According to Santorum, the liberal elites hold to what he identifies as an ideology of "No-Fault Freedom." The ideology of No-Fault Freedom insists that personal choice, grounded in an assertion of personal autonomy, is the highest good. In the name of liberation, the prophets of No-Fault Freedom insist that limitations upon personal liberty are repressive and unhealthy and that freedom should thus be unconstrained by a larger moral context, set of rules, or other limitations.

Any responsible political philosophy must identify the central unit of civilization. As Santorum sees it, the critical distinction between contemporary forms of liberalism and conservatism is that he liberals see the individual as the basic unit of society, whereas the conservatives see the family as the focal unit.

"Liberal social policy has never put an emphasis on the family because the village elders, frankly, don't believe in the importance of strong, traditional families," Santorum asserts. "For a raft of reasons, the village elders view the strong, traditional, married-mother-and-father family as contrary to their social agenda. They think of society as fundamentally made up of individuals guided by elite and 'expert' organizations like government, not the antiquated, perhaps uneducated, independent family. The village elders want society to be individualistic, because a society composed only of individuals responds better to 'expert' command and control."

Those who protest or recoil in light of Santorum's pointed rhetoric should understand that his argument is solidly based in the writings and public arguments of those he opposes. The foundation of the modern revolutions in sex, law, education, and the larger society are based in an assertion of either individual or class rights--not in a focus on the protection of the family as the definitional unit of civilization.

In essence, Santorum sees marriage as the essential glue that defines families and holds civilization together. "Marriage matters because children matter," he asserts. "Without marriage, children suffer. There is simply no better investment parents can make in their children's future than a healthy marriage." Santorum's insistence upon the primacy of marriage will be sufficient to give opponents grounds for labeling him a finger-wagging moralist. But, as Santorum understands, the morality of marriage defines the morality of the larger culture.

Ideas do have consequences (another key conservative idea), and Santorum believes that the idea of big government, wedded to the principle of No-Fault Freedom, has led to family dissolution and an entire host of social ills. "We've wasted decades and countless lives under the direction of the village elders trying to build bureaucracies to aid the poor and marginal in our society, while ignoring the central importance of the traditional family," Santorum insists. In his view, the prevailing elites have been "pretending that the health of the mom-and-dad family isn't really important."