'Tyrants And Potential Tyrants Often Surface In The Midst Of A Real Or Perceived Crisis...The Goal Is Control

Tyrants Gonna Be Tyrants: Once New Jersey had a real Governor

By Lee Cary

urrent New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy probably wishes he’d not made a statement during an interview with FOX’s Tucker Carlson, after it went big-league viral.

It happened at about the 9:54 mark in the YouTube video of the Carlson-Murphy interview. 

Carlson was pressing Murphy for an explanation of why a man sitting alone in a park, on a bench, was arrested. 

Carlson asked—upon what basis in “science” does that limit the spread of the Coronavirus? 

The Governor didn’t have an answer. Murphy diverted to the need to limit big gatherings of people at parks. A clumsy dodge. 

Carlson moved on to the arrest of several congregants in a Synagogue, and asked why that arrest wasn’t a violation of their rights under the Bill of Rights.  The Governor ducked and weaved.  

Then came the Tucker question that made New Jersey’s Governor a media celebrity, second only to the late Tony Soprano. Carlson asked,

”By what authority did you nullify the Bill of Rights? How do you have the power to do that?”

The Governor of New Jersey answered, while smiling for the first time in the interview:

“That’s above my pay grade, Tucker. So, I, I wasn’t thinking of the Bill of Rights when we did this.” The rest of his response doesn’t matter.  Just more blah, blah, blah.

Tyrants, and potential tyrants, often surface in the midst of a real, or perceived crisis.  Their goal is always about control. 

That hasn’t always been true of New Jersey Governors. Take the state’s first governor, for example.

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