March
25, 2003 8:20 a.m. The
Sacred Right to Be Stupid
Face
to face with antiwar crowd.
ow's this for irony: a small army of cops, myself reluctantly among
them, traipsing through the streets of Hollywood on Sunday, preventing
the assembled antiwar protesters from invading the annual orgy of self-congratulation
that is the Academy Awards. That's right, we were protecting the highly
paid pacifist pinheads inside from the unemployed pacifist pinheads outside.
Had it been left up to me, we would have let the rabble storm up Highland
Avenue and right into the Kodak Theater to do what mischief they may.
In addition to the personal gratification such a spectacle would have
offered, it might well have given a needed boost to the television ratings,
said to be the lowest in history. (If any network executives are reading
this, they're stroking their chins and saying, "Hmmm, sounds like
a 60 share.") But as it was, we did our job and things came off without
a hitch, thereby providing Michael Moore with the opportunity to prove
to the world, or to those few people still unaware of the fact, that he
is an arrogant simpleton.
Given the timing of the ceremony, coming as it did as Americans were fighting
and dying half a world away, there was much talk of the show taking on
a more subtle tone, a more subdued atmosphere. But the only manifestation
of this seemed to be the abandonment of the usual mindless chatter before
the cameras and the tourists as the Beautiful People emerged from their
limousines and promenaded down the red carpet. Watching a tape of the
broadcast after coming home from work, I found that most of the people
seemed just as vacuous and insincere as they are every year, and there
was shamefully little acknowledgment of the ongoing valor and sacrifice
of America's armed forces. Gathered here was the cream of the entertainment
industry, known here in Los Angeles as the Industry with a capital I.
These people in their wisdom chose to bestow on Mr. Moore an Oscar for
Best Documentary, this despite the fact that his film, Bowling for
Columbine, took more than a few liberties with the truth, a disqualifying
defect in a more rational milieu. And, just to prove that this so-called
Academy is capable of even further debasement of the culture, they gave
the award for Best Director to fugitive child rapist Roman Polanski, prompting
a thunderous ovation from those present. If Polanski had dared to appear
to accept his Oscar, you would have seen a thousand cops rushing the stage
trying to be the first to slap the cuffs on him. Instead we busied ourselves
out on the streets, rushing this way and that as the crowd of protesters
made attempt after futile attempt to get closer to the center of events.
Protest is of course an honorable tradition here in the freest nation
in the history of mankind, and I'll be the last to deny anyone his right
to petition the government for a redress of grievances, no matter how
moronic they might be. The United States was born of dissent against king
and country, and the First Amendment is indeed first for good reason.
But in considering the protesters I encountered in Hollywood on Sunday
and at the West Los Angeles Federal Building earlier in the week, I doubt
Madison and Jefferson would look upon them as upholding the noblest ideals
of the Founding. Emblazoned on signs and T-shirts throughout the crowds
I faced were images of, to name only the most offensive, Yasser Arafat,
Fidel Castro, Che Guevara, and Mumia Abu Jamal, who oddly can claim some
level of moral superiority to the others in that he committed only a single
murder.
I concede that there may indeed be valid reasons for opposing the war
in Iraq, but I didn't hear any from the protesters I faced off with over
the weekend. Instead I heard comparisons of President Bush to Hitler,
with Hitler, apparently, being the more honorable of the two. On one level
it's easy to enjoy a laugh at the farcical nature of it all, but the moral
inversion symbolized by the cold-blooded killers so proudly displayed
on all those signs and T-shirts simply drains the humor from things. In
the bizarre world of the protesters George Bush is the bad guy, while
Arafat, Castro, and the others are the good guys. Given this moral inversion
it is unsurprising that the protesters, whether they acknowledge it or
not, should in the current debate come down on the side of Saddam Hussein,
of whose depravity we will more fully learn as more and more Iraqis are
delivered from his tyranny.
But this end will not come about without further sacrifice. As I write
this there have been some 50 deaths among the coalition forces now headed
for Baghdad, and I doubt these deaths have caused much concern among the
no-war-for-oil crowd. While manning a skirmish line and looking through
my face shield at the angry faces before me this week, I was glad to recall
an encounter of an entirely different nature I had a few weeks earlier.
I was working the security detail at LAX, and while there I passed the
airport branch of the USO. Gathered there in front, their duffel bags
precisely aligned, were about 150 freshly minted United States Marines,
just out of boot camp at Camp Pendleton. They were waiting for the various
flights that would take them to their next assignments, some perhaps destined
for combat in Iraq. I stopped and talked with a few of them, and I was
struck by how happy they were to at last be wearing the eagle-globe-and-anchor
insignia they had earned through the rigors and discipline of Marine Corps
recruit training. They were proud to be Marines, proud to be Americans.
How incomprehensively different those young men were from the protesters
who screamed and spit at me these last few days. Yes, protest may be an
honorable tradition in America, but an even more honorable one is fighting
for one's country. Those Marines may at this moment be in combat, fighting
for the rights of people like Michael Moore and all those misguided protesters
to stand up, be it on a stage or on a street corner, and act like idiots.
God bless America.
—
Jack Dunphy is an officer in the Los Angeles Police Department. "Jack
Dunphy" is the author's nom de cyber. The opinions expressed are
his own and almost certainly do not reflect those of the LAPD management.
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ow's this for irony: a small army of cops, myself reluctantly among
them, traipsing through the streets of Hollywood on Sunday, preventing
the assembled antiwar protesters from invading the annual orgy of self-congratulation
that is the Academy Awards. That's right, we were protecting the highly
paid pacifist pinheads inside from the unemployed pacifist pinheads outside.
Had it been left up to me, we would have let the rabble storm up Highland
Avenue and right into the Kodak Theater to do what mischief they may.
In addition to the personal gratification such a spectacle would have
offered, it might well have given a needed boost to the television ratings,
said to be the lowest in history. (If any network executives are reading
this, they're stroking their chins and saying, "Hmmm, sounds like
a 60 share.") But as it was, we did our job and things came off without
a hitch, thereby providing Michael Moore with the opportunity to prove
to the world, or to those few people still unaware of the fact, that he
is an arrogant simpleton.
