How to generate liberal hate mail

The Red Star's best columnist, Katherine Kersten, can write about cute babies or flower gardens or anything, and the liberal's heads will explode. Roughly half the letters to the editor the day following the printing of her columns are from the foggy-brained socialists. Complete leftist meltdown can be achieved when she writes a column like she did 7/18/05, called "Roots of gang violence feed off '60s". It is, in typical fashion, a document of truth and clarity, and it really hits a nerve with much of the left, who are generally products of the 60s.

Ms. Kersten lays out for the left what many conservatives instinctively know - the 1960s was a seminal decade for the now-pervasive cultural decline and the decimation of viable institutions of moral authority.

"Americans of all social backgrounds are still dealing with the fallout of the '60s. But when middle-class kids experiment with marijuana or sexual promiscuity, they can generally rally and survive. Most have the social, educational and financial resources to get back on track.

But the '60s revolution encouraged behavior that prevents the poor from overcoming their disadvantages. The sexual revolution, coupled with welfare policy, has decimated the family in underclass neighborhoods. There, drugs overwhelm their users instead of providing Friday night entertainment. When people's lives are already on the edge, irresponsible behavior can send them off the cliff."

It's all too common in the inner city to see aimless, able-bodied teenage males and adult males hanging around all day long with nothing to do, no jobs, no direction. The "Great Society" programs instituted by liberals over the last several decades have "enabled" a large percentage of "disadvantaged" people to become dependent on the government. The results are obvious.

Ms. Kersten really hits home with this piece. The left doesn't like being told, yet again, that they are wrong, wrong, wrong. Rambix is really glad that someone of Mr. Kersten's credentials had the fortitude to write such a piece. She's an asset to the Red Star, and should be read often by those on both sides of the aisle.

For an in-depth look at the folly and disasterous effects of welfare programs, Rambix recommends James L. Payne's Overcoming Welfare: Expecting More from the Poor-And from Ourselves