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Amen and Amen.

“The underclass—the diversity—exacts a price. It is responsible for crime, almost all crime, which carries with it the cost of the prisons, police forces, decay of the cities, welfare both open and hidden, and a decline in the tenor of life.”

As someone who is currently living in the ghetto for the past year, there does seem to be some anger seething. I see this all over the place, welfare people with no hope or direction or even ability to discern what is and isn’t decent.

We were what would be considered 'poor' when I was a child. There were those in our peers who got into drugs and then crime - property crime and then some more serious.

But there were those of us who followed the example of our parents and grandparents and had a sense of pride, doing a good job - even at a minimum wage job and we had hope for a future that would provide better things. All we needed was an education and a chance to learn through work.

On Sunday you got your butt out of bed and went to Mass.

Those who didn't were on the bad side of my Grandmother for the next week... and no one enjoyed that.

So we got up on Sunday morning headed for Church, received communion (providing we were worthy to do so), stopped at the "Sav-a-minit" to buy the Sunday paper and returned home to the smell of chuck roast cooking for our Sunday dinner.

There were usually 8 to 10 of us and a pretty small roast, but no matter, it always seemed to be just enough.

We weren't always happy, we rarely got what we wanted at Christmas or birthdays, but we didn't burn down our neighborhood or blame anyone else. Somehow we understood that we, each one of us, was the master of our own destiny. If we screwed up, we had to deal with the consequences.

Anger? The only one we could be angry with would be ourselves if we failed. Even so, we got up the next day and tried again.

Failure was a temporary condition that we could work our way out of. The greatest gift in our lives was the example and direction we received from the adults in our lives, our parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, teachers... I thank God every day for that.