I'd like to give notice. There must be someone, some registry I can add my name to as one who wishes to officially disassociate myself with the idiocy of America. Those who doubted that our experiment in including the rabble in government would fare any better than the French Revolution did would, if they could, be smiling to read Florida gubernatorial candidate Rick Scott's campaign rhetoric and would spit up in their coffins to read the comments on his website from people responding to his appeal to "stand with Rick Scott" in pushing for an unconstitutional immigration policy. The end should justify the means in Florida and not just in Arizona.
The United States Constitution, like the Bible and the Qur'an are mirrors in which we see our thoughts justified, venal and noble. I hear from people who insist that Arizona is doing what's necessary and if immigrants are second class citizens, required to wear yellow stars and carry papers at all times, it simply doesn't bother them. Of course if the Coast Guard hails and boards their yachts and fishing boats asking for papers; asking about weapons aboard and checking registration and proof of ownership? Why that's unconstitutional!
In fact the constitution demands that the US protect our states from "invasion" by gardeners, fruit pickers, dish washers and day laborers, says one Scott supporter. And of course, it's not racism, says another. It's simply our distaste for infractions of the law, you see. If we were being "invaded" by Canadians, we'd need to do the same thing although since nobody seems to bother tallying up the number of Canadians in the US illegally and fair skinned blue-eyed, people named McKenzie or Scott aren't being stopped in Home Depot parking lots for interrogation. I frankly don't think anyone gives a damn about immigration law or quotas or visas or green cards. I think it's about an ethnically pure America, just as it always has been.
No, I don't deny the need to control immigration. I don't deny that there is a problem with porous borders. I do deny that the problems need to be dealt with by taking away yet another bit of American freedom.
I don't notice much damn being given at all about US agents shooting a Mexican 14 year old on Mexican soil for throwing rocks either. Fox News of course assured us that it was all OK, since the kid was "known to authorities," although in Fox Fashion, no actually authorities were identified or quoted and more than likely weren't actually consulted. Why bother, why care? Something needs to be done and so anything can be done and let's just be done with it.
Will Florida join the Arizona Confederacy and force people with Spanish accents and other unspecified characteristics to stop and furnish papers or be arrested? Will we fire teachers with accents and punish schools that mention Cesar Chavez or that the Seminoles were hunted down like animals and killed and tortured or that an entire Florida town was murdered and no one was prosecuted for it or that (yes, it's true) our fair state tolerated de facto slavery until the 1940's?
If I'm looking at the future when I look at Arizona and listen to Rick Scott, if the near unanimous opinion of my peers is that we have a disaster in the Gulf because of "too much government regulation" I want no part of the insanity, the stupidity, the animal rage, the drooling masses yearning to bring back what my parents' generation and my generation fought to free us from.
My plan is to await the outcome of the November elections. If it appears that the right wing Nazis are taking over the government, I intend to sell my condo and move out of the country (meanwhile sparing readers the string of epithets and contempt that I hold for these bastards).
ReplyDelete"I would prefer not to."
ReplyDeleteI hadn't heard about the 14 year old boy. I've run out of gas when it comes to epithets that are strong enough to express my rage.
ReplyDeleteI like your point about the Canadians and I bet a lot of them have French accents. I wonder how these Americans would react if foreign countries treated them the way they treat Hispanics.
Yes, we in Tennessee are very familiar with Rick Scott. Very.
ReplyDeleteConvicted felon. Responsible for the largest defrauding of the government in U.S. history. $1.7 billion payout to settle charges of overbilling state and federal health programs.
Florida voters must be the absolute stupidest people on earth if they think electing a convicted felon--convicted for defrauding the government, let me add--to high government office will end in anything but the most predictable results.
Still boycotting Florida, yes I am.
I want my country back. These lunatic elements have kidnapped the promise of our ideals and replaced them with our baser impulses that arise from rabid animosity against all that we perceive as other or not us. This country has never been perfect, but our strength has been our aspirations to ideals about equality and human rights. Now those aspirations have been replaced by a complacent acceptance of bigotry and discrimination as the norm. People gather in the streets to protest the right to be a bigot. I remember when the protests were against bigotry and for equality.
ReplyDeleteSheria - “those aspirations have been replaced by a complacent acceptance of bigotry and discrimination as the norm …”
ReplyDeletePerhaps I have no right to speak for everyone here, but my instincts tell me that there is a mutually felt disgust and demoralization wrought by the rise of bigots and nutjobs in our public discourse.
I blame the MSM most of all for publicizing false balance and fact-free spin that legitimizes right wing talking points. Instead of calling out the lies, distortions, and the sociopathy of the rabble, we are subjected to a He Said/She Said format of talking heads that seeks the middle ground but not the truth. This trend in journalism yields a regression towards a phony mean, aka “refuge,” but all it accomplishes is the dumbing-down of the electorate. Meanwhile, the rabble gets a platform to espouse their bigotry and stupidity.
Hopefully, when I get out from under the creation of our new home, I’ll devote some time to a post on junk journalism.
As the nation's population devolves into incomprehensible babbling, drool-freaks, I am repeatedly reminded of the old film, "The Time Machine" where the underground dwellers come out every night to steal and kill - the Morlocks they were called.
ReplyDeleteFeels like the future has arrived; hello darkness my old friend...
Rocky,
ReplyDeleteThat film must have been based on H.G. Wells' brief sci-fi novel (1895), which went by the same title.
Yes, Dino, it was based on the HG Wells novel. There were several movie versions made but my favorite and the one I'm referring to is the 1960 version starring Rod Taylor and Yvette Mimieux.
ReplyDeleteBack then I couldn't imagine such a world. What a difference a few years make!