Baltimore's 'nobody kill anybody' weekend leaves at least 2 people dead

What the hell has happened to my home town? I was born in Baltimore in 1943 and raised there until I enlisted in the Army in 1966. I only returned a couple of times after then, for my mother's funeral in 1969 and in 1984 to show my wife and children where I came from. Still, I feel connected to the city. Although I'm not a big fan of professional sports, if pressed, I would claim the Orioles and the Ravens as my teams. However, I would never return again. No way. No how. The sleepy bedroom community nestled between the more famous metropolises of the East Coast has awakened and it seems to be in a terrible snit. Why? Some claim it's because of its black majority population, but that can't be. Blacks constituted most of the citizens of the city when I lived there and I envied their families. They seemed more functional than the one I grew up in. Some blame guns. We always had guns. Some blame law enforcement. That's a laugh. When I lived there, Baltimore City police required only an eighth grade education and were referred to as walking monuments to cruelty. Some blame the Democrats. Sorry. You can't blame them, at least not traditional democrats. Maryland (as most people don't know) is a traditional Southern State. A plantation, slave owning state. No, it didn't secede with the rest of the South, but not for want of trying. No, we have to look for the differences. What the hell changed. Well, for one thing the Democrats who dominate politics in the city and state have changed in the decades since I went away. They are no longer the party of FDR and Harry Truman, or even JFK. They are now the party of the Left and the Left has based its ascendancy on its ability to divide the people into different groups and set those groups in violent opposition to one another. Agitate long enough and you can bet the shooting will start. And it has, hasn't it? No, no slogans are going to stop it.

Very true LTC Orlando Illi. I am all too familiar with that footprint. Thanks for the share.