On edit, you are missing a period!

sentence?

I noticed that when I re-read

Lots of good reasoning. Well written.

that the riots are a specific response to a nationwide trend with police departments of shooting (and killing) people who are unarmed, or who could be brought to justice by less than deadly means ..and most of those people happen to be African-American. Beyond that, there is the horrible American penchant for using firearms as a means of conflict resolution. Nothing liberal about that. "Liberal socalist policies" (whever the hell that is) have less to do with the problem than out-of-control police procedures. There is certainly nothing "liberal" about the police actions that have resulted in protests and rioting lately.

Just my 2 cents

but, if I really wrote about all the problems in Baltimore, and elsewhere, I could fill a rather large book

Congratulations to Richard Contrastano of Canton on being able to regurgitate the "Rush Limbaugh and Fox News Talking Point of the Week" regarding liberal-socialist policies leading to problems in Baltimore.

However, the facts show things to be quite different. Since Ronald Reagan took office in 1981, the economy has been driven by Trickle-Down Economics that feature low taxes on the rich, exploding deficits and income inequality with little investment in anything besides the military. Even small attempts to stop Reaganomics, such as increases in taxes on the wealthy under Clinton or small investments in infrastructure under Obama, have been fought vigorously by Republicans. Despite nearly unanimous Republican opposition, both policies proved extremely good for the economy although neither slowed down the Supply Side juggernaut.

With 35 years of conservative economic policies in place, the extreme poverty and high unemployment in places like Baltimore are just the natural result of the rich trickling down onto the poor and working class.

I'll make some changes

...and those like him, and not much to hook in people who can be reached.

If you can wait until this evening I can give a fuller answer, but at this moment I have limited time to check DU, and am rapidly running out of it.

thanks.

The following is just my opinion, of which you are free to accept, reject, poach from, write off, or otherwise do whatever you see fit.

The reason why I say it sounds "stereotypical liberal" is because you're recapitulating (as the RWers see it) the "it's society's fault" argument, and they've been inoculating themselves against that for those same 50 years. He'll read your letter and take it as a sign that he's completely right: "Tired old arguments from sneering pointy-headed know-it-alls to go with tired old liberal socialist filed policies."

Point #1: never lose sight of who you're writing for, and it's not Sluggo the Talking Point Parrot, or whatever his name is. It's the bystanders who you might actually reach. Plus, every now and again a seed planted in between the cracks of some Sluggo's concrete mindset actually manages to bear fruit.

(his name is Richard Contrastano? Dick Contrastano? Geezuz.... But I digress...)

Point #2: Tell a story, and the story is he's lazy and a chump. And the best stories show, don't tell. Go after his #1 assertion: "liberal socialist policies", and "fifty years plus" of them to boot. Fifty years ago, 1965, was in the thick of the Cold War. Were we "socialists" the whole time? And 50 years of such policies? After 30 years of de-industrialization, union-busting, outsourcing, off-shoring, and elevating "maximizing shareholder value" above all else? Yet somehow, despite 30 years of cuts to those "liberal socialist policies", of "ending welfare as we know it", after cutting taxes on high incomes so much that taxes were more progressive in the Roaring Twenties -- despite all that, despite decades of tax-slashing Republicans and "pro-business" Democrats, somehow "socialism" reigns when a scapegoat is needed! Blaming "socialism" for the unrest in Baltimore isn't "insane", it's just LAZY.

Ditch the sneer and the lecture, and hold him to account for his foolish assumptions. Use his own claims against him.

good ideas