A lesson from...Ann Coulter?

Not quite.

This morning, a friend of mine posted on Facebook "An Open Letter to Ann Coulter". Most of you may not know this, but I have read a couple of her books in the past. There are some things I've read that she makes sense on. But, more often than not, this woman just spews hatred.

Since I didn't watch much of the debate and I don't follow Ann on Twitter, I had totally missed her use of the R-word. But I am so glad that John Franklin Stephens didn't miss what she posted. In reading his letter, what jumped out at me was the following:

"Finally, I wondered if you meant to degrade him as someone who is likely to receive bad health care, live in low grade housing with very little income and still manages to see life as a wonderful gift."

And while I know he was talking about people with disabilities, it also struck me because I had just told a friend of mine this past week that I felt silly for tearing up every time I saw someone on the side of the road with a cardboard sign, looking for food or a job. I felt silly because most people would just ignore them and go about with their day, yet here I was thinking about what I could do to help them. Granted, I've always felt this way about the homeless people I've encountered.

You never know what people have gone through. They could be military veterans. They could have disabilities that hinder their ability to work. We are so quick to judge and degrade others, yet we have no idea what challenges and struggles they've gone through.

And despite those struggles, they still keep on keepin' on.

Is it that people are scared of what is different from themselves and what they know that they feel the need to degrade others? Is it that they don't care how they treat other people? Is it that they are so insecure of themselves they have to put others down to feel better?

I think it's all of these things. But personally, I wouldn't be able to sleep at night.

I hope you can sleep at night, Ann Coulter. Especially since you have a whole lot of people that will be fighting back against you, led by John Franklin Stephens.

“The best index to a person's character is how he treats people who can't do him any good, and how he treats people who can't fight back.” - Abigail Van Buren