On Monday, Fox News Channel’s Tucker Carlson opened his show with a warning about political violence, which he described as short-circuits the American system of governance and undermines democracy.
The “Tucker Carlson Tonight” host said the ultimate result from this mob rule was there are two sets of standards applied to people based on their political views.
Partial transcript as follows:
CARLSON: You can tell a lot about a society by what shocks its leaders. For generations, what shocked the people in charge of this country was political violence, hurting your neighbors for having different opinions. They were appalled by it, and they were right to be. Political violence isn’t simply an assault on individual Americans. It’s an attack on America itself.
In this country, we governed by consent, not by force. People with guns don’t make our laws. Voters do. You may have a Glock in your hand, but on Election Day, you have precisely as many votes as the little old lady who disagrees with you. That’s our system. The weak are supposed to have as much power over the government as the strong. That’s the basis of our equality as Americans, something we should cherish and protect.
Political violence immediately short-circuits this. It ends democracy. Violence instead returns us to the most primitive of all systems, one in which might makes right. People who hurt others get to do exactly what they want. Everyone else has to obey them. There is no greater threat to civilization than this, and we used to understand that because it’s obvious.
But things have changed. People who run this country are no longer shocked by political violence. They welcome it. They slyly encourage it. They are its beneficiary. They tell us the only real crimes are thought crimes. It’s OK to set fires or smash strangers in the face with 2x4s. So long as you are chanting the correct slogan. If you are on the right team, everything is allowed. But if you dare to dissent from the orthodoxy, you will be swiftly punished.
Go ahead and express the wrong opinion. Try it in a meeting. Try it on Facebook. They will find you. You will lose your job, your reputation, possibly, or even your life. The message they are sending you is very clear: Americans are not equal anymore. There are two standards. One standard for them at a very different standard for you.
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