As the data from the past decade clarify, there is no evidence that poverty causes crime but a great deal of evidence that crime causes poverty. By aligning themselves against the police, against commonsense tactics like stop and frisk, against metal detectors in public housing, against swift and certain punishment, and for a broad array of legal protections for accused criminals, liberals helped to aggrieve the lives of the poor and society as a whole.
Mona CharenLiberal dominance of important areas of America's social and political life has undermined many of the virtues that have sustained this country.
Mona CharenTime and time again throughout the latter part of the Cold War, liberals chose a morally perverse pose. They would seek to find any suspect motive or impure act on the part of the United States rather than confront the staggering scale of destruction and misery being wrought by our adversaries.
Mona CharenLiberals and international diplomats (a distinction without a difference) have notorious difficulty understanding how to deal with totalitarian regimes.
Mona CharenThough the two issues may seem utterly unrelated, they do have this in common - both health care and higher education are realms of American life in which government has undermined the operation of market forces and caused artificially high prices. These are two arenas in which the Democrats now propose to do exactly the wrong thing. Their reform reinforces old errors and will infinitely compound the problem of rising prices.
Mona Charen