Modern Civil Rights

Ann Coulter is a well-known political commentator and author (among other things) who is known for her extremely conservative opinions. She is a woman unconcerned with being impartial when speaking on public issues, which has stirred up much controversy in the past. Her online blog, AnnCoulter.com showcases her right-wing opinions, as we can see with her May 26th piece, "Modern Civil Rights: Cockfighting and Same-sex Proms". This article is just one example of the many biased, over-emotional, and outright annoying rants this woman has imposed on today's nation. While Ms. Coulter is obviously a very intelligent woman, having graduated from law school and worked for the Senate Judiciary Committee, her words convey a sense of immaturity and extreme prejudice that I find hard to get past.

Ann Coulter's "Modern Civil Rights..." blog was written in order to defend Republican Senate nominee Rand Paul after he asked to discuss whether "federal civil rights laws should be applied to private businesses". Because of this, Paul has been accused of racism. However Coulter argues here that the issue is not whether business can "engage in race discrimination" but whether civil rights laws should be able to stop any sort of discrimination. While I think that this is a valuable discussion, the writer turns this article into a war between Republicans and Democrats, which in my opinion completely misses the point of the whole issue. Her evidence of Democrat wrong-doing lies in past events (which in some cases are a stretch to connect to the issue) such as the fact that Al Gore's father and Bill Clinton's mentor (William Fulbright) were opponents of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. She goes on to talk about the Constance McMillen same-sex prom incident, later alluding to her as an "irritating lesbian", and "lawsuit-happy disabled persons", unable to hide her conservative views from the matters. But the real question is, what exactly is she talking about? The article seems to be about civil rights, however Coulter spends so much time griping about democrats and lesbians that she does not have a compelling argument for her confusing point.

Perhaps the article would be easier to read if Coulter did not riddle it with sarcastic rhetorical questions, air-quotes, and mean-spirited jabs at the Democratic party every chance she got. We get the picture. She hates liberals... and thinks she's clever and cool because she doesn't care what anyone thinks about her narrow-minded views. Although, maybe she is the smart one after all. By that I mean I'm pretty sure my blood pressure was a little higher after reading that article; I felt more passion for something politically oriented than I have in a long time. However that being said, maybe some day Ms. Coulter will remember that a little bit of niceness goes a long way.