Dear Abby

Dear Abby,

My son is a senior in high school and the time has come to make some decisions about his college plans. He really wants to go to Yale or Harvard and has already been accepted to both. I am very disappointed in his decision to apply to these northeastern, elite-type schools and would prefer that he either go to the state school right up in Backwater, where he can get a perfectly good education - without sacrificing his small-town values - or join the armed forces and go serve his country in Iraq or Afghanistan, preferably on the front lines, where he would have the opportunity to make the ultimate sacrifice that so many small-town boys have made for their country.

I am just so worried that my little boy will turn out like all the fancy pants Ivy-Leaguers I see on the TV, with their heads all stuffed full of ideas that my husband and I didn't need to raise our six children, even after Ed lost his job at the factory and had to get a maintenance job at the high school. Seems to me the only thing those schools can teach you that the local college can't is how to prefer brie over american, arugala over iceberg, and microbrews over Budweiser. Next thing you know, my son will be more concerned about homeless colored folks than little unborn babies.

My dream for my son is that he will one day experience the pride I feel in living an ordinary, provincial life. I would hate for him to be burdened by the opportunities that a world-class education provides - seduced into world exploration, multiculturalism, religious tolerance, abstract thinking, and other subtle forms of treason, never mind the mortal sins of the flesh that await him in the northeast's big cities. I sure didn't need to travel the world to know that America is the greatest nation in the history of this planet.

Please help us Abby. We've tried so hard to raise a good, proud, American boy. Now we see him slipping into the dark worlds of intellectualism and achievement. I just don't understand what kind of child would do this to his mother. Is he ungrateful? Did we hurt him in some way? Should we consider reporting him to the Department of Homeland Security before he is turned into an liberal, anti-American activist/terrorist?

Sincerely,

Elle Ectorate

Comments

[NightTrane]

the idea that someone is racist just because they aren't sure whether they'll vote for Obama is laughable! I'm voting for him, but freely acknowledge there are legitimate reasons why one would hesitate. Take his youth and inexperience, for starters. How about his track record of working across the political aisle? Foreign policy?

CP RESPONDS:
I think you must have skimmed this post, because you seem to have missed my point. I'm talking to people who have no positive reason whatsoever to vote for the Republican ticket, but who have turned against Obama for incredibly vague and flimsy reasons. You sound like a serious-minded person who may have had concerns about whether he was the best candidate the Democrats could have nominated - I shared your concerns during the primary. I'm looking at the swing among ethnic, blue-collar whites who are looking for reasons to vote against their own self-interest because their natural candidate happens to be black.