318 Comments

When you're looking at the kids, you're looking AT THE PARENTS. As Ivy graduates with Ivy kids, who vote OMG 🤮🤮🤮 ignorant, non virtue signaling Republican- the Democrats being Hamas supporters who despise Déplorables (looking at You Hillary - couldn't answer your phone during Benghazi girl), I'm constantly astonished at the arrogance, intolerance and contempt of my former Left. No wonder the kids aren't alright......

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These first two comments show that conservatives can be just as guilty of cancel culture as the progressives. It’s obvious that the author’s ‘glibness’, use of the word ‘docile’ and comments about subtraction are tongue-in-cheek. He doesn’t disparage either type of young person, midwestern conservative or northeastern progressive. He just wonders at the absurdity of their fixed positions. I do too. I’m an American who’s lived the last 30 years in Europe. I look across the ocean at the country I love and shake my head at its absurd, indulgent, self-defeating and frankly stupid cultural wars. Talk about shooting yourself in the foot when in 1990 the country was poised to show the way to the world on any number of fronts. I love all of the crazy extremes of the US and all the in-betweens and don’t understand why Americans don’t. I went to Harvard (medical school not college) but my parents are Baptists from South Carolina who’ve always vote Republican. I love both extremes. I studied theology in the Midwest (before becoming a doctor) and then worked in Silicon Valley in the early 90s. Both extremes are wonderful and enriching. Why can’t my fellow Americans see that?

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"our public schools, dominated by Leftists, are producing high school graduates who can barely read, write, or do basic arithmetic." stated by @Pemulis_DMZ extends to our university system (grade inflation, course inanity, DEI nonsense, et al). It is no wonder that we are witnessing a devolution in our society, a moral collapse, to total mediocrity with totalitarian impulses.

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Its the little things. Decorum. A child doesn’t need a reason to respect an adult, or to show respect. Respect is not agreement. Respect is not obedience. Those homeschool kids were likely thinking “who is this tool?!” Because they were raised right, it came out “yes sir.”

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Man, so many grumpy commenters... Since few others seem willing to say it, I quite enjoyed this. Mr. Kawaller consistently brings a unique voice to the Free Press, and seems willing to poke fun at pretty much anything he runs across, including himself. I really appreciate his willingness to engage with big issues without letting them dominate the tone of any given piece. Love the short videos, and apparently he's a solid writer to boot. Keep up the good work!

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The function of a liberal arts "education" is to be able to justify, using the current politically correct lingo and virtue signaling, whatever their narcissistic hearts desire.

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Another point. When it comes time to serve in the military, who shows up. Certainly not the smug self righteous lefties. The are too precious. Too important. Too elite. And too cowardly. Their weapon is their mouth. They let someone else save their hides. Just like those in the Civil War who paid someone else to put their a.. on the line.

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What makes a writer ugly and unreadable? Trying to disguise a smug air of superiority as humor!

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"Docile"?? Not my children, raised by Republican parents. Very smart, well educated and successful, but hardly "docile". In fact, so not-docile that they decided to move to Seattle and vote Democrat, much to my chagrin. I'm hoping they will in due time make good on Winston Churchill's quip about rediscovering the virtues of conservatism as they buy homes and have children and turn 40.

In fact, I would argue that Republicans bring their children up to challenge the status quo, whose levers of power (Government, Academia, Media) are controlled by the Left. How else to explain the Trump phenomenon? Would Kawaller characterize the Jan 6 rioters as "docile"?

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The author needs a companion article to glorify a a real Coastal heroin..... Democratic Rep. Yvette Clarke who is running for re-election this year in New York’s 9th District. Clarke actually admitted that the Democrats need more migrants to overrun their cities and states for “redistricting purposes.”

“I’m from Brooklyn, New York. We have a diaspora that can absorb a significant number of these migrants,” said Clarke, who has served on the House Committee on Homeland Security.

“When I hear colleagues talk about, you know, the doors of the inn being closed — ah, no room at the inn — I’m saying I need more people in my district just for redistricting purposes.”

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Kind of cute and funny, but the shot at home-schooling was cheap and beneath the standards of The Free Press. I've yet to meet a home-schooled kid that can't do math, and they're usually more mature and better prepared than the vast majority of the public school students by the time they hit university.

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Jan 12·edited Jan 12

Mr. Kawaller,

You have confused respect for one's elders with timid respect for authority and humility with docility.

They are not the same thing.

But of course you knew that.

On the bright side it saved me the waste of time had I continued to read past the first few paragraphs..

and which I happily spent reading the deliciously scathing comments.

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This screed was a disrespectful waste of time. Anecdotes don't prove a thing and his logical chain is broken in a lot of places. Free Press, this needs more than a copy edit.

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How can any thinking person believe that Progressive Democrats have anything good for humanity? They all suffer from the Woke mind Virus. Sounds like the author of this piece is deranged.

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Ben, please keep writing this kind of stuff. Your satire is gold, and the butthurt in the comments section feeds my soul.

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Docile conservatives. I know this is a sarcastic hit piece and this ‘journalist’ has a tongue firmly and permanently implanted in a cheek, not to mention where his head is, but it’s so very hard to actually talk to people and hear what they have to say when one has assumed that position.

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