Let me begin by conceding that the term "smug liberals" may in fact be redundant.

Jesus's Birth in Bethlehem

Several months ago when President Obama's plan to accept thousands of refugees from the Syrian conflict was all in the news, a post by one of my former journalism colleagues showed up in my Facebook timeline. It was a meme generated by Media Matters or Think Progress or something of their ilk that essentially called all Christians who were not enthusiastic about Obama's plan hypocrites, because Joseph and Mary were refugees when Jesus was born in a manger.

I posted a link in to this article in response, pointing out that meme required a heaping amount of ignorance to be persuasive in any way. Not that my former colleague wanted to persuade anyone, he was simply a smug liberal who wanted "likes" and affirmation of his enlightened political position.

The fact that I was able to post a response to Facebook had led me to believe that we were "Friends" on that platform—something I chalked up to being less than discriminating in my early days on that social media network.

It turned out we weren't friends, he just hadn't set his account to prevent "friends of friends" from commenting on his feed. Instead of fixing this, he proceeded to post a response tagging all of our common friends and calling on them to unfriend me. It was all very Brave New World of him. I informed him that this setting existed and that his reflex behavior held all the maturity of a middle-schooler.

He fixed the setting and that's the end of that.

Speaking of middle-schoolers

Which brings me to this column in last weekend's San Luis Obispo Tribune by Joe Tarica, who in the past has praised the Occupy movement and likened the Tea Party movement to terrorists.

Tarica is very proud of his 7th Grade son who destroyed a minimum wage-earning telemarketer soliciting funds for the National Rifle Association.

So he asked the woman if she worked for a charity and, if so, what percentage of donations actually make it to the cause.

She said they weren’t a charity.

So he asked: What does N-R-A stand for?

“The National Rifle Association,” the caller said. “We are asking for support for the Second Amendment.”

Ding, ding, ding! Wrong answer.

To this kid at that moment, it was like underhanding a softball to a juiced-up Barry Bonds.

“Ohhhhh! Right-winging, bitter-clinging to our guns and our religion!” he declared. “Can I get a ‘hallelujah’?”

...

“Uh, hallelujah?” she replied.

But he wasn’t done. He doesn’t know everything about the gun debate, but he does know standards are being applied to weapons today that are far beyond what our founding fathers could have imagined in the days of flintlock muskets.

“When was the amendment written?” he asked next.

“Uh ... uh,” she replied, realizing what was afoot and getting fed up. “Are your parents home?”

“Sorry, we’re Democrats,” he said and hung up the phone.

#boom #micdrop

I'm not sure who's the bigger tool here, the smug liberal seventh grader or his dad who thinks this is an accomplishment. As if having the wit to ask when the 2nd Amendment was written (it's unclear if the junior smug knew the answer to the question he asked) somehow pwns someone with likely little more than a high school education working in call center.

The person making phone calls this week for the NRA might be making them next week for the Sierra Club, but junior showed her!

And then there's the Wikipedia link to the flintlock musket. Predictable really, if wholly unoriginal. I give you the greatest Twitter takedown of all time:

So, as a corrective, here's a Wikipedia link to the Girandoni air rifle, owned by the founder of the Democratic Party which came with a 20-round magazine, 10 more rounds than are legal in any civilian-owned firearm in California today.

Frankly, Tarica's column was so lame and predictable, void of any originality, that the only thing I really took away from it was the fact that as a journalist he finally came out as a Democrat. This admission will make it more difficult for Editor Sandra Duerr to continue to make claims that her paper is unbiased.