Ah jeez ... you sound just like my mother, lamenting the "sad loss" of we generation of yutes who did drugs from the 70s through the 80s ... the vast majority of whom matured into level-headed, responsible, smart, contented, productive folks of good character ... with the wistful regret of how much better they may have been ...! When my mother gets into that mode of sighing and regretting, all you can do is roll your eyes.
I lived through the counterculture, too. A lot of us survived just fine *glitch/twitch*, thank you very much!
No, seriously, lighten up. Drugs have always been around and always will. The destruction of the counterculture wasn't wrought by drugs, it was wrought by declining moral values embraced in pop culture, from abortion to unmarried motherhood, to divorce to shacking-up, to the embrace of open homosexuality to the "free love" ethic, to the welfare and entitlement mentality.
Blame something other than the drugs, and you'll be hitting closer to the truth, as this incident with Phelps rather serves to illustrate.
Agree.
I think it's pretty straightforward. We pandered to and subsidized social pathology such as single motherhood, irresponsible fathers, and generational welfare. LBJ, who was FDR's favorite New Deal congressman, screwed us royally.
LBJ's Great Society: 40 Years Later
Townhall Soapbox, 09/12/2005 (via FR thread)
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In the fifties, although blacks were still struggling for equal opportunities and were on the low end of the economic ladder, the black family was for the most part strong and stable. Two parent families were the rule, not the exception. They attended church together, had strong moral values, and did not comprise a majority of the prison population.
Compare that to the present state of the black community after 40 years of Liberal Socialism.
Our prisons are disproportionately black, unwed mothers and single parent families are the rule, black youths without a strong male role model other than rap stars and basketball players, roam the streets and are drawn into a culture of drugs and crime.
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