I’ve noticed something, or rather, had it confirmed once again. In a time of peace or when no global trauma is taking place, smartasses have an audience. They are like the schoolyard bully no one confronts, until one day when someone does, and then they are no longer the big man on the schoolyard. 

Once a war starts or an innocent grade school kid is killed in a drive-by shooting, or any sad event takes place, smartasses don’t sound so cool or hip anymore. Their voice becomes more hollow and irrelevant in the middle of a crisis. 

Smartass inclined social critics look for the smallest slip of someone’s tongue, a miss-applied metaphor, and jump on the issue offering their smart-assed response. Their critique lets everyone know the depth of their shallow intellect, and even more sadly, the mud puddle capacity of their empathy for others they deem as intellectually less.

Don’t be a smartass. Just be smart.