The Kind-Hearted Smart Aleck

As I so often do, I had a little fun with a trending hashtag on Twitter the other day. This particular one was #SecondCivilWarLetters, where I poked fun of bigots of all stripes. While most of my followers' responses were positive, the one which stood out the most was, of course, negative. She called me a bigot. Before fully tackling the accusation, allow me to first provide readers with the definition of the term bigot . It is "a person who is intolerant toward those holding different opinions." Now here is the tweet in question: "Dear Resistance: The war is over. We've won. About 30 seconds into our battle, the Trumpsters, as they were drinking moonshine & cleaning their loaded weapons with the muzzles facing them and shouting 'Guns don't kill!,' all shot and killed themselves." #secondcivilwarletters I was simply using the hashtag to satirize the large majority of Republicans' belief that "guns don't kill people; pe...

As long-time readers should know, I'm not a fan of the conservative right, and this is especially the case of hyperbole-obsessed right-wing media personalities. Regular readers should also know I've long stood by our Constitutional right to freedom of speech, but even so, believe freedom of speech doesn't mean freedom from consequence. This brings me to the recent such case involving Fox News personality Laura Ingraham, who has come under fire for posting this tweet about Parkland survivor and activist David Hogg: "David Hogg Rejected By Four Colleges Which He Applied and whines about it. (Dinged by UCLA with a 4.1 GPA...totally predictable given acceptance rates.) https://www.dailywire.com/news/28770/gun-rights-provocateur-david-hogg-rejected-four-joseph-curl" Mr. Hogg responded by calling on Ingraham's advertisers to cut ties with her show. Many have done so, which has prompted Ms. Ingraham to apologize via Twitter and take what she has termed a ...

As ardent readers of mine should know by now, I'm no fan of conservative talking head Tomi Lahren, which can be seen in this previous blog post of mine -  http://thekind-heartedsmartaleck.blogspot.com/2015/07/final-thoughts-on-tomi-lahrens-rant.html . However, having said that, I think it's utterly ridiculous and anti-American of  The Blaze to suspend her show for speaking in favor of abortion rights. On her Friday appearance on The View , Lahren said she supported abortion rights, adding, "As someone who supports limited government, it would be hypocritical of me to believe the government should decide what women should do with their bodies." This did not go over well in conservative circles, especially with fellow members of The Blaze , as Glenn Beck responded to the matter by saying, "The preamble of the Constitution speaks of securing the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity. Well, who are our posterity, if not our unborn children and grand...

As could probably be predicted, there were a number of political debates roaming about the Facebook newsfeed today, with regard to the Supreme Court's healthcare ruling. I got involved in one such feed, because the initial status ticked me off a bit. Alright, so the guy thought the individual mandate was wrong. That's fine. He has a right to his own opinion. However, he then went into the "real"/"unreal" American bit, saying only "real" Americans rejected the mandate. I didn't even go after him on the mandate. I asked him to define "real" and "unreal" Americans and if, since I support the healthcare law, I'm not a "real" American and should be forced to leave the country or something. I then asked who ultimately decided what a "real" and "unreal" American is and if there's a handout which deciphers the two. He said there was - The Constitution, Declaration of Independence, etc. and kept ...