Don’t #ArrestGeorgeLopez

George Lopez performs at the "Kids Inaugural: We Are the Future" concert at the Verizon Center in downtown Washington, D.C., Jan. 19, 2009. Michelle Obama, wife of President-elect Barack Obama, along with daughters Malia and Sasha, were in attendance. (DoD photo by Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class Mark O'Donald, U.S. Navy/Released)

The outrage of the day has not come from the Golden Globe Awards, where Ricky Gervais torched the Hollywood “elite” in full view of the country. Those people smiled, applauded and took the jokes in stride.

The daily outrage instead focuses on formerly popular comedian George Lopez, who made a joke about killing President Trump to collect part of the bounty offered during the funeral of the murderer Soleimani.

Now, Fournier regularly tweets and retweets reactionary, incorrect and inane things… but he’s correct on this. The Secret Service absolutely should take a look into it. One of the most prominent functions of the Secret Service is the protection of the President, and they should investigate every potentially valid threat against the President’s life. This is what they did when Ted Nugent joked about killing Obama.

The howls of outrage came from the Democrats, then. Republicans like Sean Hannity reached out to Nugent, had him on their television and radio shows, and during friendly interviews confirmed that he’s meant what he said as hyperbole and humor. Lopez, it should be noted, is a putative comedian, while Nugent has a long weaponry-associated history; nevertheless, the tone of the two was identical: they both had established trails of public statements indicating their hatred for a President but neither had ever acted upon those statements in any way beyond a vote, a voice and legal donations.

Just as the Secret Service interviewed Nugent without being driven to do so by the Democrats, I expect they will do their job and interview Lopez and would have done so even without the first Great Republican Wailing of 2020.

Is that the extent of the demands from the supposedly freedom-loving Republicans? No.

The core of Americanism, which Charlie Kirk-style Republicans claim to love but have completely abandoned, is explained in our Declaration of Independence: Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness. Even if you wish to pick nits about the original inclusion of “property”, the fact remains that incarcerating someone for a joke strays very far from the founders’ vision.

The task of all parties and, really, all people who believe in the guiding principles of this nation should be to promote those three basic concepts, first for America and then for the world. This is not to grant any sort of support for any loathsome “America First” policy. The only reason I grant American primacy for those beliefs is that, as people who are supposed to be enjoying those blessings, we are honor-bound to keep them safe. Then we are to make this proven successful philosophy available to others… spreading the notion of human rights.

That’s the core. Human rights. We are to recognize them for ourselves and encourage them for others. How aggressively we fight internationally on behalf of those rights is the key question of our foreign policy. “America First” abandons them entirely in exchange for material gain, trashing the very Americanism it falsely claims to promote.

Instead we have people who are running for office as Republicans who either don’t understand or, worse, understand the notion of individual rights but don’t care. They see an opportunity for some quick personal gain and they’re taking it. The role of a lawmaker as one who would educate or inform about a topic is lost to them, either through ineptitude or duplicity.

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About AlienMotives 1991 Articles
Ex-Navy Reactor Operator turned bookseller. Father of an amazing girl and husband to an amazing wife. Tired of willful political blindness, but never tired of politics. Hopeful for the future.