The first step toward solving social ills is to understand people.  Our founders well understood that people are not inherently good, but they are redeemable.  That is the true condition of human nature.  The sooner that is recognized, the better society will become.

Those who are most likely to read this commentary tend to be interested in academic subjects, social theories, and the arts and sciences.  They gravitate toward each other and usually avoid people outside their social and economic class.

Most people, however, are not the least interested in these subjects.  Most people tend to be restricted to their own social circles, rarely interacting with people far outside their sphere.  The wealthy associate mostly with their peers, the poor with the poor, and people in the middle with their neighbors.

Most people are only peripherally interested in the larger society, and only on certain occasions.  Otherwise, the things they care about are less intellectual.  They involve themselves in everyday tasks, in making money, in seeking pleasure.  Most people, in all classes, show some degree of dishonesty, and among the poor, they tend to be more physically violent, and more abruptly so, than people of comfortable means.  Exceptions abound, but they are, after all, exceptions.

The poor tend to be less educated than the economic higher classes, a fact that further increases their tendency toward poverty.  Those among the poor who strive to become better educated are often stymied in their efforts, first by educators whose personal self-interest competes with their students, and even by the culture of poverty, where learning is disdained as "acting white" or some version thereof.

One altruistic teacher who visited some of his seemingly intelligent but poorly performing minority students was dismayed by the chaotic environment of inner-city poverty.  Amid the cacophony of music and violence, it was all but impossible to focus on study.  There was no realistic escape from those circumstances.

Out-of-wedlock motherhood is well known to be a severe disabling factor that impedes upward mobility, and it is exacerbated by loosening standards of sexual morality.

Among the upper economic classes, the disconnection with the lower classes is profound.  Many people in the upper group promote theories that seem to them to be commonsense solutions to poverty but only make matters worse.  They are no more moral or hardworking than those in the lower class, but they can more easily find social environments conducive to their wellbeing.

In the middle, the average working man has little time or energy remaining after hours in which to actively involve himself in his community.  He tends to be far more interested in sports than in politics, far more likely to visit bars and nightclubs than libraries, and sadly willing to abdicate his parental responsibilities to a corrupt education system and government.

Drug addiction and alcohol abuse have greatly increased the morbid behavior of large numbers of people in all classes.  These social ills are literally killing tens of thousands of people and ruining the lives of their loved ones.  Especially tragic is the incidence of child neglect and worse.

Government cannot resolve these issues and indeed often makes them worse.  Its liberal activists have led the way downward, and they intend to increase their efforts on the infamous "road to perdition."

As a nation, and with President Trump at the helm, we have finally reached that proverbial crossroads, that moment in which truth must finally shine its light, or else deception will darken the world for generations to come.

I sense that the wheat is about to be separated from the chaff, and the uncommitted must finally take up arms for one side or the other.  There will be no neutrality.

Warning to those of us on the right: The Left already knows all this, and leftists are preparing for the final battle.  For our side, there is no shortage of advice from our founding fathers, concerning how best to rise victorious from the imminent conflict.  Here is one among many:

A general dissolution of principles and manners will more surely overthrow the liberties of America than the whole force of the common enemy. While the people are virtuous they cannot be subdued; but when once they lose their virtue then will be ready to surrender their liberties to the first external or internal invader.

—Samuel Adams, letter to James Warren, February 12, 1779