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"America Gone Wrong: A Slashed Safety Net Turns Libraries into Homeless Shelters"

Paternalistic and crassly exploitative enough for you?

The presence of poor people in America's public libraries is a problem, which means they are fair game to be used to score political points about "America Gone Wrong."

Not paternalistic and exploitative enough? Consider the concluding passage of the introduction for the piece as it appeared at the Nation Institute's Tom Dispatch site:

[P]ublic libraries have become de facto daytime shelters for the nation's street people; while librarians are increasingly our unofficial social workers for the homeless (and often the disturbed). It's a dirty little secret that tells us all too much about the state of our nation today.

"Street people," whose presence in America's public libraries is a "dirty little secret." At least they're still good for some pungent negative commentary about America.

Getting beyond the progressive title and introduction, author Chip Ward piques his readers' indignation:

Scenes from a psych ward? Not at all. Welcome to the Salt Lake City Public Library.

"Psych ward." How wonderfully enlightened.

Mr. Ward himself gives the starting signal for the political point-scoring at the expense of library patrons:

When the mentally ill whom we have thrown onto the streets haunt our [!] public places, their presence tells us something important about the state of our union, our national character, our priorities, and our capacity to care for one another.

Paternalistic and exploitative enough?