It feels like I say the same thing about the GOP every year about being a non-serious party, especially in the “Free” state of Florida, which is working towards a sadistic love child of George Orwell’s 1984 and Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale (or if you are like the Ziegler’s, a threesome including Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451). Instead of working for the good of the Floridian citizen, like working for real insurance reform, preparing for continued impact of climate change through environmental fortification, and ensuring real equity and freedom, they are trying to enact a dystopian future for many Floridians. Bills being introduced in 2024 include:

Taking away parental rights and free speech of minors:

• HB1129/SB1196 “Harm to Minors” - among the provisions being proposed include “They also require all manufacturers of smartphones and tablets to provide on-by-default filters on all their devices sold in the state after Jan. 1, 2025, that would prevent minors from accessing or downloading harmful material, with heavy penalties for companies failing to make a good-faith effort to comply or adults besides parents or guardians who remove the filters for a minor.” Who defines what is harmful material is? Do you want nutjobs like Mom’s for Liberty, or ultra right wingers make that definition? Does the nanny state of Florida want to apply this to movies that can be seen on these devices? Games? Websites? Why do I need to have these rule turn on for me as an adult by default. In the computing world, code is free speech. Does the theocrats of the GOP want to have their great firewall of Florida, or do they truly believe in free speech for its citizens?

• SB 454: Protection of Minors on Social Media Platforms - First of all, define what a social medial platform is. Facebook, X, Tiktok, YouTube? Twitch? Zoom? IRC? Any website with a comment section? If they have to put on age verification, this means I have to to identify myself online to any social media site I sign up for? Do I have to put website verification on my web site? Sounds like another 1st Amendment violation to me….

• HB 1/SB 1788: Social Media Use for Minors - Same reasoning as the previous anti 1st Amendment violations, this time banning social media to anyone under 16. I thought that I as a parent, have ultimate say on what my children access, or are they blowing smoke up my skirt with all their parental rights rhetoric?

• A variety of anti LGBTQ+ bills that are so egregious and against human rights that they should immediately shot down, but they have the smell of the religious right or the TPUSA’s and their ilk in their red meat of the knuckle-dragging MAGAts in this state. More of these can be seen in this Gainesville Sun article.

We also have an anti-science antivaxxer as our state Surgeon General, who thinks that he knows more that the FDA about vaccines (including mRNA vaccines), and has recommended against the vaccines because of some cockamamie idea of DNA contaminations (which as been thoroughly debunked). And this idiot is being paid by the taxpayers of Florida more than 500k to spout off this non-sense and to campaign with our missing governor who thinks he can out-MAGA the multiply indicted former President who is leader of Cult45, whose supporters freely give their money to this supposed billionaire.