The way some on the right in this country act when someone dares to have an opinion contrary to their own, you would think they might be cool with not applying the First Amendment to anyone but themselves.
Case in point: Fox News is all worked up about some comments made by director Quentin Tarantino recently while at a Rise Up October rally against police brutality in America. At that rally, Tarantino remarked:
“I’m a human being with a conscience. And if you believe there’s murder going on then you need to rise up and stand up against it. I’m here to say I’m on the side of the murdered.”
But from the reaction, you’d think Tarantino had just called for mass anarchy and for everyone to grab a weapon and find the nearest cop to use it against. He said no such thing. He merely stated a fact: Some police officers are murderers, just as some dogs are more prone to bite than others.
Last night on MSNBC, Tarantino noted:
“I was under the impression I was an American and that I had First Amendment rights and there was no problem with me going to an anti-police brutality protest and speaking my mind. And just because I was at an anti-police brutality protest doesn’t mean I’m anti-police.”
But last night and this morning on Fox, they spent considerable time on Tarantino’s remarks, attempting to deconstruct them as if they are the latest novel from a writer who specializes in subtext and allusion.
Here’s some of the nonsense they spewed this morning on the sophomoric “Fox and Friends.” They were practically foaming at the mouth. Steve Doocy blathered:
“Quentin Tarantino doubles down on his comments about cops. Now he’s blaming white supremacy for police brutality. Not kidding!”
Then Fox News contributor Rod Wheeler–who is a former cop–chimed in and added this:
“It was Quentin that started the hating. He wasn’t just at that rally supporting the folks there, he was at that rally encouraging the crowd to be violent, he was there encouraging the crowd to be anti-police. So it is what it is. And my message to Tarantino is just shut the hell up.”
See, there it is again: I disagree with you, so you need to just shut up! To that I say, Bullshit! Tarantino is just as entitled to express his opinion as the fake news puppets at Fox News.
How in the world did we ever get to the point in this country that anyone who dares to criticize the police is suddenly a cop hater? Some on the right love to wail against “political correctness,” and then they want to impose their own version of it.
So let’s state the facts: Some police officers are murderers, and some have been convicted of that very act. Now let’s figure out how we change this and move forward in a manner that will make us better as a society.
Featured image by Gentside, available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial license.
