The Kind-Hearted Smart Aleck

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...

When scrolling through my "friends'" Facebook comments yesterday on my newsfeed, I came across the following status from a 40-year old far right-wing white man: "When I voted today, the people at the poll asked me for identification. Surprisingly, it didn't offend me one bit. It was also very little hassle. Wierd right? Based in what I had heard I was sure I would feel oppressed, embarassed and violated. What a pleasant surprise!" While trying to sound like a smarta*s, he wound up sounding like a dumb one. The three groups most affected by stricter voter ID laws are: Elders, minorities, and women. Elders and minorities are more prone than other groups to not have the necessary voter identification to make their voices heard on election day, while women run into problems because of name changes due to marriages. Whenever a person such as the before-mentioned one makes a sarcastic comment about voter suppression, I wish for a split-second he was a 90-year ol...