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Not only that but weakening any competition. Churches and the family are competition for the loyalty and power of the state. A state full of strong families doesn’t need to provide nearly as many social services. Because the wife raises the kids, they grow up healthy and well adjusted, achieve more, and are less likely to engage in self-destructive or criminal behavior. But this leaves a lot less need for government intervention in social structures. A society of weak families needs government services: subsidized daycare, welfare, addiction counseling, abortion, etc. and to boot is less able to teach its children itself which means less competition for the tender minds of the youth. The same is true at larger scale of churches and communities. Yet, to listen to modern culture, none of that is true. The modern culture, through every organ teaches that parents are at best clueless, and at worst bigoted. Women must be protected from their husbands, schools must act bravely to protect kids who want to change their gender, etc. now abuse can and does happen, but it’s much much rarer than it’s held out to be by official organs. And again the same applies to churches and communities: the abuse and rabid fundamentalism the public is told to fear are rarer than advertised.
But all of those are competition. So the public must be taught to be selfish (to break community bonds), to fear religion (which provides help and might contradict the government on some issue), and to prioritize everything else over the family (and thus remove competition for values and services).
Congratulations: this is a point that makes considerable sense in retrospect that I hadn't seen before. Thank you!
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For an extremely literal example, see kulturkampf- although the German state lost that time, this has been an enduring tendency of German centralization of power.
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