The American Spectator

James Bowman makes one error in his otherwise superb analysis of the institutionalized culture of rebellion when he states that “there is nothing to rebel against.” He rightly points out that the current culture of rebellion isn’t about rebellion, so much as middle-aged (and older) armchair radicals nostalgically reliving their college days. As the 60s counterculture has become the establishment, the current counterculture has become what they rebelled against. That counterculture is conservative.

Those college students who publish conservative magazines on campus (only to see them destroyed by reactionaries of the left), join campus conservative organizations (and have to fight for funding) and otherwise stand opposed to the lockstep conformity imposed by the left (and who are forced for the right to think for themselves at every turn) are the true rebels today. And unlike the reviewers at the Times and the arts establishment that they seek to perpetuate, those rebels have a clue.
— Mike Harris
MAJ, US Army

GET THE WORD OUT
Re: Russ Ferguson’s Talk is Cheap:

When is this president going to start listening to the people and how he is affecting us?

This is all about him…. not what he can do for the people, not only on the coast, but in America totally.
The people of other countries are no longer respecting us as a nation to lead any place. I love my country, I am a WWII veteran, serving 37 months in South Pacific, and I wish somebody would put fire under this president and get him to DO SOMETHING.

We do not want to lose our nation to the Muslims, nor to any liberals or socialists! How do we get word to this man?
— Lester

STEREOTYPING
Re: David Gutmann’s Against Gay Marriage:

The only objection I have to this article is its heavy reliance on Darwinism (Social Darwinism in my opinion) to describe male/female differences. Males are characterized as rapists and killers similar to what radical feminists would say about them. Sorry I don’t want to talk about sports either which to me is just soap opera for men. Thanks for sharing your view, but in the future keep your stereotypes to yourself.
— David

ACADEMIC ELITISM
Re: Jeffrey Lord’s The Original Mr. Anti-Establishment: Ronald Reagan:

For “establishment,” I’ve tended to look at where somebody went to school. If someone studied at, say, an Ivy League school, I’d say they were the establishment. “Attended an Ivy League college” is right up there for me with finding out that somebody is the “child of” somebody well-known. To a layman like me it all smacks of elitism.

There’s a refreshing absence of these kinds of schools from the Wikipedia entries of some of the ones named here. There are even some dropouts from education. But there are schools like Dartmouth and Yale and Cornell among them, too.

I worry about this when it starts to look like the government — whatever party happens to be in at the time — is run by a bunch of people who “all went to the same schools.” Maybe they all had good education experiences — but how varied are their experiences if they were all taught by the same people? And have they had much experience with so-called “real life” — and can they have concerns in common with those who have?
— Robert Nowall
Cape Coral, Florida

A VACUUM IN THE PRESIDENCY
Re: Ross Kaminsky’s A Leak in the Presidency:

A leak presumes something of substance existed inside a vessel or conduit, whatever its dimensions, that, when the vessel’s wall ruptured or was punctured, pushed outward into the world.

With Obama, I’d say what we have is not a leak. Rather, the vessel’s wall ruptured or was punctured by outside forces — and, then, the reality of the world rushed in to fill the vast vacuum that exists.