Children and Enemies

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Children and Enemies at the Gate

By Reed Benson

The decadence of our society is revealed by the notion that children are nothing more than a burden. Such shortsighted thinking will effectively undercut a healthy future for our nation, for society is more dependent on its children than what most might think. America is presently locked in a cultural war, and of late, the English-speaking Caucasian American has been losing. We must look to our youth, for it is they who actually stimulate the defense of our culture, people, and nation. How is this so?

To answer this question, let us begin with the classic passage regarding children, Psalm 127:3-5: "Lo, children are an heritage of the Lord: and the fruit of the womb is his reward. As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man; so are children of the youth. Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them: they shall not be ashamed, but they shall speak with the enemies in the gate." There is much more imbedded in these verses than what the modern mind immediately grasps. A quick examination of several key words provides a springboard for further observations. The word heritage is significant. Heritage has implications of continuity with the past, while children, of course, connect us to the future. The idea that children actually bridge the past with the future is key to sustaining a culture through extended periods of time. Why is the imagery of arrows used? Arrows are an offensive weapon attacking the enemy from afar, while a sword, of example, is defensive, a lastditch means of fighting back. Children are, in fact, an offensive weapon in cultural warfare. Their very existence is a threat to the enemies of our people and our God. That is why Satan hates children and has developed so many clever ploys to prevent their birth or steal their hearts while they are young. The word ashamed in Elizabethan English means delayed or confounded, while speak has a stronger message, meaning arrange, subdue, or destroy. Thus, children are one of the primary means by which the enemies of any people are going to be met and defeated.

There are a number of specific ways that children, or youth, will subdue, stop, or hold back the enemy. Briefly, let us look at each of them.

First, there is the obvious. It is the youth of any nation that fills the ranks of military forces to defend its territorial integrity. If a nation stops reproducing, it soon must seek elsewhere to fill its military ranks. In the case of the Romans when their birthrate dropped, they recruited Germans from beyond their borders to fill the gaps. Of course, the Germanic peoples were among the perennial enemies of Rome, and the Romans were quite naïve to think they could buy the loyalty of these young northerners. This policy eventually proved to be disastrous for Rome. The United States has begun to show signs of this tendency, with Hispanics becoming dominant in many sectors of our military. If it continues, the future of the United States will be very different than what many might expect.

Second, children literally fill up the available land, giving few opportunities for immigrants or invaders to gain a toehold. Scripture gives clear indication that this is the case. In Jeremiah 29:6, this advice regarding the arithmetic of children is offered: "Take ye wives and beget sons and daughters; and take wives for your sons, and give your daughters to husbands, that they may bear sons and daughters; that ye may be increased there and not diminished." The emphasis here is numbers! Yes, numbers! God wishes for us to be increased in our quantity! Now certainly, it is true that God can save by many or by few. God does not need a majority to act decisively. God can and has brought forth mighty works with just a handful of faithful servants. While all of this is true, it does not negate the fact that God’s counsel throughout scripture is to consider children a blessing, to multiply and increase for the security and strength of the nation. Another passage that strikes this same tenor is found in Isaiah 54:1-3: "Sing, O barren, thou that didst not bear; break forth into singing, and cry aloud, thou that didst not travail with child . . . Enlarge the place of thy tent, and let them stretch forth the curtains of thy habitation: spare not, lengthen thy cords, and strengthen thy stakes; For thou shalt break forth on the right hand and on the left; and thy seed shall inherit the Gentiles, and make the desolate cities to be inhabited." This imagery was given to a people with a nomadic cultural history regarding the adjustments necessary to accommodate many children. For us, we might say, add on a spare bedroom, buy a larger dinner table, and look for that day when your name will be listed repeatedly in the telephone book!

The witness of history demonstrates clearly that numbers matter. It was not until the quantities of Israelites became profuse in Egypt that Pharaoh correctly perceived them as a potential threat to the existing social order (Exodus 1:8-10). The slow but steady conquest of North America from the American Indians over the course of 300 years is a classic example of numeric strength winning the day. It was not the technology of the White man that took a continent from the Red man, for the savage warrior culture of the natives quickly adopted muskets and rifles. A survey of the Indian Wars will reveal that far more Whites died at the hands of Indians than the reverse. The West was won through simple arithmetic. When one White man fell, five took his place. For every settler family slaughtered or frightened away, a dozen others were ready to brave the rigors the frontier in hope a better life. The American frontier was won by overwhelming the enemy.

