Posted on 08/01/2003 5:29:11 PM PDT by Ex-Dem
In recent weeks there has been an upsurge, even from the Democrats in Congress, about the evils of expressing your First Amendment rights if it means criticizing a Hollywood celebrity. The elite are protected from the "rabble" both by the Democrats, who think they know who butters their bread, and by the media, which sees anyone who doesn't think like them as, well, "rabble."
Apparently the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is at the disposal of the left but not anyone else. The left can boycott, criticize and pretty much damn the government and country and anyone else they see as a threat - or even an annoyance. But woe to the person or persons who criticize the left. For the left, bad-mouthing America is patriotic, but bad-mouthing the person bad-mouthing America is downright treasonous.
USA Weekend.com ran a July 6 story on Johnny Depp, the "always-offbeat" star of the new Disney movie, Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl. Basically, the story on Depp is his condemnation of America, its people and its place in the world. Johnny "loves" America, but prefers France. He moved there five years ago and has never looked back. You see, France is far more civilized than America for Johnny as he is "shocked by the gun violence in American schools and feels it is far safer raising a family in France."
Depp prefers to "live a simple life" in France. According to the article, the simple life for Johnny is one in which he can "live as he pleases in a French farmhouse near swanky Saint-Tropez and choose which roles he wants to play." He also likes to go out and buy "$18,000 bottles of wine in restaurants and pals around with Rolling Stones bad boys Keith Richards and Ron Wood."
However, Johnny loves "France and [to] be living in a tiny village with nothing around. There is still the possibility to live a simple life. You can go to the market, walk about, buy fruits and vegetables - the things they did 100 and 200 years ago. We have moments when we're sitting in our house and our kids are playing, and we look at one another and think, 'Thank God we escaped.'"
For Johnny, buying a cucumber or a cabbage from a market is primitive living, while living and being in America is a place and state of being from which to "escape." Just the same, Johnny wants us all to pay U.S. dollars to see him in the movies so he can continue to bad-mouth the country that allowed him to become an "artiste."
If anyone dare criticize that pompous little twerp for bad-mouthing America, it is an "infringement" on his First Amendment rights.
But the folks over at Disney love the guy. After all, they are the same company that wanted to bankroll Michael Moore's new hate-America project until the word got out and many Americans became upset. Apparently Disney executives folded at the prospect of being discovered for what they really are (among the "elite left"), and now Mikey has to find funding elsewhere.
But Depp sees the French as far more sophisticated and erudite than the backward Americans. "He rejects the view that there has been a surge of anti-Americanism there because of opposition to the U.S.-led war in Iraq, and he believes the French people have behaved in a dignified manner while some Americans have resorted to 'schoolyard tactics' by renaming french fries 'freedom fries.'"
As far as the war in Iraq is concerned, Johnny sees only the ugly Americans bullying the world's innocent and defenseless peoples. "I saw these American kids being shipped off to war, and I was looking at their faces and thinking, 'They're not ready for it.'" He added, "Is anybody ever ready for it? You're thinking about where they're going, what they're getting into. What's it really all about? It's about dough; it's about money. That's ugly."
Besides trashing America, Johnny also has advice on parenting and family values - you know, the things we once associated with Disney. Johnny has a couple of children whom he loves dearly, along with their mother. However, he hasn't as yet chosen to marry. Johnny doesn't think it is important just yet. He wants to wait awhile so that the marriage will mean something to his children. Johnny wants to wait to marry the mother of his children until his "kids are old enough to enjoy it." Marriage for Johnny, unlike us mere mortals, is all about the ceremony. He is not getting married for the sake of his wife or for the sake of his children, but rather for the sake of entertaining his children. How sick is that?
Like Susan Sarandon, the Dixie Chicks and countless other celebrities before him, Depp has taken what was given to him by America and her people, and stepped all over it.
Perhaps next time America creates a new star with all the wealth and fame that goes with it, we Americans will remember to keep the receipt.
Paul Walfield is a free-lance writer and an attorney and counselor at law with an undergraduate degree in psychology and postgraduate study in behavioral and analytical psychology. He can be contacted at paul.walfield@cox.net.
I'm so sure that his kids would be sent to public school, here in the U.S.
What? I thought it was an utopia over there. Well, at least a gun wasn't involved. /sarcasm
Johnny Depp can write a check to me and I'll take all that offensive money of his off his hands.
It will not bother my crude American sensibilities in the least.
I'm assuming that he is a US citizen. That said, does that mean he has surrendered his citizenship, thus unable to benefit from the protections afforded US citizens living abroad AND the right to vote in US elections?
I'm not fond of "dual citizenship"...for anyone!
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