Quoting Barr on morality?

Walter Williams shamelessly quotes even the most controversial and dubious sources so long as they buttress Williams" controversial and dubious positions on social issues.

Case in point is Williams" piece on the moral decline of this country, in which Williams quotes part of a speech U.S. Attorney General William Barr recently gave at Notre Dame's Law School. Barr claimed that attacks on religious liberty are largely responsible for what he describes as a "moral decline" in this country. Barr posited that increases in suicide, mental illness and drug addiction are manifestations of said "moral decline."

To state that mental illness, addiction and suicide are the result of "moral decline" or an attack on religion is ignorant. One can only associate addiction with morality if you're referring to the pharmaceutical companies that continue to roll out truckloads of opioids while scores of unwitting young adults die from them every day. Mental illness and addiction are not moral or religious issues; these are medical issues. Barr's belief that mental illness and addiction are the result of immorality or lack of religion is an ad hominem attack on those afflicted with mental illness and/or addiction.

Which brings me to my original point: How can Walter Williams adopt such ignorant and misleading statements by Barr? Worse, Williams quotes Barr on morality knowing that Barr himself gave Trump clearance to separate immigrant children from their families, as well as Barr having played a key role in Trump's scheme to withhold critical military aid to the Ukranian people unless their government played political ball with Trump.

You can't credibly blame a moral decline in this country on a fictitious attack on religion. If you want to identify the culprit of a moral decline in this country, just take a look at the long sordid history of the Trump administration, in which Mr. Barr has played a key role.

Mike Fanella

Arlington Heights