...And you might ask, how exactly is this news? Well, it turns out they're undocumented immigrants. If they had been American citizens, I doubt this would be nearly as "newsworthy" as Fox Snooze has made it out to be.

I found out about this last night, when I watched a Youtube video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YykvLewT3FQ in which Tucker Carlson of Fox News is acting like it's a much worse situation than it actually is, because not only are the defendants illegal immigrants, but GASP! their attorney isn't willing to divulge intimately personal information about his clients to Tucker Carlson on national TV.

Now I need you to understand something before I continue. I believe that illegal immigrants are breaking the law by being in the United States without proper authorization, and thus I believe that they are criminals. I also believe that illegal immigrants are mainly being protected by some municipalities not for humanitarian reasons but rather for financial reasons: businesses don't have to pay illegal immigrants minimum wage, or provide them with healthcare or any other real benefit that they are required to give to American citizens. At the end of the day, I truly believe that these "sanctuary cities" as they're calling themselves are hiding illegals because they stand to lose a lot of money if their illegal populations are shipped back to their home countries. So I actually am against illegal immigration, and as far as I'm concerned, the defendants in this case are criminals by virtue of them being in this country illegally. To me, that is not open for debate. What this is about is not their illegal immigrant status, but rather it is about the rape allegations that are being made and more importantly the way in which certain right-wing "news" outlets are treating the whole shebang.

Anyway, so Tucker Carlson is all up in arms over these two teenage boys (one is 18, the other is 17) being accused of rape, and he's basically going "zomg, they raped a 14 year old, and how can this attorney who's on his program actually defend these guys in court? Oh my fucking gawd, how horrible this is, and how evil this attorney is for defending two rapists who molested a poor innocent little girl...."

Only she's not a little girl according to Maryland State Law, and though this might be a rape case, according to that same law it's not a child molestation case. Carlson doesn't seem to notice, or maybe he does notice and simply is unwilling to admit it, that in the State of Maryland, a 14 year old girl DOES have the right to consent to sex, provided that her partner is no more than four years older than she is. Nor does he seem to get that the defendants are NOT being accused of child molesting, child rape, or statutory rape. All he seems to care about is the moral outrage that this attorney is even asking if this is a consensual thing... after all, according to Carlson she's obviously just a little innocent little girl, omg, how can you claim that she had any right to consent in the first place, zomfgwtfbbqstfu?

As you probably can tell from my colorful language, I don't exactly have a high opinion of Mr. Carlson. The man is making a mountain out of a molehill, a moral outrage out of an attorney not giving him intimate personal information about his client on national television, and basically trying to assassinate the attorney's character because the attorney won't break with ethics that all lawyers are required to abide by in order to continue practicing law in this country. He's taking a total non-issue and turning it into a travesty so his bosses at Fox News can get more views and through that, more money.

Worst of all, I'm seeing self-proclaimed conservatives, people who usually are pretty respectful of the law when it comes due process and stuff like that, at least in my experience (I am not a conservative myself, but I do agree with them on the rule of law, for the most part), basically saying that the defendants don't deserve a trial, that the girl should be completely taken at her word and that they should be convicted based solely upon the accusation, and I don't see any real desire by a very large amount of the commenters that I've read to let the courts do their job.

Some of these, I'm pretty sure, are the same people who when police officer Darren Wilson shot a black thug named Michael Brown, demanded that Wilson be given a fair trial. They're probably also the same people who demanded that George Zimmerman be given a fair trial in the killing of Trayvon Martin. But now all of a sudden, when it's illegal immigrants who are being accused of rape, and the facts are not even all out yet, they're demanding that they not even get a trial. And yet when I pointed this out, the response to me was a comparison of the lawyer to a Nazi concentration camp guard who was "just following orders" during the Holocaust.

I responded to that commenter a few hours later pointing out that what Tucker Carlson and they are both doing is promoting a lynch mob mentality. I also reminded them that this nation is ruled by laws, not by the will of mobs of citizens wielding pitchforks and nooses. They haven't responded, and I honestly hope they got the message and that they decide not to continue the rhetoric. This country just went through a hellish time of riots and people threatening the new President with assassination, calling for a military coup and shit like that. I didn't vote for Trump, but I'll be goddamned if I'm going to sit here and support that kind of violent behavior. People are losing their jobs for being "extremists" right now because they dare to say that Freedom of Speech is a good thing and should be protected. The desire to silence any and all opposition is palpable, but silencing your opposition isn't going to fix anything except maybe the fragile egos of people who throw temper tantrums whenever someone who doesn't even know them from Adam uses the wrong pronoun when talking about them because they're not psychic and don't know any better.

My point is that this is a nation of laws, not of mob rule. I don't know if those boys raped that girl or not, and I won't believe they did it unless they are proved guilty in a court of law. If they're found [i]not[/i] guilty, they're still illegals and they don't belong here, and they're going to need to enter this country through the proper channels instead of sneaking in undocumented.

Like I said above, I'm not a conservative, and I don't play one on TV. While I agree with the conservatives on a few things, most of my opinions are liberal and I disagree with conservatives on a great many things. That being said, however, I believe that you can disagree with someone and still respect them. I base my decision whether or not to respect people on their actions. If you're an asshole to me, I'm not going to respect you, no matter how many political opinions we may agree on. Likewise, if you're courteous and polite to me, I'm going to be a lot more willing to respect you regardless of how much we may disagree. It all boils down to your behavior, not your opinion.

I want these boys to get a fair trial, and I want the verdict to be based on the evidence, not upon the whims of the Court of Public Opinion or the mob mentality that has infected the United States as of late thanks mainly to self-proclaimed "liberals" who would rather burn college campuses down than allow conservatives to come there and use words they don't want to hear, or would rather get people fired from their jobs for disagreeing with them on minor things or otherwise being "offensive." I am a liberal, for the most part, and I am quite frankly ashamed to call myself one right now, because that word was never intended to mean what the rioters and the overbearing dipshits who want to take everyone else's rights away from them so that they can have control over American society have hijacked it to mean. Much like the word "racism," "Liberal" doesn't mean what the violent pricks who are calling for a military coup in this country want it to mean.

But more than a liberal, I am an American, and I don't like seeing this country divided by a bunch of opportunistic rhetoricians like Tucker Carlson who won't even take the three or four minutes a Google search for "Maryland age of consent laws" would require before blasting two young men as child molesters when they aren't even being charged with such a crime. Illegal immigrants are definitely criminals in my book, but they're not the real problem here. If you want to know who to blame for all the woes this country is going through, you could quite easily blame the "infotainment" industry. CNN, FOX, MSNBC, etc., are all in it for the money, and they don't care how many lies they tell so long as they turn a fucking profit. So like I said, you could blame them... or you could blame the real culprit: YOURSELVES , because you trust these motherfuckers to tell you the truth every time you sit down in front of your living room television set and tune in to their siren song. The mainstream media doesn't tell the truth, but they make their money because you won't change the channel. So here's an idea for all of us who want to make a change for the better in this country: how's about you stop trusting the mainstream media to tell you the truth for a change? Look around you, make your own observations, decide for yourself, and stop letting these liars do your thinking for you.