The IRS took five years to review the Crossroads GPS application for nonprofit social welfare status. This seems very odd since most Americans would need only five minutes to determine that such a group is about politics, not social welfare.

Imagine parents endlessly praising their son as "the smartest, handsomest, most athletically gifted boy since God created Adam." We'd conclude that they were thoroughly obnoxious, if not a bit unhinged. Yet the military remains just this sort of favored son, the country's golden child. And to the golden child go the spoils.

If "affluenza" is indeed what caused Ethan Couch to get behind the wheel with a blood alcohol count three times the legal limit for adults, resulting in the deaths of four people, he deserves to face consequences. But he also deserves to get some help.

This difference, of how our society perceives black and white children is what makes the juxtaposition of Couch and Rice particularly compelling. The individuals within the cogs of the criminal justice system examining the liability of Officers Loehmann and Garmback in the death of Tamir Rice absolved them of responsibility in Rice's tragic death.

A new year faces us. Who the hell are we and what have we become if we accept this kind of tragedy as unavoidable? What are our resolves?