Facing the Big Ones
AJ Robinson

A while back Anne Coulter made another outrageous statement. That’s nothing new, after all, those are her bread-and-butter. Encouraging people to hate here makes her happy.

An Anne Coulter fact.

This time Coulter quoted a statistic, namely, that most people in prison and juvenile detention centers come from single-parent homes. What that really means is single mom homes. Okay, maybe that’s a valid point to make.

After all, it's a fact and you can't dispute a fact. Well, unless it's a fact the conservatives don't like, but I digress. Anyway, it was her next statement that upset people.

Coulter said the right and proper thing to do was to take kids away from single parents, women, and put them with good families. Read that as good, White Christian two-parent families that are likely Republican or, at least, conservative. This will never happen, but it does sell books and get her on all the talk shows.

Her words got me thinking about other issues we face. Most child molesters are White Christians. Most serial killers are White males between roughly twenty-five and forty-five years of age. Most molesters are Christians. Lastly, White Christian men are most likely, I think, to engage in large-scale, mass shootings.

The common thread is unsettling.

Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm sensing a common thread here. Sure, a recent mass shooting involved non-Christians, but such events seem the exception not the rule. I find it interesting that the modern Neo-conservative reaction to such events is always the same. They're great about calling on people to make sacrifices, to get by with less, to tolerate inconvenience and to accept downright discrimination, as long as the victims are not the Neo-conservatives.

A dozen White men shoot up schools, movie theaters and churches. Oh, it's a mental health issue or good people just need to arm themselves, every minute of every day. A couple Muslim fanatics do it, well, we must register all Muslims, we must monitor all mosques and we must ban the entry of any Muslims to our country.

By my count, there have been two shootings by Muslim in this country in as many years. Now, I may be wrong, but I think it’s an accurate account. Meanwhile, in that same period, White men have committed at least one shooting every month.

It's single parents all over again.

Do single-parent homes have things tougher than two-parent homes? Of course, the question is how we respond to those issues. I know a single mom. My wife and I have been friends with her and her kids for years. I like to think we've been able to help them over the years. When we first met them, her kids were having some “issues” and it’s just possible that our presence, our contact with them helped them get through those problems.

Working together solves the problem, if it's a problem.

The “it takes a village” approach works. Her oldest went to MIT, with a full scholarship, to study robotics. Yes, such kids can do well. Heck, they can even be President of the United States.

The question is this, which is the best way of dealing with children from single-parent homes. A good support system is the answer, but it’s cumbersome, costly and time-consuming. Conservatives prefer short and simple answers, such as, take kids away from single-parent homes and put them with good families.

In the same way, White men can be gun-toting nut jobs and Muslims can become radical or they can all be fine upstanding citizens and neighbours. The question we now face is a biggie: how do we help single parents. In this case, I don't know the answer. I advise we be wary of the false piety of those who call for sacrifice to solve this problem, if it is a problem, so long as it doesn't affect them!