Saturday, February 11, 2023

Govs DeSantis & Abbott Out of Control: Who and How Soon Can They Be Stopped

Gov. DeSantis (R-FL) & Gov. Abbott (R-TX)
(Both anti-social programs and public education)

My introduction to the following: What is negative eugenics? Negative eugenics aimed to eliminate, through sterilization or segregation, those deemed physically, mentally, or morally undesirable. This includes abortions, sterilization, and other methods of family planning.

Think about that in today’s conservative-driven political climate: What about a child born with gay tendencies only revealed in their pre-teens years. Did their parent genes fail – what caused that and how can or will harsh education policy like in FL and other hardcore conservative states control that imply by saying: “Don’t say gay.”

Or, worse by implementing laws banning certain sex education classes and books in schools and now even stopping teachers from discussing the topic about race, religion, and especially American slavery. When a student on class asks a question about those topics and w/o parental permission in advance, FL, TX and now in MO we see this policy kick in:

MO has a new law that aims to outdo Florida's “Don't Say Gay” by banning school staff from even discussing sexual orientation or LGBTQ issues with students who ask and w/o their parent’s consent.

I believe that no one likes to use or compare anything to Hitler and or Nazi examples. However, Nazi history and their acts from the 1930’s to their defeat in WWII that ended in 1945 cannot be excused or dismissed, either.

For Example: The Nazis used terms such as: “Asocial and Workshy” to categorize groups of people who did not conform to their social norms. People in those groups included beggars, homeless people, alcoholics, drug addicts, prostitutes, and even pacifists (e.g., those who believed war was not justified).

Asocials” were persecuted and some were taken to concentration camps where they were forced to wear black triangles.

Background from 1933 to 1945: Nazi Germany carried out a campaign to “cleanse German society of individuals viewed as biological threats to the nation’s health.   

Under Hitler, physicians, geneticists, psychiatrists, and anthropologists were used to develop racial health policies beginning with mass sterilization of “genetically diseased” persons and ended with the near annihilation of European Jews. 

Their massive programs of “cleansing” forced some 400,000 sterilizations and some 275,000 euthanasia deaths that resulted in the most-radical of all with the ruthless killing of 6 million Jews known in the Holocaust, as well as 5 million others suffering under Nazi hatred and dislike of them

Today we see examples from Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) and Gov. Greg Abbott (R-TX):

First Gov. DeSantis in this timely article from the Orlando Weekly with the below headline:

“It's hard to keep up with the cultivated chaos Gov. Ron DeSantis is wreaking on Florida schools”

Florida's public education system has taken a punch to the gut not once, not twice, but multiple times over year. Even Orlando Weekly staff have to admit it's been tough to keep up with the last couple of months of chaos.

FLORIDA'S K-12 SYSTEM UNDER ATTACK:

Book bans and removals: School districts across FL, and across the country, are pulling “controversial books” (predominantly those that explore LGBTQ+ themes, or acknowledge that racism is real) from school library shelves, including in teachers' own classrooms. A new state rule stemming from a Republican-sponsored bill signed into law last year (HB 1467) requires school-library employees (aka media specialists) to undergo new yearly training sessions. The guidelines are part of a new law aimed at increasing scrutiny of library books and instructional materials in Florida's public schools. To get some idea of the direction this is going, one of the guidelines would require avoiding “unsolicited theories that may lead to student indoctrination.”

Aside from the question of how a librarian can offer books to a student while avoiding “unsolicited theories.”

One problem is that not every school has a media specialist on staff. Plus, now there's something of a teacher/support staff shortage going on in FL schools right now — go figure!

Another problem: This new rule increases the workload of those that are in schools. All books in school libraries, including teachers' classroom libraries, must be approved by a qualified media specialist, scrutinized to ensure they're age-appropriate, free from pornography and “suited to student needs.”

A lot more on DeSantis at the Orlando Weekly link above.

Now on to Gov. Greg Abbott (R-TX) going wild on his own seen in this article from the Texas Tribune with this headline:

“Greg Abbott ran as a small-government conservative. But the governor’s office now has more power than ever.”

Abbott has consolidated power like none before him, at times circumventing the GOP-controlled Legislature and overriding local officials. A flurry of executive measures has solidified his base and raised his national profile.

Days after being elected Texas governor in 2014, Gov. Abbott called a staff meeting to discuss his vision for leading the state, saying: Our number one priority as public servants is is to follow the law. Adhering to the law was a way to ignore the pressure of politics, polls, money and lobbying.”

The Republican governor-elect said he rejected the path of Democratic President Barack Obama, whom he had sued 34 times as attorney general. Abbott claimed that Obama had usurped Congress’ power by using executive orders, including one to protect from deportation young people born in other countries and brought to the United States as children (the DACA program).

Now, nearly eight years into his governorship, Abbott’s actions belie his words. He has consolidated power like no Texas governor in recent history, at times circumventing the GOP-controlled state Legislature and overriding local officials.

The governor used the pandemic to block judges from ordering the release of some prisoners who couldn’t post cash bail and unilaterally defunded the legislative branch because lawmakers had failed to approve some of his top priorities. He also used his disaster authority to push Texas further than any other state on immigration and was the first to send thousands of immigrants by bus to Democratic strongholds (in DC, NYC, and Chicago for example).

Impact of those wild decisions:

* D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser has spent more than $8 million in the last four months to address the influx of migrants being transported to the nation's capital,

* Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot has asked the state of Illinois for $50 million to care for migrants arriving in her city.

* NYC Mayor Eric Adams has estimated that the 43,000 asylum seekers that the city has taken since the spring have cost the city as much as $2 billion. It's not only the costs but NYC is running out of places to house incoming migrants. Abbott's decision to send migrants to cities unaccustomed to handling these numbers of people has put emphasis on how demanding the influx of migrants has been on Southern states. That has led the public to question what's being done to address the issue. There are calls for Biden to deploy the military to assist with the migrants. But, Sec. Def. Lloyd Austin has declined requests for the National Guard to help with the transportation & reception of migrants saying it would hurt the troop readiness.

More on Abbott at the Texas Tribune link above.

My 2 Cents: Govs. DeSantis and Abbott are just simply out of control and stand for nothing but turmoil and chaos and the proof as they say is in the pudding and it ain’t pretty.

How or who can stop their ugly nasty political stunts? The courts probably but mostly the voters – we shall see how that goes in our deeply divided country.

Thanks for stopping by.


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