Dear Editor:
I doubt that the vast majority of we "deplorables" are as devoid of compassion as the MSM would have people believe.
A goal of the vast majority of us is that we want our nation to head in a direction that will provide freedom and opportunity for the citizens of our nation, on that we hopefully have agreement with even non-deplorables.
We must be a nation where everyone has a reasonable opportunity to be successful, if they are willing to strive for success. Opportunity will never be equal. Obama's daughters will have far more "opportunity" for success than others their age. Chelsea Clinton had far more opportunities than my granddaughter, but that did not prevent my granddaughter from being a successful person.
My brother-in-law started his adult life as a tractor mechanic in a small town in Ohio. One of his sons is the global vice president of a well-known company which employs 15,000 people. Many would say Dr. Ben Carson did not have much "opportunity," most would agree he is a very successful man.
Since I am a "deplorable" I suspect no one should be shocked that I am willing to state that common sense should tell us that there is a direct correlation between "opportunity" and being raised in a single-parent household. A 2013 study by the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) provided data showing this to be true.
The NBER study stated, "fraction of children living in single-parent households is the strongest correlation of upward income mobility among all the variables we explored." (An interesting "discovery" of their work was that the opportunity for upward mobility was greatest in less densely populated western states; Idaho, Nevada, Utah, even Arizona and New Mexico.)
One has to wonder why there appear to be no regular, substantive discussions on why we have seen such dramatic growth in the number of single-parent households over the past 50 years. How long will we continue to ignore the "elephant in the room?"