Free Republic

We know who you’re talking about, Barack Obama, when you talk about Pennsylvania and the Midwest, about small towns where the jobs have left. We know who you’re talking about when you talk about those who “get bitter” and “cling to guns or religion.” You’re talking about “those people.” You’re talking about white people who have neither the family connections nor the racial credentials to gain entrance to the world that you inhabit. Many of the people you’re talking about are those whose parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents were immigrants from Central and Eastern Europe who came to these places to...

The debate about Jay Bennish, the Colorado high school teacher who confused a diatribe against the Bush administration with a lesson in geography, is not about free speech, but about the meltdown of Western civilization. Jay Bennish, the product of baby boomer teachers and parents, is not unlike other recent high school and college graduates. He was denied the opportunity for an education. But come to think of it, baby boomers like me were denied educations. I had a Jay Bennish teaching my tenth-grade "social studies" class in 1973 (note the subject name that already reveals the non-academic nature of...