Why we need (hereditary) Monarchy and (all-male) Hierarchy

The following comment by Mrs. Judith Bond at Mr. Muehlenburg’s blog (in the context of the media reaction to recent remarks by The Hon. Tony Abbott M.P. on pre-marital sexual activity, and Mr. Muehlenberg’s whole post on the topic is worth reading) resonated with me:

Judith Bond
28.1.10 / 6am
Our country needs a father figure who freely gives sound, solid moral advice.

Another word for virginity is abstinence.

Judith Bond
[my emphasis,
http://www.billmuehlenberg.com/2010/01/27/tony-abbott-and-the-usual-frenzied-reaction-to-common-sense/#comments]

The part which I put in bold is the part which interests me here. Every country needs such a father-(or, when a woman reigns, mother-)figure, and that’s one reason why an hereditary monarchy is a desirable form of civic rulership. Perhaps paradoxically, no elected ruler, even if his powers are those of a king, can be this kind of father-figure, because the father-figure needs to be, like a biological father, someone with whom one is ‘stuck’, whom the populace cannot simply dismiss from office when it pleases it. And it is fitting that such a temporal father-figure have, and be united officially with, a spiritual counterpart, and one with spiritual jurisdiction at the same level as the temporal jurisdiction of the civil sovereign—that is, at the level of the whole populace. And better yet, another spiritual father at the level of the whole human race too, so that, with a Universal Primate above him, the national primate will not find himself without the moral support of a superior when Church-State frictions arise. Our country needs, and our world needs, a father-figure who freely gives sound, solid moral advice. And if Mrs. Bond, Mr. Muehlenberg and their co-religionists would abjure themselves of their heresies then they would find such a father-figure in the Roman Pontiff.

(Oh, and one of my favourite comments so far on Mr. Abbott’s remarks is this one, in today’s edition of The Australian:

Will the Rudd government set up a ministry of promiscuity to counter Tony Abbott’s pernicious message on virginity ?

F. W. Anning, Ascot, Qld
[bold type in the original,
http://blogs.theaustralian.news.com.au/letters/index.php/theaustralian/comments/last_post_january_29])

Reginaldvs Cantvar
Feast of St. Francis de Sales, Bishop, Confessor, Doctor of the Church, A.D. 2010

Facts and figures: How long till we are a nation of bastards?

Mrs. Angela Shanahan quoted an interesting figure in last Saturday’s edition of The Weekend Australian:

The anti-populationists' ideological armour of righteous environmentalism leaves them blind to the fact that we need a sustainable rate of growth because without at least stasis in natural increase, we will have an unnaturally ageing population, like Japan's. Without a natural increase of at least 2.1 children per woman -- ours is only 1.9 -- we cannot achieve the age balance that will give us enough children to fuel the future economy and care for the aged. If we can't get sustainable natural growth, we must have immigration.
[my emphasis,
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/opinion/demographic-reality-tells-us-its-never-too-late-to-populate/story-e6frg6zo-1225817330947]

Mrs. Shanahan raised another interesting point in her article:

Lately there has been a slight rise in the Australian birth rate, and a stabilising of the divorce rate. It could be that more people are having the children they want, although the rise in the ex-nuptial birth rate is a genuine cause for alarm. But the anti-natalists don't care about the causes and social consequences of children born out of wedlock; they are more worried about the bird life.
[my emphasis]

And what is the ex-nuptial birth rate, you ask? In The Sydney Morning Herald's edition on the same day as Mrs. Shanahan's column was published we found the answer:

34
Percentage of babies born to unmarried parents.
[http://www.nationaltimes.com.au/opinion/blogs/econogirl/that-elusive-quality-of-hope/20100111-m0yp.html
Ms Irvine gives her sources as "www.everest1953.co.uk, guinnessworldrecords.com, ft.com, abs.gov.au, goldprice.org, roymorgan.com, RP Data". I could not find any mention of this figure in the archives for the two most recent months—January and December—of A.B.S. media releases, however. I'd appreciate it if any readers could supply a web reference for Ms Irvine's citation about illegitimacy.]

(Mrs. Shanahan’s article was the subject for a number of letters to The Australian this week:

http://blogs.theaustralian.news.com.au/letters/index.php/theaustralian/comments/time_for_some_maths/
http://blogs.theaustralian.news.com.au/letters/index.php/theaustralian/comments/populate_or_perish_out_of_fashion_today/
http://blogs.theaustralian.news.com.au/letters/index.php/theaustralian/comments/malthus_worked_all_this_out_200_years_ago/

One of the letters spoke of Mrs. Shanahan’s “irresponsibly large family” (of nine children). But I would have thought that the irresponsible families were those who choose not to have at least two children; families like Mrs. Shanahan's should be commended for doing their bit to make up for the short-fall between overall population increase and population increase by natural increase. That same letter contained an unfortunate arithmetical error (unfortunate, since its author said, insultingly, “[t]ime, Ms Shanahan, for some basic mathematics”):

If each of her nine children also has nine children, then she will have 89 grandchildren

One Kevin Lathbury had the following letter published afterwards:

JENNY Goldie ("Time for some maths”, Letters, 12/1) suggests that if Angela Shanahan’s nine kids each have nine kids, she’ll have 89 grandkids. When I went to school, nine times nine made 81. Time indeed for some maths!

How embarrassing. Never forget the rules of the newspaper letters page branch of Murphy’s Law: Letters which criticise mathematical errors will contain at least one mathematical error, letters which criticise grammatical/spelling errors will contain at least one grammatical/spelling error, and, as I’ve learnt, letters which criticise Bible-related errors will contain at least one Bible-related error!)

Reginaldvs Cantvar
Feast of St. Paul the first Hermit, Confessor, A.D. 2009