The Kind-Hearted Smart Aleck

The land of the free, home of the brave - that's on what America claims to pride itself. However, as COVID has clearly shown, that's not reality. The unfortunate reality is much of America prides itself in willful ignorance, and there's nothing brave about that. Absolute freedom is a myth. Wherever one travels, regardless of the country's founding documents, restrictions are present. Don't believe me? Yell "FIRE!!!" in a movie theater or "BOMB!!!" on an airplane; tell your boss what you really think of him/her; participate in a solo nude marathon around your house in broad daylight. Being protected from prosecution by the federal government does not equate to protection from any repercussions. A person in a "free" country can still be arrested and/or fired for exercising their First Amendment rights.  So what are many up in arms about when it comes to the latest so-called violations on their falsely-held notion of absolute freedom? Rece

Hot-button issue time. Today's topic? The Texas voting bill. If there's one area Republicans have outperformed Democrats over the years, it's with branding. The short-and-catchy bumper-sticker slogan is typically, sadly, much more effective than reciting the results from scientific studies and fact-checks. Here are just a few such examples: - Altering "global-warming" to "climate-change" - Gun control (as opposed to gun reform) - Bastardizing the term "liberal" ("tax-and-spend liberals") - Changing "estate tax" to "death tax" - Referring to the Affordable Care Act as "Obamacare" (not to mention "death panels") - Ubiquitously using the terms "socialist," "communist," and "Marxist" to describe Democrats and Democratic policies - Painting the mainstream media as the "lamestream media" - Etc. Oh, I forgot one - the myth about rampant voter-fraud and the need f