Defend Democracy! Stop Hippy Professors!

Two letters to the editor recently caught my eye. Under the heavy weight of the title, "One Must Understand Western Culture to Defend It," the first letter-writer decries the impending destruction of "our society and freedom" because our colleges and universties do not ascribe to a "core curriculum in classical philosophy and humanities". For her, there is an obvious and clear line in the last two-and-a-half millennia to this American moment:

Our Constitution was not thought of on a whim by our Founding Fathers. It resulted from their study of 2,500 years of Western thought about what defines man and how he should live.

An understanding of Western thought will guard against the simple dismissal of our civilization’s values in the name of relativism. The notion that all cultures are equal so pervades the thinking at the modern-day university that often the graduates of these institutions will easily accept any new ideas cloaked in the name of change because they never quite grasped the principles under which they’ve lived so freely their whole lives.

Oh, please!

Apparently, what teen Miss South Carolina needs more of is Aristotle, Augustine, Aquinas and Adams. Well, actually, she needs a globe, knowledge of the world, and speech lessons.

Anyways, the next letter writer goes on:

The shame is that administrators ever allowed “Sociology of Heterosexuality” and the plethora of other nonsense that has invaded our campuses to be taught at the expense of great books and our great heritage.

Sociology of Heterosexuality? Can I add that class?

Alas, If only Sarah Palin had taken more core requirements: