Gov. DeSantis clarion call for "freedom" in Florida is actually a series of efforts to take personal freedoms away from Floridians

If we don't wake up to this very soon, the results are quite predictable. The lessons of history -- especially, the great mistakes that have been made -- will be lost on future generations

image courtesy of Freepik.com

To even the least-educated among us and even to those who may lack the fundamental sense of inquisitiveness for truth-seeking and the facts that are the basis for critical thinking, it's difficult to ignore the fact that Gov. DeSantis clarion call for "freedom" in Florida is actually a series of efforts to take personal freedoms away from Floridians. He also seems to have a flagrant disregard for the Rule of Law, since he believes that any law that he doesn't want to follow can be changed by his GOP-controlled legislature. One of the most apparent of numerous such actions by DeSantis was the change in Florida law requiring that a sitting Governor resign his position when he or she had announced their candidacy for a federal position.

DeSantis has introduced book bans that are nonsensical, he has promoted christian nationalist agendas in education (which should always be non-sectarian in public schools), he promotes a roll-back in press freedom, he has engaged in culture wars with private corporations who won't subscribe to his proto-fascist agenda, he promotes degradation of voting rights for Americans/Floridians, he just signed a bill that eliminates public comment in zoning decisions in parts of Florida, allowing his rich developer friends unfettered ability to build without consideration of environmental and/or sustainable development and effective and prudent land use policies. This man is a disaster to "freedom" - it's a projection dog-whistle for him. He says he's the freedom candidate, while his actions have done more to eliminate freedoms for Floridians than any Governor in memory. Ron DeSantis is a dangerous man who cannot be allowed to engage America and Americans in an agenda that is designed to remove and/or restrict our personal freedoms.

The results of his short reign as the governor of Florida are only now becoming readily apparent. Younger Floridians (especially Gen Zers) are fleeing the state in record numbers and business dollars are drying up. As Jennifer Ruben said in the Washington Post recently “Gov. Ron DeSantis and his obedient Republican legislature have made bullying and attacking the vulnerable the hallmarks of their governance.”

"Florida's universities and colleges have seen an increase in staff departures, with 1,087 resigning from the University of Florida alone in 2022. Record numbers of faculty are not returning to University of Central Florida, Florida State University and the University of South Florida. This is hardly surprising, given DeSantis’s assault on academic independence and his suggestion that students go out of state if they want to study topics such as African American studies,” Rubin said.

More than half a dozen planned conventions in Broward County, which encompasses the Fort Lauderdale area, have been scrapped in recent months, according to a list drawn up by the county’s tourism promotion group Visit Lauderdale and reported by the South Florida Sun Sentinel. “We lost this program due to political climate,” Visit Lauderdale notes on a decision by the Supreme Council of America Inc., Ancient & Accepted Scottish Rite Masons to cancel its meeting, planned for August next year. It also canceled 855 hotel rooms.

Governor Desantis and many right wing Republicans fear higher education because it represents a bulwark against their authoritarianism. They see students as a threat to their propaganda machines and proto-fascist and white supremacist politics. As a result, proto-fascist leaders like Desantis are engaging in an attempt to target educational institutions with the intent of policing dissent, eliminating unions, indoctrinating faculty and students, and to normalize white Christian nationalism, white supremacy and pedagogies of repression.

It's unlikely that even Benito Mussolini could have designed a better playbook. And we are all sitting back and watching this develop. While over half of Floridians vote in favor of this proto-fascist nonsense, many of them are doing it out of pure ignorance - they hear the conservative trigger words that make them respond positively, but don't really grasp the underlying motivation. This is PRECISELY what happened in the 1930's in Italy, Austia, and Nazi Germany.

DeSantis’s dangerous actions are textbook proto-fascist measures. His militant opposition to any teaching of the Black freedom struggle is also reminiscent of the South African apartheid regime’s book banning and curricular and speaker censorship, which limited the circulation of ideas that could undermine the legitimacy of an unjust system.

While there is little sign that the rest of the country is, in any way, enamored with DeSantis brand of censorship, book bans or anti-immigrant and anti-LGBTQ+ sentiment, it remains to be seen how long it will take Floridians to finally begin to recognize and understand the profound and dramatic negative impact that Gov. DeSantis and his policies have had on personal freedoms and the economy.

If we don't wake up to this very soon, the results are quite predictable. The lessons of history -- especially, the great mistakes that have been made -- will be lost on future generations. And this is precisely what DeSantis and the GOP want and the foundation for the course of action they are taking.

In the recently completed annual ranking of state business climates considers Life, Health and Inclusion as one of ten categories of competitiveness, Florida was ranked as one of the 10 worst States.

What is abundantly clear is that the people of Florida did NOT elect this man to carry on a personal vendetta against any corporation; they did not elect him to take away the personal freedoms of tens of thousands of Floridians; they did not elect him to exert censorship controls over what books students are "allowed access to"; they did not elect him to create pugilistic environment in our school system in which teachers and administrators needlessly walk around on eggshells in fear of losing their jobs -- all while Florida's children suffer from the caustic political environment that has been introduced into their classrooms and the educational system. They also didn’t vote for him to create a private army. It has been recently reported that droves of veterans who were brought in for training quickly quit — because they realized they were being given purely military training, for a force that looked like it would have a military mission, rather than helping Floridians in times of need or disaster. All of these things, in general, happened largely through the misguided actions, all of which occurred on the watch of Gov. Ron DeSantis.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/mar/07/ron-desantis-freedom-of-the-press-florida

https://www.google.com/amp/s/thehill.com/opinion/healthcare/3589864-how-gov-ron-desantis-is-attacking-the-freedom-and-liberty-of-all-americans/amp/

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2023/05/ron-desantis-florida-state-politics-gop/673489/

https://www.tampabay.com/opinion/2022/07/23/desantis-and-his-allies-in-florida-are-trampling-on-our-first-amendment-rights-column/

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/10/us/politics/ron-desantis-news-media.html?smid=nytcore-android-share

https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/19/politics/ron-desantis-conservatives-florida-2024/index.html

https://www.democracydocket.com/analysis/florida-gov-ron-desantis-record-on-voting-rights/

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/florida-is-hurting-as-it-becomes-where-empathy-decency-and-kindness-go-to-die-columnist/ar-AA1dShhF?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531&cvid=7a285780887447c99d82ab192c73b4e4&ei=34

https://postcolonialpolitics.org/us-fascism-is-spreading-under-the-guise-of-patriotic-education/

https://truthout.org/articles/ron-desantiss-attack-on-black-studies-is-textbook-proto-fascism/?ref=postcolonialpolitics.org

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/22/books/book-ban-florida.html

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/07/14/these-are-americas-10-worst-states-to-live-and-work-in.html

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/the-program-got-hijacked-vets-revolt-over-desantis-militaristic-state-guard/ar-AA1dSG6k?ocid=socialshare&cvid=83203652487c4844b992192cab64b1b9&ei=16