MONA’S BROADSIDE
The syndicated columnist and best-selling author Mona Charen wrote a book published in 2004 titled, Do-Gooders, How Liberals Hurt Those They Claim to Help. At the time, this book resonated with me because I had previously written about the damages caused by free money and the dole. Here are a few paragraphs from her book:
“Starting in the 1960s, liberal ideas on crime, welfare, education, mental illness, family structure and race relations – among many other things – gained preeminence. Brimming with arrogant self-righteousness, liberals of the 1960s announced that they would eliminate poverty, reverse injustice, abolish rote-learning, introduce sexual liberation, free the mentally ill and compensate for the sin of racism. They thought of themselves as do-gooders, but with only a few exceptions, their ideas have yielded harm.
“The system designed to rescue people from poverty, in fact served, paradoxically, to invite people into poverty. Despite the accumulating evidence of welfare’s corrupting influence – the rise of the permanent underclass, crime, illegitimacy, a culture of non-work and drug abuse – liberals maintain their belief in generous welfare benefits and fiercely resist all reform efforts.
“By making unwed childbearing practicable, the welfare state exacerbated the problem of poverty. And by increasing long-term, generation-to-generation poverty, liberalism created far more misery and social chaos than it relieved.
“The culture of fatherlessness that has taken root among many Americans is poison. Entitlement mentality, so carefully cultivated by liberal academics, politicians, clergymen, and journalists continues to corrode the self-sufficiency that once defined the American character.”
Looking back over the almost 20 years since her book was published, it is apparent that somehow liberals have escaped blame for creating the most disastrous and complex social problem in history.
