The Kind-Hearted Smart Aleck

Over the past year or two, I've heard with growing frequency, Republican politicians and commentators saying, "Why do minorities support Democrats? Republicans were the ones that voted to abolish slavery, the ones that fought for their Civil Rights!" When discussing the Charleston, South Carolina shooting and Confederate flag debate on C-SPAN recently, conservative author and woman voted most likely to have been a demon-skeleton in a past life - Ann Coulter - continued this trend, as she said the following: "I think it's completely moronic (debating the Confederate flag) . ...This is an awful, awful thing that happened in Charleston. Luckily, it's quite rare. To jump on this and go back to a litany of liberal talking points that make Republicans look bad, how about banning the Democratic Party? They were the ones on the Confederate side of the Civil War. They were the ones who supported segregation for 100 years." This is the point many Republicans...

Unsurprisingly, far right-wing site Breitbart has decided to go a different direction from the mainstream media when it comes to reporting on the Charleston, South Carolina shooting and its aftermath. The site has gone on to compare Dylann Roof to William Ayers, because President Obama and Ayers used to spoon together after speaking at "Hate America" meetings or something to that effect, so the site felt the need to let it be known that since Obama used to associate with Ayers, he has no room to lecture the country about racism and race wars. Not long after, the website posted this headline: "Serial Lies: Politifact blasts Obama over gun claim about mass killings in other countries." Yes, that's a bigger exaggeration than if I said I'd slept with more women than Wilt Chamberlain and Gene Simmons combined. The Politifact headline read, "Is Barack Obama correct that mass shootings don't happen in other countries?" While the site ruled his...

While I'm happy to see pressure placed on states like South Carolina and Mississippi to remove the Confederate flag from the state Capitols (and slightly alter the Mississippi state flag), I hope this doesn't result in us bypassing the more important issues of gun violence and (human) racism. Granted, the Confederate flag has long stood as a symbol for hatred and intolerance, but with or without it, racism will still be present. With or without it, Dylann Roof would still have shot and killed nine African-Americans at the Emanuel Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina last week. I, for one, would be glad to see the Confederate flag removed from South Carolina's Capitol, but I think it's of greater importance for the country to start discussing race and guns more openly, come to a nationwide agreement that we continue to have problems in those two areas, and to try and come together to make the changes necessary to decrease their frequency in the years ...

It's official: Stupid Facebook memes have become just as ubiquitous as Starbucks coffee shops. In fact, if anything, that may be understating matters. This especially seems to be the case after gun-related tragedies, like the one that took place in Charleston, South Carolina last week, come to the news-front. Just yesterday, I saw a Facebook meme which showcased the character Stewie from  Family Guy  sporting a gun and supposedly uttering these words: "So if guns kill people, I guess pencils mis spell words, cars drive drunk, and spoons make people fat." Yes, we've heard similar arguments before; yes, they've been debunked by Critical Thinking professors nationwide; and no, it doesn't seem these individuals will ever get the point, but still, I feel the need to rebut it. First off, I find it quite humorous that this meme's author, in trying to appear clever, actually misspelled the word misspell (no, it's not "mis spell"). However, give...

I know that snapping my fingers won't get America's attention. Facts and logic don't seem to either. Police brutality apparently doesn't. Sadly enough, neither do mass shootings. When is America going to finally wake up from its seemingly permanent slumber and realize we have a problem? Sure, we can pretend that racism no longer exists, especially in light of the fact we elected and re-elected an African-American president. We can pretend that 99% of police brutality cases involving African-Americans were prompted by the eventual victims disobeying the officers' orders. We can pretend that people like Dylann Roof are simply messed up in the head, are aberrations, and there's nothing we could have done to have stopped them. We can also pretend that guns don't kill, that the more we have of them the safer we'll be, and that no law would be able to decrease the frequency of gun violence. But, I'm sorry, that's all complete and utter bullsh*t and i...