Homelessness came into being because liberal policy makers embraced a series of foolish ideas.

To judge by what my children are learning in school, you'd think American history was 75 percent slavery and 25 percent everything else (and that 25 percent includes a large dollop of imperialism, racism, sexism and homophobia, leaving little time for Lincoln, Edison, Clay, Holmes, Alcott, Dickinson, Adams, Longfellow or Fulton).

It's a peculiar thing about liberals. When it comes to middle-class people who are fully capable of caring for themselves, liberals seek to undermine their independence in every way possible. With seductive 'entitlements' like guaranteed retirement, health care, nutrition, education, and jobs, liberals attempt to lure the middle class into dependence on the state. But when it comes to those who are truly incompetent, those whose mental afflictions render them unable to manage their lives at all, liberals are suddenly transformed into absolutists for personal autonomy.

The child welfare system - devised and run by liberal social workers, psychologists, and judges. . .Treats incompetent or abusive parents as its clients, and only secondarily considers the needs and well-being of the children involved.

It continues to defy explanation why liberals who theoretically love liberty, equality, tolerance and moderation, should find so much to despise in their own country, which represents the fullest expression of those virtues anywhere on the globe.

Liberals cling to the idea that critics of welfare are motivated by greed or callous disregard for the less fortunate. In fact, during the twenty-five years that followed Lyndon Johnson's declaration of war on poverty, U.S. tax payers spent $3 trillion providing every conceivable support for the poor, the elderly, and the infirm. Private foundations spent scores of billions more, and private and religious charities even more. Nevertheless, as Ronald Raegan later quipped, 'in the war on poverty, poverty won.'

The recommendation by the Arkansas Supreme Court Disciplinary Committee that President Clinton be disbarred is like a tender green shoot of integrity rising from the stinking junkyard of American public life. At last, some official body has come to a decision about Clinton's conduct that is untainted by politics, cowardice or cynicism.