A third way that children stop, subdue, and hold back potential enemies is through the economic benefit they represent. Benefit, you say? Absolutely! Despite what our culture tries to tell us now—the exorbitant expense in birthing, feeding, clothing, educating, and housing of children—children are most certainly a net financial gain for the nation. Two key points can be made in this respect. Foremost, our current social security system is utterly dependent on having an ever-increasing pool of young workers coming on to pay the retirement benefits of those exiting the work force. Since it requires at least several workers to pay for the benefits of each retiree, the number of workers must always rise. When the system began sixty years ago, the ratio of retirees to workers was 1 to 30, thus payroll taxes were very modest. This ratio has steadily dropped to its present status of 1 to 3. Within the next twenty years it will be reduced to 1 to 2. Payroll taxes have increased dramatically over the years, but the breaking point is not far away unless a new surge of young workers enters the system. From where will they come? Many politicians are calling for a titanic increase in immigration of young foreign workers to fill the gap created by the absence of youthful Americans.

Another way we feel the economic loss of children is revealed in times of recession. By their very existence, children create demand in an economy. While young, they are the ultimate consumers. Food, clothing, housing, medical, dental, education, toys, larger vehicles, larger homes, appliances, and on and on it goes! Children create an economic demand for products. The demand for products creates a need for workers. Jobs and business opportunities thus abound. Children, in point of fact, bring economic pressure on families in the short-run, but bring economic prosperity to the nation in the long run. Thus, one can begin to see the economic disaster that abortion has been causing. Even setting aside moral concerns, the absence of forty million youth in thirty years has left the work force depleted, the economy without real demand, and great gaps in the landscape which young immigrants are only too eager to fill.

A fourth way children hold back the assaults of enemies is by reinforcing the culture. Cultural warfare is always in progress. In recent years the culture of English speaking Caucasian Americans has been under particularly fierce attack, and we have lost considerable ground. As a nation, our cultural heritage has not been receiving the injections of energy and intellect that it needs to prosper.

The mere presence of children forces the parental generation to pass on their culture, the only culture they really know. Language, religion, history, scientific accomplishments, music, art, hobbies, and a score of other mores and folkways are passed on beginning the moment children arrive. Like little sponges, children absorb everything around them. Time passes and the children absorb the culture of their parents, teachers, and peers. This is not bad—in fact, it is very good. The energy required to teach, train, and rear a new generation reinforces the knowledge and values in all who participate in this process. It reminds parents why they believe, think, and act the way they do. It stimulates them to good behavior so that a good example is presented, it forces them to be responsible rather then shiftless in a hundred small ways. Thus, the presence of children reinforces and strengthens the culture.

This leads us to the final way that children hold back the enemy at the gates. Children force parents to become mature and responsible. Nothing can challenge a person more than the process of birthing and raising a batch of children. How frequently has a silly slip of a girl developed into an unselfish woman in the nine months of carrying and delivering a child? How often has a nonchalant, slightly reckless, young fellow assumed diligence and virtue no one thought possible as he witnesses his own offspring first wriggle, then crawl, and then walk? The postponement of children often also postpones maturity. Thus, in our time of history, one can find many thirty and forty year "youths", whose sole purpose in life is to please themselves. Constantly searching for the next thrill, the next grand experience, the next high, they drift about aimlessly, whiling away the years in frivolous pursuits. They have simply never quite grown up! Children force adults to act like adults and take on adult responsibility. Such adult responsibility will in involve defending our culture, our people, and our nation. As better people—tougher, wiser—they are better equipped to provide the leadership needed in cultural warfare.

In the larger scheme of things, failing to bring forth children in abundance is suicidal, at least in the collective sense. While a rare individual may not be called to birth and rear children, when large numbers embrace such a philosophy, that people is truly and unquestionably courting catastrophe.

The outcome of the cultural war we are fighting may be dependent upon our view of children. Will we rise to the challenge and embrace them as our future while we fight for our past? Or will we continue to reject both on the altar of a devil-may-care present?