March 4, 2023
I am a blogger and I am writing about Ron DeSantis. More specifically: about how one of Ron Desantis’s allies wants to force bloggers to register with the state of Florida if they write about Ron DeSantis.
As Dave Barry, one of the all-time great Floridians, would say: “I am not making this up.” The bill from State Sen. Jason Brodeur would require those who blog about “the Governor (Ron DeSantis), the Lieutenant Governor, a Cabinet officer, or any member of the Legislature,” to register at state offices and report how much they got paid. Scribes who don’t comply would be fined.
Of course, anyone with a fifth-grade grasp of government might remember a thing called the “Constitution,” which says we shall not register journalists, writers, pundits, philosophers, or bloggers either. Ron DeSantis, who went to Harvard and Yale, knows this bill is a crock of flamingo feces. I suspect Jason Brodeur does too.
His argument is that paid bloggers are like lobbyists and should be treated accordingly. Luckily, I don’t make a cent writing about Ron DeSantis (or folks not named Ron DeSantis). Not surprisingly, critics are all over this mess like flies at a beach picnic. One legal expert told yahoo! news, “It’s hard to imagine a proposal that would be more violative of the First Amendment.” National Review succinctly called it “an unconstitutional, moronic disgrace.”
We could laugh except that Ron DeSantis doesn’t want anyone to say “gay” in schools. Ron DeSantis is trying to dictate the content of Disney cartoons. A man Ron DeSantis appointed to a Disney oversight board thinks tap water can change straight people into gay ones. I’m not making this up either.
I’m almost done writing about Ron DeSantis for now. I’ll close with a few pithy words from a man who wrote pamphlets but would probably be a blogger today and would never bow down to Ron DeSantis. I’d say this quote captures Ron DeSantis and Jason Brodeur pretty well.
“Men who look upon themselves born to reign, and others to obey, soon grow insolent; selected from the rest of mankind their minds are early poisoned by importance; and the world they act in differs so materially from the world at large, that they have but little opportunity of knowing its true interests, and when they succeed to the government are frequently the most ignorant and unfit of any throughout the dominions.” ― Thomas Paine, Common Sense
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I love Thomas Paine’s quote here. E. g., Trump. I am glad I retired in place in Ann Arbor. Broadcasters at Fox are now admitting they spread news for Trump they personally disbelieved. Inside Russia on YouTube reports daily on Russian news from Uzbekistan. Russian news has a similar though bigger distance from EU, USA “reality”. I wonder what it is like to live among the discrepancies in Russia and here. Confusing? Frustrating? Wearing?
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