The Kind-Hearted Smart Aleck

Just last night, I read the following meme posted on Facebook and felt the need to comment on it: "Everything you do is based on the choices you make. It's not your parents. your past relationships. your job. the economy. the weather. an argument or your age that is to blame. You and only you are responsible for every decision and choice you make. Period" First off, I found it kind of funny that the meme closes its mini-rant with "Period," without adding a period after that very word, yet the author seemed content to place in periods throughout the piece where they would result in fragments. Secondly, I can understand how some people may get sick and tired of hearing individuals blaming their current situations on others (such as their parents), however, when one makes a claim using absolutes, he or she is almost always wrong. According to the author of this meme, does this mean that: Jews could blame themselves for being killed during the Holocaust? ...

I've seen several posts made on Facebook by self-described liberals which say something like the following: "It's very simple. Making guns illegal will not stop gun violence. But making abortions illegal will stop abortions. Get it?" The post is attempting to poke fun at hard-core conservatives' beliefs - those whom don't feel that any stricter gun laws will ward off gun violence any, but that outlawing abortion will prevent any such procedures from taking place. I can partially understand where these liberals are coming from in attempting to make such a comparison, however, I think it's the wrong one to make, especially if they're trying to persuade people that stricter gun laws are needed in this country. The problem is in the absolutism of such comments. This has been an attempted arguing point by those on the far-right, saying, "Do you think drug laws still got broken after we passed them? Yeah. Well, same thing with guns. If gun laws ge...