culture, which could be summed up as "do your own thing". He then provides a brief historical background on the way marriage and family evolved. Some of his better points come in a chapter entitled "Cohabitation, Illigitimacy, Fatherlessness". The biggest problem facing the black community in this country is not racism; it fatherlessness. Eighty percent of black children are born out of wedlock. This is profound. As for cohabitation, if you read between the lines the message is pretty clear: women have been duped. There is much less respect for women now than 30 years ago. Further, despite its "common-sense" appeal, cohabitation is much more unfavorable to women than marriage. Bennett addresses the push by homosexuals to be able to "marry". The one point I am in total agreement with him here is that homosexuals want more than "equal rights"; they want societal "approval" of their lifestyle. If history is any teacher at all, we know this is something we dare not allow. Up until 1950 or so, the strength of this country came from our social fabric; those that deviated from established norms received public censure. This is no longer the case. In this respect, America is most certainly in deline. Can it recover in time, or at all? Mr. Bennett's proposed solutions will not be very successful unless we can "unprogram" an entire generation. Through movies and television, young people have been programmed to think of their own gratification first and foremost. Until that is changed, any significant progress towards restoring the importance of marriage and commitment will be greatly impeded.
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Summary: To Austin Kaiser
Review: If you don't like the book then you should be able to explain why without resorting to a personal attack; the lowest form of debate. Specifically which ideas, remedies, arguments or statistics did you find so objectionable? My suspicion is that you found Bennett's arguments convincing, you were unable to form a well reasoned, rational rebuttal, so you resorted to ad hominem tactics. As Bennett said "facts are stubborn things."
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Summary: The declining family
Review: In 1960, one in twenty births was out of wedlock. Now, the ratio is one in three. Celebrities such as Madonna and Jodie Foster have been upfront in getting pregnant but not getting married (thank God Madonna finally married her second child's father). Although the divorce rate peaked in 1980 (how much higher could it have gone?), it has not significantly decreased since then. Regardless of the fact that gays have legitimate rights to privacy, many groups advocate sanctification of the gay relationship in marriage. Bill Bennett takes these issues on and, predictably enough, he decries the current situation. He notes that there has been some progress in solving our social ills such as a reduction in the welfare roles and a reduction in crime but, generally, the situation remains grim. I would have liked a better explanation of how the crime rate and welfare roles have decreased when there are so many out of wedlock births ... that seems to be inconsistent. However, I nontheless agree with his premise. A society which encourages strong families is more stable and has less social problems. Certainly, some of Bennett's solutions are controversial, such as making divorce laws tougher. However, I agree that often while a spouse argues that it will be better for the kids if the marriage ends than if the kids live in a house with a rocky marriage, the opposite is in fact true. Unless there is abuse or some other catastrophic problem, how many children would vote to have Mom and Dad divorce if they had the choice? How many children, as opposed to their parents, are actually happier after a divorce? I would suggest very few are. I am very conservative and the instability of the family is of deep concern to me. This book crystalizes my views and will be helpful in my formulating arguments for the preservation of the traditional family. Therefore, since Bennett echoes and elucidates my concerns, I like and recommend this book.
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Summary: THIS BOOK IS A MORAL COLLAPSE!!
Review: Mr Bennet says nothing every other right wing looney has been sceeching for a decade! The Gays will destroy us! Divorce will ruin us! The Liberals are taking this country to H-E-DOUBLE HOCKEY STICKS!! The Founding Fathers Mr Bennet is so fond of were Radicals, aka Liberals, not Reactionaries, aka Conservatives. Jefferson, Washington, Madison and Paine were the people who started this country,they believed in the rights of the accused, seperation of powers, division of church and state. The conservatives went back to England!! Please Mr Bennet, go back to England: The England of 1777, where your prejudices and narrow mindedness can find a happier home than here in this awful, liberal, radical, wonderful country!!!!
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Summary: Courageously pro-tradition
Review: Mr. Bennett covers marriage and children with a lot of commonsense and backs up his ideas with statistics. He does put a lot of Christian teaching into the book which is interesting, but I don't think it should be a necessary part of dispensing common sense. While the lengthy chapter on gay marriage was well thought out, I found it weakened the overall thrust of the book (that we should recommit to marriage and family) because I really don't think most people care whether gays marry, and can't see much direct impact on our own families as a result. To devote such a large portion of the book to it was wasteful of the reader's attention to more urgent issues such as the delinquency of our children and their schoolmates, and the fact that divorce makes us unhappier, poorer and lonelier still. Mr. Bennett's overall thrust is ahead of its time in courageously goring the sacred cow of "our right to self-satisfaction". I subtracted one star because the writing style is aimed at the PhD's among us (lots of triple-credit-words)...Mr. Bennett's future editor please take note....and along with the aloof vocabulary, the unnecessary new-testament-thumping, and lost-in-the-weeds march through New Hampshire's gay marriage law. The book could have reached a far bigger audience were it not for this, and I fear it will be lost in the Church reading room instead of put on the high school reading list.
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Summary: Simple and to the point
Review: Personally, I didn't take a stand on any factors of the breakdown of the family. I lived my life from my heart, for my children and my marriage, knowing it was the right thing for me. After reading this book I can see the purpose and strength of family and the union of male/female marriage....in writing. I am requiring my older children to read this book for a broader perspective.
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